FAO and Nibulon establish a promising collaboration to improve food security in Egypt

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Nibulon, a Ukrainian company with over 25 years of experience in the field of grain production, storage, transportation and export, today signed a partnership to focus on improving the efficiency of Egyptian companies involved in grain production, storage and transportation.

Abdessalam Ould Ahmed, FAO Assistant Director–General and Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa, and Oleksiy Vadatursky, CEO and co-owner of Nibulon, signed the memorandum on the sidelines of the forum Promoting Sustainable Investment In Egypt's Food Securityheld in Cairo and organized by the Government of Egypt, FAO, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

The forum convened around 200 participants from both the public and private sectors, including policy makers, project developers, international financial institutions (IFIs), and direct and institutional investors from around the world.

Sustainable Investments 

Promoting sustainable investment in Egypt's food security and acknowledging the urgency in scaling up efforts to enhance the food security situation in Egypt is at the core of FAO’s agenda. Such collaboration also fits into FAO’s broad strategy to intensify partnerships and mobilize key actors to help end hunger and malnutrition by 2030.

Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 will require greater public-private sector cooperation, strategic alliances and innovation. Thus, this partnership responds to FAO's repeated appeal to the private sector during the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), hosted at FAO headquarters in Rome every October.

Capacity Building

By combining the expertise of FAO and the private sector, important efficiency savings and knowledge transfer can be achieved.

Nibulon has the necessary experience of running investment projects with international financial institutions and improving the productivity of grain supply chains, while FAO can facilitate the transfer of this knowledge to other countries. 

Nibulon has exported grain to more than 60 countries and exported more than 747,000 tons of wheat under the tenders of the UN’s World Food Programme since 2009. It is also a member of the International Grain and Feed Trade Association (GAFTA) and International Association of Operative Millers (IAOM), the Ukrainian Grain Association and the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation. The company, also a client of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank, has a state-of-the art certified laboratory and is prepared to share knowledge in grain sampling and testing.

Towards Zero hunger

“This agreement is another impressive step in the efforts to scale up FAO’s work towards eradicating hunger and improving the food security situation in the region,” Ould Ahmed stated. He highlighted that “the technical expertise Nibulon bring will certainly help to improve storage and logistics, reduce food losses, and such collaboration adds an extra element in achieving the SDGs in the region.”

“There’s room for improvement and more work is needed to improve grain storage, transportation, sampling and testing to benefit the people in Egypt and its neighbouring countries,” Ould Ahmed stressed.

Vadatursky pointed out the need to act in tackling malnutrition and hunger, which “should not have a place in the world we all live in. Nibulon, as a responsible Ukrainian grain producer and a reliable exporter, shares FAO’s vision of zero hunger.” 

“Today, Nibulon is ready to share its knowledge along the grain supply chain with FAO and its partners so we can advance in achieving our common goal of the zero hunger world,” he added.