STATEMENT BY THE RT HON PRIME MINISTER
DR B.SIBUSISO DLAMINI
DURING THE COURTESY CALL BY THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION (FAO)
TUESDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2015
Honourable Minister for Agriculture
Director-General of FAO, Mr José Grazianob Da Silva
FAO Attaché de Cabinet,MsCoumba Sow
Representatives of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen
It is a great pleasure, Director-General, for me to welcome you to my Offices and, indeed, to the Kingdom of Swaziland.
Our country owes a great deal to what we see asthe family of agencies within the programme of United Nations (UN) work in our country – the UN of course being itself a family of nations. Everywherewe see the United Nations footprint in the socio-economic development profile of the Kingdom.
You, as Director-General, are the head of one of the key agencies of the United Nations family, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). The FAO is one of our most substantial benefactors, assisting us in the agriculture sector that is the backbone of the Swazi economy. It is, indeed, an honour to receive you today.
As a very substantial giver of both material and human resources over many years, FAO must receive our deepest gratitude. You, personally, Director-General, prior to your appointment three years ago already had more than 30 years experience in such areas as food security, rural development and agriculture generally. These, of course, are areas of critical importance in achieving faster economic growth and poverty reduction in Swaziland. We do therefore feel that, in the course of FAO’s support in the implementation of the projects within our FAO Country Programme Framework (CPF), your oversight role will be of great assistance in tackling the challenges faced by Swaziland and in applying FAO’s resources productively to the task.
FAO’s donor partnership with the European Union (EU) has given us implementation of the Swaziland Agricultural Development Programme (SADP) which is now in its closing stages. The past and ongoing projects, with assistance from FAO, have been too numerous to mention but allow me to say how grateful we have been for that support.
It is worth, at this point,highlighting how relevant are the selected outcomes that you intend to achieve under the CPF. In helping to build an enabling policy environment, agricultural productivity and access to market for the smaller-scale producers, adapting to climate change and improving the livelihoods of the vulnerable in our society, you are dovetailing with our prioritized development areas.
It is certainly pleasing to note from the various monitoring reports on the CPF that the recorded outputs show progress that is consistent with the various strategic objectives. Within the various projects it is most encouraging to see us moving forward positively in key areas such as agro-processing with attention now being given to intensive development of highly promising areas such as agro-forestry and aquaculture. The latter, in the form of fish farming at small and micro-scale, has taken off in other countries and the healthy protein content is a great contributor to reduced malnutrition among our children. And a common feature to a number of the projects is enabling producers to gain access to the market in which they can sell their products.
It is impressive that, in one of your current projects – the Support to the COMESA-EAC-SADC Programme on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region -you are allocating such a substantial amount of resources to promoting Climate Smart Agriculture and Conservation Agriculture as our front line artilleryfor adapting to, and mitigating the effects of climate change. The acronyms CSA and CA need to become buzz terms on the lips of farmers across the country.We look to FAO as a source of sound expertise and innovation in assisting us to develop a comprehensive and effective approach in this area.
The nutritional quality of food that our people eat is of great importance to His Majesty’s Government, and your strategy for reducing poor nutrition levels is embracing access to diversified food types. This, in turn, demands agricultural diversification in which food is produced that is appropriate for the different agro-ecological zones. This being the focus of the project Support Household Climate-Smart, Market-Led Fruit and Vegetable Production we expect to see some valuable strategies emerge in the coming months.
Director-General, yours is a relatively short stay. I do trust that in that time you are able to gain a clear impression of our ability to implement the CPF, and to climb out of relatively low national agricultural production levels and hit the targets identified in our Swaziland Development Index. This Index sets out the rate of progress necessary to achieve our Vision 2022.
Director-General, I wish you a most enjoyable and informative stay in the Kingdom of Swaziland.