New FAO Country Programming Framework for Sri Lanka launched

Minister of Agriculture, Duminda Dissanayaka on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka, and the Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for Sri Lanka, Ms Nina Brandstrup, signed the new FAO Country Programming Framework (CPF) 2018-2022. It is a tool used by FAO and the Government to define the priorities of FAO’s assistance to Sri Lanka, FOA Sri Lanka said.

The new CPF is aligned with the Government of Sri Lanka Vision 2025 document and other national priority setting documents, the UN Sustainable Development Framework for 2018-2022 as well as with the strategic objectives of FAO, and takes account of the comparative advantages and capacities of FAO in Sri Lanka.

The five-year CPF sets out three Government priority areas to guide the FAO: 1) increased contribution of food systems to food and nutrition security and income generation; 2) more sustainably managed natural resources taking account of climate change and increased resiliency of the most vulnerable to shocks, natural disasters and climate variability; 3) increased capacity of stakeholders to undertake policy formulation and to collect, analyse and utilize data and information for evidence based decision making.

Ms Nina Brandstrup noted that the CPF sets the path for FAO to transition towards more upstream assistance in building national capacities to make policy interventions in scaling up good practices and lessons learnt.

The CPF will be implemented in the broadest possible partnerships and alignment with the joint efforts of the Government of the Sri Lanka and its development partners. (Colombo Gazette)