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The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) join efforts to support strategic planning in Kiribati’s Agriculture Sector

1-3 July 2019, Tarawa – The Ministry of Environment Lands and Agriculture Development (MELAD) hosted a consultation workshop alongside the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) to have a discussion with members of government, private sector, and civil society to gain insights towards the development of the:

  • Kiribati Agriculture Strategy – an Addendum to the KV20; and the
  • National Investment Priorities for Agriculture – A Road Map to a National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP)

During the opening of the workshop, MELAD Director for Agriculture and Livestock Development, Kinaai Kairo stated that shared ideas and deliberations of stakeholders are vital as they will form part of the Agriculture Strategy and the Agriculture Investment Plan, which are the target outcomes of the workshop. Therefore, all participants were encouraged to actively interact.

The workshop thus brought the expansion of greater partnerships between MELAD, GGGI, FAO and IFAD to develop together both the agriculture strategy and investment plan of Kiribati, in parallel, to ensure alignment between both of them. This workshop is an opportunity to expand these partnerships to other sectors through the participation of government, civil society, the private sector and development partners.

The Global Green Growth Institute is supporting MELAD in the development of the agriculture strategy. The aim of the strategy is to establish the nexus between agriculture – food – jobs – health and nutrition and provide a strategy to sharpen the focus of planned interventions. The strategy will support existing national policies as well as national and international commitments. This workshop is one of several outreach activities aimed at ensuring alignment with the priorities of the different sectors – public and private sectors, civil society and local communities. Ms. Norma Rivera, Kiribati Program Officer for GGGI stated that: “[A]t the center of a successful agriculture strategy is cooperation among stakeholders. The purpose of the consultation workshop is to gather insights of relevant stakeholders and translate these inputs a practical agriculture strategy, that is aligned to the KV20, in order to develop a successful strategy that will deliver on the country’s green growth potential.”

FAO and IFAD are supporting the GoK through the development of a multi-country proposal to be submitted to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP).  The GAFSP is a multi-donor trust fund offered as grants to nations to assist them in ending poverty and hunger. The objective is to improve food and nutrition security through effective partnerships, strategic development and targeted use of funds. In this round, the GAFSP has invited applications from countries described as fragile because of climate change increased risks and/or conflict and war. 24 countries have been identified and can apply and Kiribati is one of the five countries targeted in the Pacific along with Tuvalu, Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI), Federated States of Micronesia (FMI) and the Solomon Islands. The other countries are in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

As Wadzanai Garwe, an economist from FAO described, “country guidelines for the development of the GAFSP, emphasize that proposals need to be a national responsibility, and that country ownership and stakeholder consultations are vital considerations in the proposal assessment process. In addition, a roadmap towards a National Agriculture Investment Plan is a pre-requisite for the proposal”.

The process for the development of both the strategy and the investment plan will take over 18 months of consultation as all stakeholders in the agricultural sector need to be consulted to ensure that their issues are addressed in the overall strategy and then considered in the investment plan.

The workshop was attended by members of the Government of Kiribati, civil society, and the private sector.