24 September 2019: On the margins of the UN Climate Action Summit, the Netherlands pledged USD 28 million in support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO)’s work on strengthening the resilience of food systems in Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan. The commitment is pledged to FAO’s Food and Nutrition Security Resilience Programme: Building Food System Resilience in Protracted Crises (FNS REPRO), a new initiative to scale-up resilience-based development in countries affected by prolonged instability.

FNS REPRO aims to show that development interventions centered on strengthening livelihoods in the longer-term can take place at a large scale even in unstable operational places. The initiative’s work will focus on three tracks:

• improving rural communities’ access to and management of natural resources;
• generating enhanced and new livelihood opportunities along agricultural value chains; and
• enhancing people’s capacity to capitalize on the new opportunities.

Additionally, by helping communities identify and mitigate risks, FNS REPRO aims to establish more resilient livelihoods and increase local agricultural production. It also aims to improve food and nutrition security and contribute to reducing conflict and sustaining peace. The new initiative is built on the premise that humanitarian, development and peace building efforts must be complimentary and mutually-reinforcing.

Humanitarian, development and peace building efforts must be complimentary and mutually-reinforcing.

The funding agreement between the Netherlands and FAO was signed by Sigrid A.M. Kaag, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, the Netherlands, and Qu Dongyu, FAO Director-General, on 23 September 2019 in New York, US.

At the signing, Kaag explained that the financial pledge aims to build on the UN Security Council’s resolution on conflict and food security (Resolution 2417) adopted in 2018. Through FNS-REPRO, she explained, the international community will be operationalizing a new way of working in humanitarian contexts: one that recognizes that sustained rural development initiatives, even in situations of protracted instability, “have a key role to play in preventing and mitigating food crises.” [FAO Press Release]