17 December 2010, Rome – Germany has committed nearly six million dollars for food and nutrition security, sustainable livelihoods and climate-smart agriculture in agreements signed with FAO, the agency announced today.
FAO has been promoting improved complementary feeding in a number of countries in Asia and Africa, teaching families how to enrich young children’s diets using locally available, nutrient-dense foods.
Just over two million dollars will be used to finance a three-year project to evaluate and document the effectiveness of existing complementary feeding practices in order to inform nutrition policy and programme design in developing countries. Two other projects are aimed at improving nutrition and nutrition education.
Promoting sisal
The Government of Germany provided funding for the first phase of a 52-month project to promote the commercial and environmental potential of sisal production among farmers and vulnerable communities in several of the world’s poorest countries.
Sisal is a renewable resource that thrives on marginal land in hot and arid climates. Fibre residues can be used to generate bioenergy and produce animal feed, fertiliser and ecological housing material. Sisal is also entirely biodegradable at the end of its life cycle.
German funding will also support policy development and capacity building on the linkages between bioenergy and food security, as well as a three-year project to improve climate change mitigation within the agricultural sector.
Another project will contribute to FAO’s post-earthquake agriculture emergency and rehabilitation programme in Haiti, with a view to strengthening coordination.