On 8 March 2021, the United Nations and the world celebrate International Women’s Day, reflecting...
Regional Initiatives
As economic reforms in the 1990s shifted land ownership into the hands of private smallholders, family farmers became the predominant source of agricultural production in the region. To address the absence of well-developed institutional support, FAO is implementing a Regional Initiative on Empowering Smallholders, Family Farms and Youth for Improved Rural Livelihoods and Poverty Reduction.
While international trade policy is usually implemented at the border, adherence to food safety and quality standards concerns national food safety systems as well as food safety and quality control at the enterprise level. This means that a supportive policy environment for modern agrifood trade encompasses not only border policies, but also policies and institutions at the national and enterprise level.
The impact of climate change can already be felt on food production systems in the region, posing considerable challenges for agricultural production and food security. FAO is helping countries to manage their natural resources sustainably, preserving biodiversity, while also coping with climate change and reducing the risk of disasters affecting agriculture, forestry and fisheries.
Stories from the field
Belarus and Ukraine have high forest covers that provide a fundamental contribution to the wellbeing of rural populations and the national economy. To protect these forests for future generations, a new FAO project, launched today with a virtual inception workshop, will help increase the resilience of forest ecosystems against unfavourable biotic and abiotic factors, droughts, and combat dieback of pine forests.
Both Belarus and Ukraine have great potential for forestry development, yet, there are new limiting factors related to the global environmental processes, resulting in a highly increased proportion of dying forest stands and damage to trees by pests and diseases.
FAO helped revitalize the urban-rural connection in Tajikistan, with a view to develop more efficient food systems that benefits residents of both areas.
Considering that well-functioning urban-rural linkages are the key to advance the economy, nutrition, and sustainable development, the project improved interconnections between cities and rural areas through promoting sustainable food systems and closing gaps in agrifood value chains, strengthening associations, cooperatives, and communication networks, and developing agritourism and farmers’ city markets.
In Albania, FAO has used part of its efficiency savings to scale up the promotion of geographical indication products in light of the country’s European Union approximation process.