DUSHANBE, July 25, 2016, Asia-Plus – UN FAO is expected to provide 400,000 U.S. dollars to Tajikistan for development of its national nutrition and food safety strategy.
Mr. Viorel Gutu, FAO Representative in Tajikistan, reportedly stated this at a meeting with Tajik Deputy Prime Minister, Azim Ibrohim, on July 23.
The main objective of the strategy is reportedly in providing the country’s food security through stage-by-stage implementation of institutional reforms, training of specialists, and creation of the state-of-the-art laboratory.
Meanwhile Azim Ibrohim reportedly noted that those funds are not enough for development of the national food security strategy. “It would be more expedient to call the work being carried out for this amount ‘working plan’ or ‘program’,” the deputy prime minister noted.
He stressed that four agencies are working on the issue of food security in Tajikistan: veterinary service; phytosanitary supervision service; center for sanitary and epidemiological supervision; and the agency for standardization, metrology, certification and trade inspection. FAO assistance in Tajikistan is shaped by the recently signed Country Programming Framework (CPF) 2016-2017, which was jointly developed with the Government and in consultation with resource partners. The Framework provides three medium-term priority areas: 1) sustainable food security, nutrition and food safety, through institutional reforms, capacity building and support to the development and implementation of national food security policies and programs;¬ 2) sustainable management of natural resources and improved resilience to climate change, with a clear emphasis on tackling land degradation as well as the application of a landscape and watershed management approach; and 3) sustainable agricultural productivity and competitiveness, with a focus on livestock production, health and crop production, among others.
In addition to supporting FAO’s corporate strategic objectives and regional priorities, the CPF is closely aligned with Tajikistan’s national strategy documents, including the Living Standards Improvement Strategy for 2013- 2015; the National Development Strategy and the Food Security Program. It also supports the Joint Country Partnership Strategy (signed by 12 development partners in 2009) and the UN Development Assistance Framework for Tajikistan 2016-2020.
