Agriculture Minister,IFADPresidentDiscuss Refinance of Livestock Development Project

Rome, (ST) –The Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform Ahmed Al-Qadri discussed with the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Gilbert F. Houngbo, on the sidelines of the 40th FAO Conference in Rome, how to address the suspension of funding for the livestock development project in Syria.

Mr. Al-Qadri gave an explanation of the project, which has been suspended funding from the Fund, that the ministry continued to implement the project with the support of the government for the importance of livestock and livestock breeders, indicating that the project has achieved important success.

The Minister expressed the hope to return from the decision to suspend and start funding the activities of the project for its development and direct impact on livestock keepers.

For his part, the President of the Fund confirmed that “he is a supporter of returning to work in Syria and has no worryof it and the appropriate decisionwill be taken about the suspension of funding after completing the staff charged with assessing and studying the reality of implementation that will be soon.”

It is noteworthy that the Fund finances the project under a soft loan of $ 27.3 million and it  is one of the important projects and until the suspension of funding, in mid-2015, some 14600 breeders benefited from the project.

The FAO conference, which began on July 3 in Italy with the participation of 196 countries, including Syria and 100 governmental and non-governmental organizations, will be concluded on Saturday to examine the state of agriculture and food security in the context of climate change, water scarcity and measures to address these challenges.

Sharif Al Khatib