The new agreement continues support for advancing family farming in policy dialogue, leveraging its key role to achieve sustainable agrifood systems and the 2030 Agenda.
05/10/2023 – Source: @FAO
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Rural Forum (WRF) have renewed their partnership through a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), reaffirming their shared belief that family farmers play a crucial role in achieving agrifood systems transformation and the goals of the 2030 Agenda.
This new MoU provides a three-year framework that reinforces the two organizations’ joint efforts under the umbrella of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming 2019–2028 (UNDFF), to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and FAO’s vision for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life – leaving no one behind.
FAO and WRF have a long-standing collaboration, dating back to the International Year of Family Farming in 2014, followed by the signing of their first MoU in 2019. Working in some 50 countries through National Committees for Family Farming (NCFFs) and regional family farmers networks, WRF and FAO have facilitated the development and implementation of policies and investments in support of family farmers and the establishment of sustainable and inclusive agrifood systems, promoting multistakeholder participation, opening spaces for discussion, conducting awareness raising and advocacy activities, and providing technical assistance to design and implement relevant and effective actions.
The partnership between FAO and the WRF will help promote inclusive multistakeholder dialogue for the design and implementation of sound policy and legal frameworks for family farmers; help strengthen forest and farm producer organizations, leveraging the diversity and multidimensionality of family farming as a key feature in preserving identity, landscapes and to develop tailored innovation; and help increase the participation of family farmers in key ongoing global discussions, such as on climate change.
By engaging with the WRF’s wide network and advocacy capacity, and capitalizing on FAO’s expertise and country access, the partnership will enable joint actions that confirm family farmers and their organizations as the backbone of a transformation to sustainable, inclusive and resilient agrifood systems.
Signing on behalf of FAO, Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol said, “As we find ourselves here at the mid-point of the UNDFF, as we find ourselves also moving into the second half of the time period that has been set for the SDGs and the 2030 agenda, there is no more critical time than now for us to be putting our commitment back down with our signature and our dialogue because we have to re-emphasize the importance of supporting family farmers around the world”.
“Through the strategic alliance with FAO, which is being renewed today, the WRF aims to foster a multilateral policy dialogue, strengthen the role of family farming organizations in the face of today’s major challenges and ensure their full participation in public policy implementation. It thereby guarantees the multiple contributions of family farming to the social, economic and sustainable development,” said President Martin Uriarte, signing on behalf of the WRF.
Here is the link to the recording of the signing ceremony https://youtu.be/qjHT1gUU_AQ
