Agro Perspectiva

European Union provides ˆ82 million for an FAO-led initiative targeting rural communities in Papua New Guinea

18.12.2019 17:55 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) — FAO welcomed the European Union’s support for a development project in Papua New Guinea that aims to support and strengthen sustainable agricultural chains with emphasis on assuring that rural women and youth are to benefit the most.

The five-year ˆ82 million initiative will be implemented as a United Nations Joint programme in partnership with the Government of Papua New Guinea.

The External Action for Support to Rural Entrepreneurship, Investment and Trade in Papua New Guinea (STREIT PNG), initiative is FAO’s largest European Union-funded single-country joint-project worldwide, and it is the European Union’s largest financial contribution to projects in the Pacific region.

The STREIT project is unique and innovative, focusing on women, youth and climate change. It is the largest European Union project in the whole of the Pacific, and will focus on a particularly vulnerable region of Papua New Guinea aiming to improve sustainable and inclusive economic development and job creation.

«The project will apply an ‘all-in-one package’ approach to agrivalue development and is expected to sustainably increase production of selected crops (cocoa, vanilla) and fisheries. We thank the European Union for selecting and entrusting FAO as the leading agency for the implementation of the project,» said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu. «I also thank Jutta Urpilainen, European Commissioner for International Partnerships, for her support to FAO.»

Joshua Kalinoe, Papua New Guinea’s Ambassador to Belgium and the European Union, thanked the European Union and FAO on behalf of his Government. «A majority of our population live in rural communities and are involved in small-scale farming for income generation,» he said. «The project will no doubt provide opportunity for them to increase production and expand their income base.»

The activities of the project will focus on increased economic return from cocoa, vanilla and fisheries value chains in four rural provinces of Papua New Guinea’s Momase region. They will help to create and strengthen climate-resilient, more efficient, sustainable and inclusive value chains with improvements to infrastructure and renewable energy.

The majority of the project is financed by the European Union, with FAO providing ˆ300 000 in co-funding. The main beneficiaries are smallholders, farming families, the local private sector and entrepreneurs.

FAO is the lead implementing and coordinating agency for the initiative. On the ground, it will work with, and coordinate the work of, other specialized interventions by sister UN Agencies including the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The project will be implemented in close cooperation with various Papua New Guinea Government Departments — including the Department of Agriculture and Livestock, as well as the Cocoa Board, National Fisheries Authorities, and provincial and local authorities.