Bar­ba­dos has signed a Let­ter of Un­der­stand­ing (LoU) with the Unit­ed Na­tions World Food Pro­gramme (WFP), aimed at im­prov­ing the re­gion’s food se­cu­ri­ty and nu­tri­tion by 2030.

For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade Min­is­ter, Ker­rie Sym­monds, signed the LoU with the WFP’s Caribbean Coun­try Di­rec­tor, Bri­an Bog­a­rt.

In Feb­ru­ary 2022, the WFP ap­proved the US$69.5 mil­lion Caribbean Mul­ti-Coun­try Strate­gic Plan for 2022-2026 (MC­SP 2022-2026) that is aimed at im­prov­ing the re­gion’s food se­cu­ri­ty and nu­tri­tion by 2030 and cor­re­lates di­rect­ly to Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goal (SDG) No. Two – Ze­ro Hunger, re­in­forces SDG 17 on Part­ner­ships, and will pos­i­tive­ly im­pact SDGs one, five, 10, and 13.

Sym­monds said that the as­sis­tance pro­vid­ed would help Bar­ba­dos, and by ex­ten­sion the Caribbean re­gion, in its ef­forts to­wards CARI­COM’s 25 by 2025 ini­tia­tive, which seeks to re­duce the re­gion’s ris­ing food im­port bill, im­prove in­tra-re­gion­al trade, and cre­ate wealth and eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties for the mem­bers of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty.

“We can do a lot in terms of mak­ing sure we have ap­pro­pri­ate bal­ance and pay­ments if we can sub­sti­tute and move away from the re­liance on im­ports that al­lows us to build out a stronger re­gion­al ca­pac­i­ty, which is re­al­ly the ef­fort be­ing dri­ven un­der the 25 by 2025 ini­tia­tive…

“ I think it is the most won­der­ful and gen­er­ous con­tri­bu­tion to our ef­fort that we can now get US$69.5 mil­lion to­wards this re­gion’s ef­fort in that di­rec­tion….

“So again, part­ner­ship with the World Food Pro­gramme, in terms of se­cu­ri­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, is re­al­ly fun­da­men­tal to our de­vel­op­men­tal ef­fort. So, I just want­ed to say thank you,” Sym­monds stat­ed.

Bog­a­rt not­ed that through MC­SP 2022-2026, the WFP will con­tin­ue to lever­age its ex­per­tise and ex­pe­ri­ence to pro­vide tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance and ca­pac­i­ty strength­en­ing to na­tion­al gov­ern­ments and re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions, to strength­en the re­silience of na­tion­al and re­gion­al food sys­tems to en­sure food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty; pre­dict, as­sess, plan, and fi­nance the im­pact of shocks with a fo­cus on end-to-end sup­ply chain man­age­ment and emer­gency telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions.

In ad­di­tion, through the MC­SP 2022-2026, the WFP will as­sist the re­gion to bet­ter re­spond to shocks through ex­ist­ing so­cial pro­tec­tion sys­tems and pro­grammes, and con­tribute to cli­mate change adap­ta­tion and risk fi­nanc­ing mech­a­nisms, par­tic­u­lar­ly through links to so­cial pro­tec­tion.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Dec 10, CMC