Last Wednesday 15 June 2016, the Government of the Kingdom of Belgium, represented by the Ministry of Development Cooperation, and FAO signed a new Framework Arrangement that intends to reinforce FAO-Belgium collaboration across both humanitarian and development assistance, at the same time aligning Belgium’s strategies for sustainable agriculture, food security and nutrition-related sectors with FAO’s Strategic Programmes. 

The historic partnership between Belgium and FAO has provided a longstanding and substantial support to the Organization through assessed and voluntary contributions. Belgium is a key strategic partner, generously funding innovative and critical areas in support of food security and nutrition, inclusive economic growth, employment and income generation for emergency response and rehabilitation during disasters and crises affecting agriculture-based livelihoods. 

Having begun with a project focus, the partnership later evolved to concentrate on field programmes as well as support to national policies. Since 2011, in line with its core policy, Belgium has concentrated its support on FAO’s regular budget, while being a major contributor to the FAO Multi-Partner Programme Support Mechanism (FMM). In this sense, the 2013–2015 programming cycle was approved for EUR 9.2 million and managed through this un-earmarked FAO channel to support the Organization’s first three Strategic Objectives in particular. 

In addition to the FMM development contribution, Belgium also recognizes the close connection between humanitarian aid and development programmes, as provided for by FAO’s Strategic Objective 5: Increase the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crisis. Belgian contributions to emergency response and resilience building are provided through the FAO Special Fund for Emergency and Rehabilitation Activities (SFERA) for FAO’s unique role in emergency response to disasters and crises affecting agriculture and food security and nutrition-related sectors.

According to this new Arrangement, from now on Belgium will encourage complementarity between its bilateral and multilateral actions and those conducted in collaboration with FAO. In this sense, it will contribute to a more intensive operational partnership between FAO and a variety of Belgian stakeholders, including representatives of public spheres, civil society, the private sector, research centres and universities. In the meantime, FAO will promote the exchange of knowledge and good practices with Belgian partners on policies, strategies and techniques for agriculture – including the use new technologies to bridge the digital divide in rural areas – food security, nutrition, natural resources, disaster preparedness and resilience. 

Through the overall objective of this Framework Arrangement, Belgium and FAO have moved towards an even closer collaboration that will contribute greatly to the full realization of FAO's mandate and Belgian Development Cooperation's objectives.