Central Asian countries benefit from Turkish expertise through South-South Cooperation efforts

FAO and Turkey signed a South-South and Triangular Cooperation agreement on deploying Turkish experts to projects sites in Central Asia as part of the FAO–Turkey Partnership Programme for food, agriculture, and forestry.

The signature ceremony took place on 26 October on the margins of the 8th Ministerial Conference of the Islamic Cooperation Organization on Food Security and Agricultural Development, with participation of Vladimir Rakhmanin, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia, and Bekir Pakdemirli, Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry.

The FAO–Turkey Partnership Programme provide support in food security, rural poverty reduction, and sustainable forest management, combating desertification and preserving ecosystems in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and beyond.

Fielding Turkish experts to Central Asian project sites will not only widen the expertise and knowledge of beneficiary countries in a variety of areas (such as agriculture, agribusiness, food security and nutrition, forestry, nature conservation, drought management, combating desertification, biodiversity, and climate change), but also help develop solutions for common development issues in the food and agriculture sector.

Welcoming the agreement, Vladimir Rakhmanin noted that Turkey’s contributions will strengthen South-South and Triangular Cooperation. Bekir Pakdemirli emphasized that the agreement would facilitate and scale up Turkey’s efforts to support beneficiary countries under the Programme.

This new initiative will support and facilitate the implementation of both the FAO–Turkey Partnership Programme and the FAO–Turkey Forestry Partnership Programme, and deepen decades-long relations between FAO and Turkey, as well as widen FAO’s involvement in the South-South and Triangular Cooperation by mobilizing Turkey’s expertise in agriculture and food-related fields.

About the FAO–Turkey Partnership Programme

Established in 2007, the first phase of the FAO-Turkey Partnership Programme on Food and Agriculture has benefited from trust fund contributions totalling USD 10 million, financed by the Government of Turkey and represented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. In 2014, Turkey and FAO commenced the second phase along with the first phase of the FAO-Turkey Forestry Partnership Programme with an additional fund of USD 20 million, bringing Turkey’s total contribution to USD 30 million.

27 October 2021, Istanbul, Turkey