ROME: The Tunisian government and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation have announced they are cooperating on two projects to enhance food security and resilience to climate change through a National Action Plan for the agricultural sector in Tunisia.
The agreements were signed in Tunis by the Agriculture, Water Resources, and Fisheries Minister Mahmoud Elias Hamza, and Philippe Ankers, a representative in Tunisia for the Rome-based UN agency.
The projects are part of a four-year cooperation framework running until 2025, the FAO said in a statement.
The first project will be supported by the Green Climate Fund (GCF), in which the FAO will be the main partner. It will look at food security and resilience to climate change, aiming to set up a National Action Plan for the agricultural sector with different adaptation options related to water, land, crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry.
“The plan will focus on adapting actions and clarifying the roles and contributions of stakeholders, including private sector partners,” the FAO said.
“We expect that in the end it will allow for increased knowledge on climate change adaptation for informed decision making; supporting the resilience of the agricultural sector through climate-smart investments and public-private partnerships; implementing social protection plans for better adaptation in the most vulnerable rural communities and innovation through new digital technologies,” it said.
The second project is called “SocPro4Fish” and is supported by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.
It complements some activities previously carried out by FAO in partnership with the Tunisian government to generate factual data on social protection in the fisheries and wider aquaculture sector in Tunisia.
It will focus on improving access to social protection, and aims to strengthen Tunisian institutional capacities to improve the quality of social benefits for fishermen and workers in the fisheries and aquaculture, two economic key sectors in Tunisia’s economy.
