The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on Monday signed an agreement to strengthen their partnership to help countries in the Region achieve key development goals in agriculture.

The Framework Cooperation Agreement makes provisions for CDB to partner with FAO to provide technical assistance for projects financed by the Bank. It will also allow countries with common membership in both organisations to directly engage FAO using loan or grant funds provided by CDB.

“CDB welcomes this new Agreement, which will broaden and strengthen collaboration between our Bank and FAO, which has been ongoing since 1986. Today, through the signing of this document, we are opening the door for our regional members to achieve even greater development gains in agriculture through our partnership,” said Daniel Best, Director of Projects, CDB, who signed the Agreement on behalf of the Bank.

“We need closer ties between FAO and other development partners such as the development banks, if we are to tackle the main challenges that threaten regional food security – rising hunger and overweight, rural poverty and climate change”, said Lystra Fletcher-Paul, FAO’s Subregional Representative for the Caribbean.

For more than three decades, CDB and FAO have partnered on several interventions, including the development of an Agricultural Water Investment Plan for Belize; a study on the Feasibility of Rainwater Harvesting in the Caribbean; an Evaluation of Greenhouse Technology in Crop Production; and studies in support of CDB’s preparation and appraisal of agricultural development projects in Jamaica.

During the signing ceremony, Best also announced that CDB and FAO are collaborating on a study, “The State of Agriculture in the Caribbean”, scheduled for completion in May. It will detail key trends in agriculture in the Bank’s borrowing member countries, and highlight related opportunities for investments to support social and economic growth, poverty reduction, and sustainability.

The two organisations signed the Agreement in Montego Bay, Jamaica at the start of the FAO’s 35th Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, which is being attended by Ministers of agriculture, education, environment, health and social development from its member countries.