BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 23
Trend:
Uzbekistan will implement a project to reorient food systems and land use in favor of sustainable development and to support land reclamation, Representative office of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the country told local Gazeta.uz online newspaper, Trend reports.
The project will be implemented in cooperation with FAO and Global Environment Facility (GEF). The main national partner of the project is the State Committee on Ecology and Environmental Protection of Uzbekistan.
The project was discussed during an online meeting attended by the committee Chairman Shavkat Abdurazakov.
GEF contribution to the implementation of the new program stands at $6.75 million, and FAO was selected to assist Uzbekistan in this project as a result of an open tender among 18 agencies cooperating with the GEF.
The goal of the project is to stimulate the large-scale introduction of effective environmental management technologies and environmental safety approaches, as well as to promote the creation of environmentally friendly demand and supply chains for the transition from ecosystem degradation to sustainable management.
The expected outcome of the project is enriching of biological diversity in all sectors and landscapes of Uzbekistan by 2024 through improvement of land use and reclamation systems, increase of their management efficiency, as well as securing prevalence of sustainable land use in the interests of agro ecosystems.
The project will also help to improve the national legal, regulatory and institutional framework, as well as to adopt incentives for the use of integrated land use management and climate-friendly production methods.
The creation of a pilot area of 350,000 hectares on irrigated and rain fed productive landscapes should lead to the practical application of sustainable principles and allow obtaining experience in environmentally friendly food production.