Rome – FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu met today with His Excellency Mohamud Abdirahman Sh. Farah, Minister for Planning, Investment and Economic Development of the Federal Republic of Somalia, at FAO headquarters.
The Director-General welcomed the Minister and conveyed his appreciation for the strong collaboration and support by the Government of Somalia to FAO, and commended Somalia’s active participation and key role at various high-level international fora, including the UN SDGs Summit and the UN Security Council.
The Minister expressed gratitude to the Director-General for FAO’s continued support and informed that Somalia was facing IPC Phase 4 Emergency Food Insecurity due to drought. The Minister informed that as a result the government was engaging with FAO, IFAD and WFP to mobilize resources and to discuss innovative solutions to mitigate declining financial donor assistance.
The Minister stated that with the predicted oncoming El Nino more livelihoods and livestock would be adversely affected and the government was therefore proactively engaging for external support to build resilience and to increase food productivity.
The Minister further affirmed that FAO’s work remained central to Somalia’s National Transformation Plan, which had food security as one of its key pillars, and reiterated that Somalia would continue to rely on FAO’s technical expertise to reach its transformation objectives in order to transition from crisis to a resilient development model.
The Director-General reaffirmed that FAO recognized the worsening humanitarian and food security situation in Somalia and would continue to support the government in building resilience, providing critical data and analysis on risks, developing water and irrigation infrastructure, developing a strategy to scale up agriculture investment to increase crop production, and in providing technical support for effective implementation of the national transformation plan.
The Director-General further emphasized that credibility and accountability were pivotal to unlock financial resources, especially from vertical funding sources such as the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Global Environment Facility (GEF), and also suggested that resources could be mobilized from regional bodies such as the African Development Bank (AfDB). The Director-General further indicated that FAO’s flagship initiatives such as the Hand in Hand, Digital Villages, Green Cities, and One Country One Priority Product (OCOP) further provided important platforms to support Somalia in addressing its agrifood system challenges.
The pair agreed to continue to strengthen collaboration and engagement to urgently address the emergency situation in the country and to identify sustainable solutions, including by working together with IFAD and WFP.
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