Civil Society

FAO and ActionAid International continue shaping their upcoming partnership to fight food insecurity


FAO and ActionAid International meet to identify areas of collaboration

27/11/2014 - 

25 November 2014, Rome – FAO and ActionAid International strengthened synergies for an upcoming Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in a technical meeting held today in Rome at FAO Headquarters.

“We wanted to identify specific capacities of ActionAid and match them with FAO activities in an effort to further the implementation of the Strategic Objectives through the Regional Initiatives and country level activities,” said Rodrigo Castañeda, Chief of Partnerships FAO.

According to the International Programme Manager of ActionAid International, Ruchi Tripathi,

the meeting offered the opportunity for a knowledge exchange. “We want to collaborate more concretely at national and regional level to further progress on the common objective of eradicating poverty and hunger,” said Tripathi.

Through the Strategy for Partnerships with the Civil Society, FAO is focusing on policy dialogue and normative activities as the key areas of partnership at global level. At regional and local levels, field programme activities are the main drive.  “In these areas the role that ActionAid can play is key,” said Rodrigo Castañeda.

“Due to its expertise and technical capacity, FAO is pivotal in supporting countries on their food security strategies and programmes, through its normative work and technical assistance,” stated Ruchi Tripathi.

FAO and Action Aid have already a longstanding collaboration. This technical consultation follows up a previous meeting held in June between between FAO Director General, José Graziano da Silva, and ActionAid International Chief Executive Director, Adriano Campolina, which paved the way for the forthcoming Memorandum of Understanding.

“Partnering with civil society is important to ensure that the small scale food producers, particularly women, are at the core of any food security strategy and policy making process, and to strengthen food systems that enhance women’ empowerment and rights, and their capacity as producers,” recalled Ruchi Tripathi.

Technical discussion

This technical meeting was coordinated by the Office for Partnerships, which involved a wide variety of technical divisions from FAO, showing the organization’s strong commitment towards forging fruitful partnerships with key actors from the civil society, as it is ActionAid International.

The governance and management of land and natural resources with special attention to gender aspects, agroecology and investsments in agriculture were the main topics discussed.

FAO regional focal points for partnerships and their counterparts from ActionAid at country and regional level also participated from their offices to ensure alignment and coherence with the Regional Initiatives and FAO Strategic Objectives in the implementation at the regional and national level.

“We appreciate the vast participation from the different FAO Units, the sharing of their programmes of work and the interest they show in strengthening the partnership with civil society and with ActionAid,” said Ruchi Tripathi.

The process of designing the forthcoming agreement with ActionAid International reaches now its last stages and it will be ready over the next few weeks after the latest technical arrangements.

ActionAid International

ActionAid International is a global federation “committed to finding sustainable solutions to end poverty and injustice”. ActionAid works in 45 countries worldwide, with more than 5,000 communities and 478 partner organisations across 1,455 Local Rights Programmes.

ActionAid International strategic objective is to “promote sustainable agriculture and control over natural resources for people living in poverty”.

ActionAid with its human rights based approach works for and with communities to secure their access and control over land and natural resources, increase the number of small holder farmers practicing climate resilient sustainable agriculture, and ensure increased public investment in support of small holder farming to achieve the ultimate goal of achieving the right to food for all,” explained Ruchi Trapathi.