Working together to make a difference in Bhutan
Working as One FAO with multiple financing and knowledge partners in a country is one of FAO’s comparative advantages. This approach ensures that a country has an effective package of tools to address pressing development challenges, from ending poverty, hunger and malnutrition to safeguarding the environment and reducing inequalities.
The Centre facilitates linkages between governments, IFIs and FAO’s technical, country and regional offices to find entry points for investment. A good example is FAO’s support to the Kingdom of Bhutan. Bhutan is eager to go from a food deficit to a food surplus – able to sustainably feed its growing and urbanizing population with safe, healthy and nutritious food. But the small, landlocked, mountainous country is vulnerable to climate change, faces seasonal water shortages and is dominated by small, fragmented farms.
The Centre linked FAO’s Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment with the World Bank on a climate impact assessment in the country. Published in 2022, Climate impacts in Bhutan’s agroecological zones and opportunities for climate-smart agriculture practices provides tailored recommendations for climate action based on specific crops. This assessment, in turn, has helped inform a project concept note, prepared by a Centre-led team, for submission to the GCF. The proposed project will support the transformation of Bhutan’s water sector by strengthening the adaptive resilience of vulnerable communities in the Drangmechhu River Basin, and by developing national capacity to scale up river basin management across the country.
Other notable work includes a comprehensive food systems assessment carried out by Bhutan’s Ministry of Agriculture, the European Union, FAO and CIRAD. Published in 2022, Food Systems Profile – Bhutan identifies the main challenges and potential entry points for policy and investments for a more sustainable agrifood system. The Centre also teamed up with the World Bank on a commercial agriculture assessment.
The Centre is supporting Bhutan through FAO’s Hand-in-Hand initiative. Bhutan brought a high-level delegation to the Hand-in-Hand Investment Forum in 2022, where it presented the country’s priority investment opportunities to potential investors, including the European Investment Bank and AIIB. Strategies to help the country achieve food self-sufficiency include improving agricultural practices, producing more high-value fruits, vegetables, cereals and perennial crops, boosting dairy production and reducing emissions. The country’s investment presentation zeroed in on plans to scale up the production of high-quality organic strawberries and asparagus for international and domestic markets along with efficient aggregation centres and cold storage infrastructure. In follow-up, the Centre trained government officials to conduct further financial and economic analyses.