From Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
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The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue TD, today announced that his department’s international development assistance for 2020 totalled over €30 million. This includes advance payment of Ireland’s 2021 commitment of €25 million to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) which won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.
Minister McConalogue stated:
"Ireland’s funding will help WFP provide life-saving assistance to people facing hunger and food insecurity. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected harvests, disrupted supply chains, and decimated the incomes of millions of households already living in poverty. The early payment of Ireland’s 2021 funding commitment will allow the World Food Programme the flexibility to target their humanitarian relief operations in the most effective way.”
Minister McConalogue earlier this year congratulated the WFP on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for 2020.
WFP Executive Director, David Beasley said:
“The World Food Programme is grateful to the government and people of Ireland for their sustained support for our work. This flexible annual contribution will allow us to reach some of the world’s most vulnerable people while scaling up our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. WFP appreciates our strong partnership with Ireland as we work together every day to achieve a Zero Hunger world.”
In addition to Ireland’s annual subscription of €1.64 million to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Minister McConalogue also announced funding of €2.14m for specific FAO projects. These include improving food security for refugees in the conflict-affected area of the Lake Chad basin; enhancing surveillance and control of the desert locust invasion in Kenya; and support of the UN Food Systems Summit action track on access to safe and nutritious food.
Minister McConalogue commented:
“This funding of food and agriculture projects, particularly in rural Africa, reflects the solidarity of farmers, fishers and food producers in Ireland with their counterparts in developing countries as they strive for food security for all. Our commitment as a leader in sustainable food production must be assisting those nations who benefit from the World Food Programme. This support is a key tenet of our sustainability credentials.”
Funding of €591,000 was also provided this year under the Africa Agri-food Development Programme (AADP), which supports partnerships between Irish and African agri-food companies.
ENDS
WFP is a United Nations organisation responsible for the delivery of food assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, partnering with other United Nations agencies, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, civil society and the private sector to enable people, communities and countries to meet their own food needs. WFP is the largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, and is funded exclusively from voluntary contributions. In addition to DAFM’s core funding of WFP, the Department of Foreign Affairs also provides funding to WFP for crisis programmes in specific countries and regions.
This year flexible funds provided by the Government of Ireland contributed to WFP’s operations in the most critical emergencies and to help those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the Central African Republic, flexible funds allowed for a rapid tenfold scale-up of assistance; in Yemen flexible funding contributed to a life-saving operation which is WFP’s largest emergency response; in Afghanistan WFP was able to provide fortified and nutritionally-balanced food assistance to vulnerable groups including people displaced by conflict, those affected by disasters, refugees, returnees from neighbouring countries, and people affected by COVID-19; in Somalia, flexible funding helped vulnerable communities strengthen their resilience to the effects of conflict and natural disasters. This type of contribution from Ireland has also supported and sustained WFP’s operations in 2020 in Syria, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.
FAO is a United Nations organisation mandated to help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition, make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable, enable inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems and increase the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises.
The AADP is a joint initiative between the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Department of Foreign Affairs. The objective of the AADP is to develop partnerships between the Irish Agri-Food Sector and African countries to support sustainable growth of the local food industry, build markets for local produce and support mutual trade between Ireland and Africa.
This funding and the partnerships with WFP and FAO are within the framework of Ireland’s policy for international development, “A Better World”, the whole-of-Government policy for Ireland’s development cooperation programme, on which DAFM works closely with Irish Aid in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
International Development Assistance - DAFM 2020
International Development Assistance - DAFM 2020