At the beginning of this week, Sweden and Belgium hosted a side event under the ongoing council meeting at FAO in Rome. The purpose was to launch the scripts that FAO has worked through about a partnership between the two countries. Representatives from Bolivia and Nigeria shared experiences from their close collaboration with building resilience against climate change and integrated solutions for forest and agriculture, including improving equality and the empowerment of women in rural areas.
Sweden’s engagement in multilateralism, flexible and foreseeing aid contribution and attention to national and local ownership of development collaboration laid the foundation for the report about partnership with FAO and outlined the opening speech of ambassador Robert Rydberg. In the role as Sweden’s steadfast representative for FAO, Robert Rydberg emphasized the importance of FAO´s work for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
During the speech ambassador Rydberg noted that international work with poverty reduction, climate change resilience, equality can support developing countries in strengthening of their own economies, including counteracting trade barriers and support smallholders to reach the market. All of this is the core of FAO´s work and central in the development cooperation.
The report shows that over the past several years Sweden increased its contribution to FAO. This report also described the way Sweden prioritizes allocation of flexible and predictable resources that steer food security strategic priorities in cooperation with other contributors. Sweden’s collaboration with FAO extends beyond aid and involves an exchange of expertise through work in the leading institutions, technical constellations as well as junior and senior secondment programs.
The report is one of the first of its kind and was prepared as part of FAO’s initiative to recognize the increasing part of voluntarily aid contributions to the organization. Transparency facilitates more effective aid distribution and is becoming more and more important for attracting new types of collaborators, including from the business sector.
For those who want to know more about the Swedish FAO committee click here, and if you want to read the full report use this button !