Khartoum - The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry conducted a two day’s workshop, 17 and 18 April, on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to food security, agriculture and rural development. 

The main objectives of the workshop:

• Increasing the understanding of the potential contribution of food and agriculture to sustainable development in the context of the 2030 Agenda.
• Identifying elements of actions of country-specific road map aiming to enhance the contribution of sustainable food and agriculture to national development.
• Identifying challenges of the SDGs to the Sudanese statistical system and measuring progress in achieving them.
• Supporting country-specific actions through Government-FAO Country Programme Framework.

Day one of the workshop focused on integrating SDGs in national development plans related to agriculture, natural resources management and rural development. Day two focused on identify challenges of the SDGs to the Sudanese statistical system and measuring progress in achieving the SDGs. The workshop was successfully led by the FAO experts from head quarter and gathered participants from the line ministries, National Population Council, Central Bureau of Statistics, private sector and the UN agencies.

In his opening remarks, FAO Representative to Sudan, Babagana Ahmadu, underlined that the success of the SDGs rests to a large extent on new and effective ways of collecting data and measuring progress. “Our strategic framework is broadly aligned with the SDGs, promoting an integrated approach to poverty and hunger eradication, and sustainable management of natural resources” he reiterated. We are doing sustainable development, and are “ready to align our work to better serve the government of Sudan in achieving the DGs”- the FAOR added.

FAO is supporting the Central Bureau of Statistics for strengthening statistical measures for hunger, malnutrition and agriculture. FAO has also facilitated the formulation of the Sudan National Agriculture Investment Plan 2017-2020, which is a national strategy for transforming the agriculture sector through allocating a minimum of 10% of the Government budget to agriculture, and achieving a 6% annual growth in Agriculture GDP.