Kentish: Overcoming future obstacles will depend on all

Recent Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations indications show that they would continue to be confronted with obstacles in the future, but their ability to overcome these hurdles, seek out opportunities and find the political and personal to address these issues will rest squarely on all of their shoulders.

This was the advice that Florita Kentish, FAO Sub-Regional Co-ordinator (SRC) for the Caribbean gave to her soon to be former colleagues at the Farewell and Appreciation Luncheon held in honour in Barbados recently.

Building capacity is one such area that they can do this and in order to communicate more effectively with their partners, Spanish tutors were brought in for individuals who were interested in learning or expanding their knowledge in conversational Spanish at all levels.

This move would especially help them with improving their relationships with other countries, where “relations with the seven countries under the Barbados Representation continued to be very good”.

With regard to Barbados and the Sub-Regional Office Agreement, “slow progress has been achieved regarding the transfer of junior professionals within the context of capacity building”.

However, she is hoping that this matter would be quickly resolved so that the island can reap the benefits.

Meanwhile, partnerships with other organisations such as the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the University of the West Indies (UWI), the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture (IICA), the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and the European Union (EU) continues to be
good.

This especially holds true for their partnership with IICA which has improved since both parties signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in March of this year in Argentina while their partnership with the CARICOM Secretariat would be enhanced via scheduled meetings.

Along this line, the United Nations Sub-Regional Team (UNST) for Barbados and the OECS and other participating UN agencies along with their respective programmes and funds worked with stakeholders such as the Government of Barbados and the OECS to sign a United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for 2012-2016.

The FAO also appointed two consultants charged with the portfolio of improving Food and Nutrition Security for that period.

The FAO also developed initiatives in the area of disaster risk management.

“The Agricultural Sector DRM Committee made significant progress on its mandate through improved information sharing and collaboration among agencies on the DRM Committee; the establishment of a Climate Change Sub-Committee through the mandate of the Council for Trade and Economical Development (COTED) and Agricultural Insurance and Praedial Larceny/DRM Sub-Committees through a decision of the Committee and involvement with the implementation of a number of specific initiatives in DRM within the agricultural sector.” (PJT)