The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Ghana’s Forestry Commission have launched the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) phase II in Ghana to empower forest and farm producers for sustainable development, poverty reduction and climate change
With Forest and Farm Producer Organisations (FFPOs) as major agents of change, the FFF phase II specifically intends to contribute to the achievement of at least 11 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly, SDGs 1, 2, 5, 13 and 15 on livelihoods, food security, gender equality, climate change and life on land.
Speaking at the launch, FAO representative to Ghana, Abebe Haile-Gabriel said that the facility in Ghana would help rural producers diversify local economies, increase resilience, reduce poverty while restoring and managing landscapes.
Abebe pointed out, “Forest and Farm Facility provides a useful framework to integrate and organically link two significant activities and actors – forest and farm – by putting people’s lives and livelihoods at the centre of sustainable management of resources, including land and forests.”
The Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) is a partnership between FAO, IIED, IUCN and AgricCord that focuses on strengthening FFFPOs in forest and landscape linking with enabling partners.
Since the launch of Phase I in 2013, FFF has empowered forest and farm producers through their organisations in order to develop climate resilient forest landscapes and improved rural livelihoods.
The FFF Phase II comes at a time of renewed global efforts toward sustainable development, notably the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its goals (SDGs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to fight climate change as part of the Paris Agreement.
The launch is timely as a growing number of governments are developing integrated climate responses and strategies for sustainable rural economies and reducing poverty.
In 2018, FFF is significantly increasing the scale and range of its impacts by building on its past support to FFPOs and governments. This will strengthen the capacity of forest and farm producers and their organisations, deepen engagement in innovative cross-sectoral processes in government, and increase the delivery of landscape-scale climate responses.
Underpinning all of these include more inclusive and sustainable economic opportunities, increasing returns to FFPOs, while opening opportunities for improved social and cultural services for the rural poor.
