The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on February 16 signed an agreement to begin a project that will directly support 10,000 of the most vulnerable people affected by the economic fall-out from Covid-19. Hean Rangsey
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on February 16 signed an agreement to begin a project that will directly support 10,000 of the most vulnerable people affected by the economic fall-out from Covid-19 in Siem Reap and Banteay Meanchey provinces.
The 20-month project – Strengthening the livelihood recovery of the rural communities most affected by Covid-19 in Cambodia – is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). It will help the most vulnerable population groups including poor and vulnerable households, small-scale farmers, returning migrant workers and unemployed casual workers, all of whom suffered greatly this past year from Covid-19, according to the press statement announcing the project.
A rapid assessment conducted jointly by the agriculture ministry, the Council for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) and FAO in April 2020 indicated the priority needs of the vulnerable group were agricultural inputs and assets for production, capacity building in production techniques and improved community infrastructure such as water storage facilities.
The vulnerable groups also need access to markets in addition to better access to financial assistance in the form of grants and loans with low or no interest as well as the ability to delay loan repayment.
Agriculture ministry secretary-general Srey Vuthy said the implementation of this project will respond to the critical needs of rural farmers by restoring their livelihoods through the building of productive capacity and promotion of agriculture-based work.
“The project will receive technical assistance from FAO who will support the project implementers in the provinces. Many thousands of households will benefit from this project,” he said.
Vuthy added that the project will also provide assistance to farmers to begin using net-houses to grow crops.
However, he said the project would not be able to cover all of the provinces in Cambodia because it consists of technical assistance rather than financial assistance so the ministry’s partner NGOs would have to conduct a study to select the provinces for aid that had the most vulnerable people with the fewest resources.
This project will be implemented along with two other projects partly funded by the SDC including the FAO-sponsored Food Safety project and the Women Empowerment in Agriculture, Food Security, and Nutrition project being funded by a multi-donor mechanism.
FAO Representative in Cambodia Alexandre Huynh said the project took on added import now especially due to the impacts of Covid-19 on the nation’s economy.
He said he was delighted to see people come together not just for this project, but for all three projects.
Huynh said agriculture is a vital sector in the Cambodian economy and that it plays an important role here in poverty reduction. He cited World Bank statistics indicating that more than 60 per cent of poverty reduction in Cambodia from 2007 to 2011 came from agriculture.
“Today, we witness an excellent partnership among organisations including FAO, SDC, International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), CARD and the agriculture ministry.
“This partnership will allow us to move ahead together with important tasks in order to contribute to achieving a two-fold objective: livelihoods recovery for the affected rural households and improvements in both the productivity and quality of agricultural production,” he said.
Huynh believed that with strong engagement and commitment from the ministry’s leadership and its partners, the project would be able to deliver on these ambitious goals.
