São Paulo – An office of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the state of Paraná will spend US$ 200,000 on international technical cooperation projects, with an emphasis on the Southern Cone and Africa. The amount will be invested by the Ministry of Foreign Relations, by means of the Brazilian Agency for Cooperation (ABC). The information was supplied by the Itaipu Technology Park, where the office will be located, in the city of Foz do Iguaçu.
The investment will be made over a three-year period, adding up to US$ 600,000. In addition to the office in Foz, a support base will be established at the headquarters of Emater, in Curitiba, the Paraná state capital. “The role of the office will be to find initiatives which may be reproduced in countries in the Southern Cone and Africa, especially,” said the Itaipu director general for Brazil, Jorge Samek, upon signing the agreement.
The cooperation will focus on food security, family farming, aquaculture, forest handling,renewable energies, sustainable development. The projects will be implemented through bilateral technical cooperation. The agreement was signed by the FAO’s official representative in Brazil, Gustavo Chianca, the director of the ABC, Marco Farani, and Samek.
“In Brazil, especially in the Western portion of the state of Paraná, we have some good experiences such as Cultivando Água Boa (Cultivating Good Water), in Itaipu, the cooperatives, the Pronaf, among others. These experiences will be systematized and the materials will be made available to the countries that wish to replicate these projects. Angola, Mozambique and Mercosur countries have already expressed their interest in this project,” said Valter Bianchini, who will coordinate the office in Foz.
The “Cultivando Água Boa” program works for the quality of water in municipalities bathed by the Paraná Water Basin, where the Itaipu power plant is located. Pronaf is the National Program for the Strengthening of Family Farming, which funds individual or collective projects which will generate income to family farmers.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
