South-South cooperation on food security

Some 23,000 rural Nigerian households are to benefit from a US $22.7-million agreement between Nigeria, China and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to share knowledge and experience. Under the agreement, at least 520 Chinese are to work in Nigeria to promote food security, FAO reported on Thursday. "The initiative represents the largest programme of its kind and forms part of a global initiative, the South-South Cooperation Programme, designed to strengthen collaboration between countries at different stages of development," FAO said. The agreement, signed by representatives of the two governments and FAO at the UN agency's headquarters in Rome, indicates that China will provide 20 experts and over 500 field technicians to work alongside their Nigerian counterparts over a four-year period. "Working together, the two countries will implement activities aimed at safeguarding food security, including water-control projects, production systems to boost crops and diversification of production." FAO said. "Most of the Chinese technicians will live in the rural communities in which they are to work." The programme would be implemented within the framework of Nigeria's National Special Programme for Food Security, which was developed with FAO and began in January 2002. Meanwhile, the Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods Programme, which was started in 1999 as a partnership between 25 West African governments, FAO and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), has launched over 40 community projects in the participating countries. The programme, which runs until 2006, uses two main tools, the sustainable livelihoods approach and a code of conduct for responsible fisheries, FAO reported. "The aim is to help communities marginalised by poverty, illiteracy and isolation, to become full partners in society. Just because villagers are marginalised does not mean they are without good ideas," FAO said. "Government officials and representatives from non-governmental organisations and the private sector, seconded to national coordinating units, act as catalysts to bring out these ideas and help communities to get organised to act on them." The programme is being implemented in Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Details are available at: www.fao.org