Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

FOOD FOR ALL

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) was founded with a mandate to raise levels of nutrition and standards of living, to improve agricultural productivity, and to better the condition of rural populations.

Today, FAO is one of the largest specialized agencies in the United Nations system and the lead agency for agriculture, forestry, fisheries and rural development. An intergovernmental organization, FAO has 180 member countries plus one member organization, the European Community.

Since its inception, FAO has worked to alleviate poverty and hunger by promoting agricultural development, improved nutrition and the pursuit of food security - defined as the access of all people at all times to the food they need for an active and healthy life.

A specific priority of the Organization is encouraging sustainable agriculture and rural development, a long-term strategy for increasing food production and food security while conserving and managing natural resources. The aim is to meet the needs of both present and future generations by promoting development that does not degrade the environment and is technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable.

FAO IN KYRGYZSTAN

The FAO National Correspondent Country Office (NC CO) started in June 2000 and operates under general supervision of the UNDP Resident Representative. The office’s mandate is to ensure and facilitate a more direct and responsive presence of FAO in the country and perform a variety of liaison, communication, information gathering and monitoring, and logistics services in support of FAO's contact with the Government for the purpose of identification and formulation of FAO's programme and projects.

The national workshop to discuss a draft of the "National Agriculture Development Strategy" paper, supported by the FAO Regional Office for the Near East (FAO RNE) as a follow-up to the 1996 World Food Summit, in November 2000. This initiative was taken by FAO, in collaboration with member countries, to prepare draft strategy papers for national agricultural development in developing members countries and countries with economies in transition, which are members, as an initial step in the follow-up of the Summit's principal decision to eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate view to reducing the current number of undernourished people to half their present level of about 800 million by 2015.

To support and further extend the analysis included in the strategy paper a new short-termed technical assistance to formulate Policy Options/Priorities at the sector level based on detailed comparative advantages and competitiveness indicators taking into consideration environmental, institutional, agronomic, economic and trade constraints and potential initiated by the FAO National Correspondent office with support of FAO/RNE and in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources and Processing Industry (MAWRPI). Such analysis will be instrumental for any further technical assistance by other donors and in planning sustainable agricultural development in Kyrgyzstan under the new market oriented environment. The strategy was reviewed and used in the process and preparing the Agrarian Policy Concept for Kyrgyzstan.

Also, FAO has supported MAWRPI in hosting a two-weeks Regional Training Workshop for Central Asian Countries on “Agricultural Policy Analysis: Issues and Tools” that was held in Bishkek during the period 24/6-4/7/2003. About 20 Participants attended the Workshop from Central Asian Countries including 10 participants from the Kyrgyz Republic). The event was a part of RNE policy in support to capacity building and sharing the experience and good lessons in agricultural policy analysis, policy formulation, evaluation and its implementation in the region.

NC CO has been involved into the preparation of the Special Programme for Food Security since 2001. This issue is now under negotiations with donors – partners in development.

The project “Assistance in Water Rights Administration, Water Resources Planning and Legislation”, TCP/KYR/0165 became operational in 2002. The technical assistance under the project were joint efforts of the FAO, Kyrgyz Government and USAID’s Land Reform Project to elaborate comprehensive legal paper - National Water Code.

The “Assistance in Agricultural Census and Statistics” project, TCP/KYR/2901 (A), approved and put into force to support technically second and third phases of agricultural census campaign in the country in early 2003.

FAO also approved and is supporting new activity against requests of Central Asian countries within the project “Formulation of Proposals to Establish Regional Locust Coordination Body in Central Asia”, #TCP/RAS/0167 (A) with aim to prepare exhaustive report and formulate alternative proposals (an independent regional organization or an FAO Commission) for establishing a regional and permanent locust coordination body, including the calculation of the national contributions.

Several more TCP projects were approved this year at the national level by FAO: (i) “Strengthening Phytosanitary Capabilities”, TCP/KYR/2902 (A) to provide support to WB-financed project Agricultural Support Services Programme on strengthening appropriate systems for effective phytosanitary control; (ii) “Strengthening the Capacity of WUAs in the Distribution of Irrigation Water at Scheme Level”, TCP/KYR/2903 (A), with aim to train four water users associations in the operation and management of the irrigation schemes; (iii) “Legal Framework for Forestry and Hunting”, TCP/KYR/2904 (A) to assist the Government to create an appropriate legal framework for forestry and hunting; (iv) “Capacity Building in Agricultural Policy Analysis”, TCP/KYR/2905 (T) with main objective to enhance MAWRPI staff’s capacity in designing, analyzing and evaluating agricultural policies, programs, and projects for sustainable agricultural development.

Two regional projects are operational: (i) “Revision and Harmonization of Protected Area Legislation”, TCP/KYR/2903 (A) to assist the Governments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in reviewing, revising and harmonizing their legislation on protected areas, with a view to creating suitable, updated and coordinated legal frameworks for the sustainable conservation and management of ecosystems, natural habitats and biological diversity, at national level as well as region-wide; (ii) “Support to Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) for the Preparation of a Regional Programme for Food Security”, TCP/INT/2902 (F). The overall objective of the project is to assist the ECO Secretariat and member countries in the formulation of a Regional Programme for Food Security (RPFS), including regional, sub-regional and national components, as well as in the strengthening of capacities at the ECO Secretariat and in member states (including the Kyrgyz Republic) to ensure a successful and sustainable implementation and monitoring of the RPFS.

Cooperation has been established with the Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) initiative, which is an inter-institutional project with the secretariat in FAO. The overall goal of this project is to build up in the CIS countries and Mongolia, a network of institutions interested on livestock and environment issues and to set up the foundations for the development of a Livestock, Environment and Development Russian Language Platform.

Also, since 2002 an intensive support to FAO Animal Production Service is rendered to coordinate joint efforts in formulation World animal genetic resources report on the base of national animal genetic resources reports. To this date the draft country report has been prepared and being considered for further comments.

Several more projects in the areas of i) forest and hunting legislation; ii) income generation and diversification for food security and sustainable development of mountain regions; and iii) emergency forestry protection, are under formulation in close collaboration with FAO and the national authorities.

FAO NC CO will continue cooperating with national and private sectors, as well as international organizations to contribute to the sustainable development processes of the Kyrgyz Republic.

For more information you can visit www.fao.org

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