Al-Bireh- The Environment Quality Authority and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) today signed an agreement to implement a project aimed at promoting climate-resilient agricultural practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The project agreement was signed by the Environmental Quality Authority, its head, Dr. Nasreen Al-Tamimi and the FAO d. Ciro Fiorillo, Head of the Organization’s Coordination Office in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, at the headquarters of the Environmental Quality Authority in Al-Bireh, in the presence of Dr. Azzam Saleh, Program Leader in the organization’s office in the West Bank and Gaza, and the general managers and consultants from the Environmental Quality Authority.
The project will be implemented over a period of three years, with funding from the Green Climate Fund and in cooperation with the Environmental Quality Authority and the Palestinian Meteorological Authority.
In turn, Dr. Al-Tamimi: “We are pleased to announce this new partnership with FAO and this fifth project funded by the Green Climate Fund to date. This will enhance our national efforts to create an enabling environment for climate-smart agriculture in Palestine.”
This project aims to increase local capacity to monitor, report and verify agrometeorological data through the installation of new agrometeorological systems in selected major harvesting areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This will be accompanied by a series of specialized technical support activities designed to improve organizations’ capabilities to generate and analyze data.
For his part, said Dr. Fiorillo, Head of FAO’s Coordination Office in the West Bank and Gaza: “Our main focus will be on enhancing coordination among all relevant actors and stakeholders to enhance their participation and responsibility for climate-resilient agricultural approaches and technologies to reach more sustainable agricultural food value chains, while at the same time launching a pilot model effective adaptation to climate change.
The new systems will integrate multiple data sets to allow stakeholders such as the Ministry of Agriculture and the Palestinian Meteorological Authority to provide smallholder farmers with more accurate information that guides them when making agricultural decisions such as timing of planting and harvesting based on weather conditions, as well as to encourage regular exchange of data with the aim of strengthening warning mechanisms early.
On his part, Dr. emphasized. Saleh, that the project “will, in particular, enhance the capacity of the Meteorological Authority and the Ministry of Agriculture to process agro-meteorological data, convert it into actionable recommendations and disseminate it among agricultural producers, especially small farmers, in order to enable them to adapt their activities to sudden changes in weather in a timely manner.” .
This cross-sectoral project will enhance the capacity for climate change adaptation planning in Palestine, and enhance cooperation between institutions to define and simplify climate-resilient farming practices.
It is noteworthy that this project is in line with the priorities identified by key tools such as the Nationally Determined Contributions Report, the National Adaptation Plan to Climate Change and the Agriculture Sector Strategy 2021-2023, all of which emphasize the vulnerability of the agricultural sector in the face of climate change.