The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation on Friday welcomed a decision to provide $179 million to support the UN agency's work with countries worldwide at the critical nexus between agriculture and the environment, FAO said in a statement.
The decision by the Council of the Washington-based Global Environment Facility fund covers projects focussed on biodiversity conservation, transboundary water resources management, sustainable land management, highly hazardous pesticide remediation, and climate change adaptation, the statement said.
"FAO strongly welcomes the GEF Council's decision which builds on a long standing partnership and significantly contributes to the need to address critical environmental challenges while improving food security," said Maria Helena Semedo, FAO Deputy Director General, Climate and Natural Resources.
The funding stems from the GEF's Council meeting in Washington this week where governments approved two separate Work Programs totalling some $966 million, the biggest allocation in GEF's history.
The money will benefit 91 nations, including 30 Least Developed Countries and 32 Small Island Developing States, said the statement.
The GEF launched two landmark Impact Programs -- on Dryland Sustainable Landscapes and Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration as part of one of the work programmes, the statement went on.
Around $104 million of the funding will go to the DSL Impact Programme, led by FAO, in 11 countries in Africa and Asia, in partnership with the World Bank, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and the World Wildlife Fund.
The DSL Impact Program will target efforts to avoid, reduce and reverse further deforestation, degradation, and desertification in: Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Malawi, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, according to the statement.
The GEF Council also approved a $101 million work program for the GEF's climate change adaptation trust funds - the Least Developed Countries Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund of which $44 million are FAO-GEF projects.
This LDCF/SCCF Work Programme spans a range of adaptation priorities, including climate-smart agriculture and forestry, building urban, rural, and coastal community climate resilience, improving water resource management and availability for agriculture and domestic uses, strengthening climate resilience in vulnerable coastal communities, and enhancing the adaptive capacity of communities through integrated approaches, according to the statement.
FAO said it has also been invited to play a key role with the World Bank in a second GEF Impact Program the Food Systems, Land Use, and Restoration Program. All these initiatives will address the complex interaction between maintaining resilient production systems in drylands, promoting restoration, and improving livelihoods through a comprehensive landscape approach.
