FAO welcomes S. Sudan as its newest member

June 18, 2013 (JUBA) – South Sudan has formally been admitted as the newest member of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), at its ongoing conference in Rome, Italy.

Betty Achan Ogwaro, the country’s minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development, said South Sudan’s membership to FAO, signals a new era of partnership.

Agriculture, she stressed, is the key to food security, growth and peace in South Sudan where almost half the country’s 65 million hectares of land is suitable for agricultural production.

“Food security is human security,” Ogwaro said at the Rome conference.
“We say that a hungry country is an angry country. Emerging from the long war as we did, South Sudan does not need to be angry anymore, just as much as it does not need to be hungry anymore. For us, agriculture is more than food; it is central to the process of healing our society,” the minister added.

Sue Lautze, FAO South Sudan head of office, described the new nation’s entry into the organisation as the “latest milestone in the country’s long journey towards full independence and sovereignty”.

“Member States are the heart of the governance structure of FAO, guiding and supporting the direction of the organization from local to global levels,” she added.

Since 2011, FAO, which has been operational in South Sudan for over a decade, has partnered with government through initiatives such as the Sudan Productive Capacity Recovery Programme (SPCRP).

FAO, through the SPCRP, has reportedly assisted South Sudan to develop the human, organizational and physical capacities of the Agriculture ministry as well as that of the Ministry of Animal Resources and Fisheries (MARF) in Warrap, Western and Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Lakes and Western Equatoria states.

Currently, the UN lead agency on agriculture is reportedly partnering with the government to implement the Agriculture and Food Security Information System (AFIS); a three year project funded by the European Union.

The project, officials say, will support the institutionalization of robust food security information systems at both national and state levels.

Meanwhile, South Sudan joins Singapore and Brunei Darussalam as FAO’s newest member states, bringing to 194, the number of member nations.

(ST)