On May 17, 2022, when the government of São Tomé and Príncipe and the United Nations launched the country’s second Joint SDG Fund project, it marked the first step to help reduce the country’s overreliance on food imports and promote innovative local solutions for a home-grown sustainable agrifood value chain. From a local small community, Uba Budu, in the Cantagalo district, towards nationwide food security and nutrition.
São Tomé and Príncipe has climatic conditions for the production of various crops. But the country imports corn flour around 850 tons a year and around 500 tons of dried beans. Because it does not have "infrastructures equipped with technologies capable of guaranteeing the production in quantity and quality and the processing of these cultures", according to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development, Francisco Ramos, speaking at the launch.
The Minister is confident that the project will bring a sustainable solution to the overreliance on food imports: "through the construction of an agri-food hub" in the community of Uba Budu, "with innovative technologies for the processing, conservation and storage of locally produced food" in suitable conditions to be marketed and consumed in longer terms.
According to the Minister, the initiative will also "help the Government combat unemployment, create several direct and indirect jobs, especially in an approach that values women's work and young people".
The United Nations Resident Coordinator, Eric Overvest, considered it "a very important and innovative project that has a social component which addresses issues of gender violence, alcoholism” among others. "We want to support green technologies for better storage and processing of local products", stressed the UN resident coordinator in São Tomé and Príncipe.
Addressing the hopeful community of Uba Budu at the ceremony, WFP in São Tomé and Príncipe Officer-in-Charge, Edna Peres, expressed the ambition of the initiative: "We intend to transform the maize into maize flour, drying the beans to be sold on the national market and also for export".
"We will also invest in public policy to ensure that products that are processed in this community can meet international standards for processed products," she added.
Jointly with the implementing UN agencies - ILO, UNFPA, UN-Habitat and the World Food Programme - the Government hopes that the pilot in Uba Budu, Cantagalo district, expands towards a sustainable and eco-friendly agrifood industry in São Tomé and in the Autonomous Region of Príncipe: to improve the production, processing, storage, and local conservation of food.
With the project launch, the four UN agencies set foot on the ground, 24 months ahead. From a local small community towards achieving national food security and nutrition.
Note:
The Joint SDG Fund's joint programmes are under the prestige leadership of the Resident Coordinator Office and implementing United Nations Agencies. With sincere appreciation for the contributions from the European Union and Governments of Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and our private sector funding partners, for a transformative movement towards achieving the SDGs by 2030.
