Sweden has been an active supporter of the FFF since its inception in 2012. It has also provided essential support during the transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2, allowing for the continuation of activities as the second phase was being prepared.

Support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) has helped the FFF to develop and strengthen partnerships with other Swedish organizations, including We Effect and the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF).

The support provided by Sweden reflects at least four of the six thematic priorities of its current development strategy:

1.     Environment and climate change;

2.     Gender equality and the role of women in development;

3.     Economic growth; and

4.     Social development. 

Sustainable use of natural resources, marine resources, environmental preservation, and combating climate change are part of Sweden’s support on the environment and climate change. Sweden is the highest per-capita contributor to the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility. In 2020 FAO was the largest partner of SIDA in the Forestry sector.

• More on the  support provided by Sweden from 2013 to 2017 to the FFF through SIDA.
• More on the partnership between Sweden and FAO, including support to the FFF.

Finland has been a strong supporter of the FFF since 2013. The Finnish Government, through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, contributed to the FFF in both Phase 1 and Phase 2.

Finland’s support has helped the FFF to develop and strengthen partnerships with other Finnish organizations, including the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK) and the  Finnish Agri-Agency for Food and Forest Development (FFD).

The support to FFF falls under at least three of the four thematic priorities for development of the Finnish Government: 

1. Rights and status of women and girls;

2. Growth of developing countries' economies to generate more jobs, livelihoods and well-being; and

3. Climate change and natural resources, with an emphasis on strengthening adaptation and mitigation of climate change, food security and water, meteorology and disaster risk prevention, forests and safeguarding biodiversity.

 More on the support provided by Finland to the FFF in the current Phase 2. 

The German Government was one of the original supporters of the FFF in Phase 1 through the Carlowitz Project, which was funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL).

Through its service provider GIZ and with funding by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany rejoined the FFF in 2019, allowing the project to extend its current Phase II by three years until 2025. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the German government has expanded its focus on global health and pandemic preparedness. To this end, the BMZ has established a new ‘Global Health: Pandemic prevention, one health’ subdepartment and published a ‘One Health Strategy’, officially anchoring the climate-health-environment nexus in German development policy for the first time.

Germany’s key development priorities:

• Flight and migration, through the special initiative ‘Tackling root causes of displacement, stabilizing host regions, supporting refugees.’
• Climate change and renewable energy
• Agriculture and Food Security, through BMZ’s special initiative ‘ONE WORLD - No Hunger.’
• Pandemic Preparedness and One Health

The support provided by the German Government to the FFF falls under the priority categories Climate change, Agriculture/ Food Security, and COVID response and recovery. In May, 2020, BMZ published a new strategy document ‘Reformkonzept BMZ 2030’ (BMZ 2030), which aimed to fundamentally reform German development policy to make it more strategic, impactful, and efficient. According to BMZ 2030, the agency plans to concentrate its efforts on five key areas, where development cooperation will take place both bilaterally and multilaterally.

The Government of the Netherlands, through its Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, joined the FFF multi-donor trust fund in April 2019. 

Its support is also provided within the framework of the recently launched joint initiative Food, Forests and Farming for the Future, which aims to increase the potential synergy between food security, resilient livelihoods and the conservation and restoration of forests and biodiversity in three pilot countries: Kenya, Ghana and Zambia. The Netherlands shares the FFF’s focus in supporting the financial inclusion of family farmers, especially women, by treating them as entrepreneurs, promoting their access to better credit and increasing their resilience. 

The support to the FFF is clustered under Food Security, one of the current four development priorities of the Dutch Government. More specifically under this cluster, the Netherlands’ attention to the FFF focuses on:

1.     Increasing sustainably produced food and access to nutritious food;

2.     Enhancing market efficiency by removing barriers to national, regional and world trade; and

3.     Working towards a better business climate to enable the private sector to play a greater role.

In September of 2020, with the publication of the 2021 development budget, the Dutch Government announced its intention to double its expenditure on fighting climate change, specifically fighting deforestation and land degradation.

More on the partnership between the Netherlands and FAO.

The FFF has also been supported through the FAO-EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Programme, in partnership with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). The FLEGT Programme seeks to reduce and ultimately eliminate illegal logging.

The United States Department of States has been a firm supporter of the FFF since its Phase I, and its support is continuing in Phase II. This support has involved an important collaboration with the International Office of the US Forest Service as well.

The United States is one of the largest contributors to FAO’s budget and a key resource partner supporting FAO's work across the food and agriculture sector. The development priorities of the new US administration are:

• The COVID-19 crisis
• The climate crisis
• Conflict and state collapse
• The erosion of democratic norms

The new US administration announced in April 2021 at the ‘Leaders’ Summit on Climate’, that the US would double climate finance to low-income countries by 2024. The attention to climate by the new US administration was also evidenced by elevating the role of the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate to a Cabinet position.

Norway began funding the FFF in December 2019 through the Flexible Multi-partner Mechanism FMM. These additional funds allowed the FFF to add a new core country – Tanzania - bringing the total number of core countries to ten. The Norwegian contribution also enabled to provide support for two FFF  network countries in Africa - Liberia and the Gambia.

Five priorities characterize Norway’s Development Cooperation:

1.     Education

2.     Health

3.     Private-sector development, agriculture, and renewable development

4.     Climate change, the environment, and oceans

5.     Humanitarian assistance.

Cross-cutting issues of Norway’s development policy are human rights; women’s rights and gender equality; climate change and the environment; and the fight against corruption. Among these, gender equality is a top focus.

Norway's international support to food security in a climate change perspective is rights-based and directed towards smallholders in general and women smallholders in particular. The purpose of the support is to increase productivity, build resilience and strengthen smallholders' ability to influence decisions that have a direct impact on their lives. Norway requests gender-sensitive data and reporting to be able to evaluate progress in this area.