The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. It aims to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to sufficient high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives.

Turkey became a member of FAO in 1948 and established its first country office in 1982, in Ankara. FAO Turkey supports the government and stakeholders in the creation of policy and programmes primarily on food security and nutrition, as well as food safety, with a view to improving food security, availability, accessibility, and safety and quality at all stages of the food chain. The Organization also works in areas related to the sustainable use of natural resources, including fisheries, enhancing institutional capacity within the public and private sector via technical assistance, and strengthening community resilience and livelihoods in emergency regions.

Launched in 2006 with the operational support of the Turkish Government, the Subregional Office for Central Asia (SEC) enhanced FAO’s ability to respond to the national needs and priorities of countries in the subregion – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – in addition to Turkey.

The creation of SEC also paved the way for the formation of the FAO-Turkey Partnership Programme on Food and Agriculture (FTPP). An agreement signed in 2014 led to the second phase of FTPP and the FAO-Turkey Forestry Partnership Programme (FTFP) under the FAO and Turkey Partnership.

An important element of FAO’s Field Programme is the Technical Cooperation Programme, also known as “TCP”. Given that TCP forms part of the Organization’s Regular Programme budget. Created to make available FAO’s knowhow and technical expertise to member countries, TCP projects assist in providing technical support in the area of crop production, livestock, fi sheries and aquaculture, forestry, nutrition, food safety, rural development and other areas identified by the country concerned.

FAO is a partner agency of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a network of 18 agencies and 183 countries that addresses the world’s most challenging environmental issues related to biodiversity, climate change, land degradation, chemicals and international waters. FAO has implemented GEF-funded projects in Turkey, bringing to the partnership extensive knowledge and expertise in sustainable agriculture, especially related to forestry and fisheries, as well as project formulation and resource mobilization.

FAO is also actively engaged in building resilience and improving the livelihoods of Syrians under Temporary Protection (SuTP) and host communities, through projects funded by different partners (the European Union, Government of Japan and the UNHCR) under the Syrian Refugee Resilience Plan in Turkey launched in 2017.