EU Funds Two New Food Security Project worth $2.6 Million

Phnom Penh, Cambodia (20 January 2011)

The EU has further expanded its existing commitment to the efforts of the Royal Government of Cambodia in reducing poverty and hunger in the country, by providing two grants, of 1 M€ ($ 1.3 M) each, to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and to the Danish NGO Agricultural Development Denmark Asia (ADDA). These grants will allow them to develop two new food security projects in urban and peri-urban areas of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. This confirms the EU as the largest single donor in the food security sector in Cambodia.

These two new projects present an interesting innovative approach to the problematic of food security by focusing on urban dwellers and migrants who have limited capacity to produce and/or purchase the food they need for their families.

The project implemented by ADDA aims at securing better and regular access to food for poor families in the City and in the outskirts of Siem Reap through (1) increasing the general income of poor households, (2) reducing the cost of food and improve its quality through home based-production, and (3) enhancing the ability of vulnerable people to cope with economic shocks through better social integration and social protection mechanisms. This project will run from January 2011 to June 2014; it will be implemented jointly with the Chantiers Ecoles de Formation Professionnelle and Provincial Training Center of Siem Reap.

The FAO project intends to enhance the food security, food safety and nutrition of poor vulnerable urban and peri-urban dwellers living along Phnom Penh’s river banks, through support to micro and small group enterprises – mainly based on aquaculture and food processing – that will generate income for the purchase of diversified and quality food, and through mainstreaming food safety interventions from production to commercialization. This project will run from January 2011 until January 2014; it will be implemented jointly with Fisheries Administration (FiA); the Phnom Penh Municipality Department of MAFF and the Phnom Penh Fisheries Administration Cantonment.

"As the biggest donor in the country, our commitments are to assist Cambodia in achieving its targets for poverty reduction, food security and economic growth.  On behalf of the EU Delegation to Cambodia, I am delighted to support these two organizations and I fully expect that their efforts will address the constraints of the urban/peri-urban poor and food-insecure Cambodians. The € 2 million is granted in addition to an existing grant of €24 million for the EU Food Security projects in Cambodia" said Mr. Rafael Dochao Moreno, Chargé d' Affaires a.i. of the Delegation of the European Union to Cambodia.

By EU