By Manal Abdel Fattah
The Egyptian Agency for Partnership for Development signed at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a memorandum of understanding with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, on South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation. Ambassador Ashraf Ibrahim, Secretary-General of the Egyptian Agency for Partnership for Development, signed on behalf of the Egyptian side and Dr. Abdul Hakim Al-Waer, Assistant Director-General of FAO and Regional Director of the Organization for the Near East and North Africa on behalf of FAO.
The Secretary-General of the Agency gave a speech in which he stressed that the memorandum of understanding aims to establish an institutional partnership to support the exchange and transfer of knowledge in the agricultural sector between Egypt and African countries, through capacity building, holding training courses, and deploying Egyptian experts in the beneficiary countries, in order to support development on the African continent. Explaining that it provides an opportunity for the countries of the South to exchange experiences and practical practices, allowing them to confront the challenges of poverty and food insecurity. He pointed out that such alliances have gained increasing importance in the past decades, especially for emerging economies such as Egypt, which are particularly interested in cooperating with African countries in the field of food security, and that the signing of this memorandum comes within the framework of exchanging agricultural experiences to advance cooperation to ensure the achievement of food security and support Rural development and confronting the problems of climate change.
For his part, Dr. Abdel Hakim Al-Waer, Assistant Director-General of FAO and Regional Director of the Organization for the Near East and North Africa, stressed their great happiness in establishing such cooperation with Egypt, which represents a cornerstone in cooperation with the African continent in general, especially in light of the great Egyptian experiences. In the field of agriculture and irrigation, he explained that the main objective of this memorandum is to establish an institutional framework with the Egyptian Partnership Agency to support the exchange and transfer of knowledge in the agricultural sector between Egypt and African countries, based on the request of these countries. He also explained that 40% of the population of Africa and 30% of the population of the Arab world suffer from food insecurity, which requires that cooperation in this field be carried out as quickly as possible.
On a related level, Dr. Saad Moussa, Head of the Foreign Relations Sector at the Ministry of Agriculture, indicated in his speech the Ministry of Agriculture’s aspiration to implement the provisions of the memorandum that was signed, especially in light of Egypt’s pivotal role in the field of agriculture and irrigation, explaining that the challenges of the Corona virus and the Russian/Ukrainian war, Climate change has negatively affected the agricultural sector throughout the world, which requires rapid intervention to find solutions and put things back on track through cooperation between countries of the South.
For his part, ANPING YE, Head of the South-South and Tripartite Cooperation Unit at FAO, indicated their aspiration to work on implementing this memorandum as soon as possible, and the importance of both Egypt and FAO mobilizing efforts with the aim of finding appropriate funding to implement the proposed projects through cooperation with regional organizations and countries. Third.
