(From www.fao.org:)

FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol and Minister-President of Flanders, Jan Jambon on 15 April signed a historic framework agreement to enhance cooperation between the Government of Flanders and FAO on a range of international development issues.

The agreement strengthens the partnership in a structural manner and provides a coherent, flexible and focused framework for collaboration with FAO and support of its mandate and activities. Key areas of joint work include sustainable agriculture, land management, forestry and fishery, agricultural innovation, inclusive food systems, increasing resilience, creating rural employment and combating biodiversity loss.

Flanders is a longstanding and trusted partner of FAO, working together with the UN agency in a number of countries in Africa. They cooperate on projects to build household food and nutrition security for smallholder farmers and promote land use planning and sustainable land and water management. They also support strengthening policy-implementation capacities to address the root causes of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition.

Flanders is also a significant contributor to the Flexible Multi-Partner Mechanism (FMM). The FMM is FAO’s funding mechanism for resource partners who are willing to contribute unearmarked resources to the Organization. The FMM has been instrumental in testing and scaling up essential development initiatives around the world.

In 2020, the FMM provided vital flexibility for FAO to effectively address complex issues related to food and agriculture in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.