Syria participates in the meetings of the 43 session of the International Fund for Agricultural Development “IFAD”

Rome,(ST)- With the participation of Syria, the meetings of the 43rd session of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will start today in the Italian capital, Rome.

The Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform Eng. Ahmed Al-Qadri confirmed during a meeting with the President of the Fund, Gilbert Angbo, the depth of joint cooperation relations between the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture and the IFAD Fund, and  which has been in effect for more than 40 years. During that time many important development projects were implemented, like the continued cooperation through the “Integrated Livestock Development”, which benefited about 78 thousand families, which constitute more than 300 thousand people.

Al-Qadiri pointed out that the “Integrated Livestock Development” project aims to start the process of “reviving agricultural livelihoods” by rehabilitating the economic and social structure of farmers and working on building productive capacities, where in the first stage it will target 40,000 families who are returning to their liberated agricultural lands.

In his turn, Engopo affirmed IFAD’s readiness to implement all its obligations and exert all possible efforts to find a mechanism that guarantees the implementation of the new project under the title “reviving agricultural livelihoods”. This project will be implemented during the next stage, calling for work together to address the difficulties that may face or hinder the success of this project.

Participants in the meeting discussed the measures that must be taken to ensure the implementation of the project “reviving agricultural livelihoods” because of its great importance that is directly reflected on farmers, especially farmers affected by the war on Syria, which is an important opportunity to return them to the production process and secure income sources for them.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development was established in 1977 as one of the outputs of the International Food Conference in 1974 and aims to fight poverty and hunger and achieve food security in developing countries and activate  resources to develop the agricultural sector.

Haifaa Mafalani