Special FAO programmes in the Gambia

SPFS: Special Programme for Food Security

The SPFS began operations in 1994 following the Director-General's review of FAO priorities, programmes and strategies. This review concluded that there was an urgent need to focus on the following:

  improving food security
  increasing food production
  improving stability of supplies
  generating rural employment

The main objective of the SPFS is to help Low Income Food Deficit Countries (LIFDCs) improve national and household food security in an economically and environmentally sustainable way. It advocates a participatory approach through demonstrating better ways of increasing production and identifying and resolving the range of constraints which are technical and institutional.

It draws on Agenda 21, which was unanimously adopted at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), in Rio de Janeiro. This states that the major thrust of food security "is to bring about a significant increase in agricultural production in a sustainable way and to achieve a substantial improvement in people's entitlement to adequate food and culturally appropriate food supplies."

The SPFS was introduced to the Gambia in 1997, with projects in horticulture, fisheries, livestock production and water management. South-South cooperation is an integral part of the SPFS mandate and technical experts from Bangladesh and Indonesia have worked alongside Gambian counterparts to support development in rice production, aquaculture, water control and management and horticulture and livestock production.