ACSAD & FAO/ Enhancing cooperation
His Excellency, the Director-General of the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Drylands, Dr. Nasr Edin Obaid, and the resident representative of the food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Damascus, Dr. Mike Robinson, have discussed the history of joint cooperation and its current reality, the means to enhance and develop it in the various areas of ACSAD work that would reflect positively and tangibly on the agriculture sector in the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Syrian farmers and livestock breeders whom the supreme objective for the ACSAD Organization`s work, projects, and activities programs, in the presence of concerned experts from both sides.
Dr. Obaid confirmed that ACSAD`s new strategy and work methodology`s axes were the cooperation, participation, and integration with the international and regional organizations to implementing agricultural development projects to achieve the trilogy of spending rationalization, the improvement of performance, and work development. He also noted that ACSAD could work and cooperate with FAO and all the organization under the shadow of comprehensive framework cooperation convention signed between ACSAD and the Ministery of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, and several memorandums of understanding signed with the Syndicate of Agricultural Engineers, the General Union of Peasants, Universities and various Syrian relevant bodies.
He also expressed ACSAD`s keenness to cooperate with the FAO in implementing development projects and programs in various areas of its work; regarding ACSAD as an outstanding house of experience in carrying out the projects benefited by the farmers and breeders in Syria; as well as ACSAD`s projects are operational and practical of animal and plant wealth, the integrated management of water resources, land studies and combating desertification, restoring the degraded land and pastures development, and other areas of ACSAD`s work.
In his part, Dr. Robinson welcomed his Excellency, the Director-General, and ACSAD`s delegation; he praised Dr. Obaid`s initiative to strengthen and develop the cooperation with the FAO, noting the excellent reputation of ACSAD and its intensifying activities recently. He also confirmed FAO`s keenness to collaborate and benefit from ACSAD`s experiences in Syria, especially that ACSAD owned thirteen research stations spreading throughout the Syrian Arab Republic, which would help to implement the joint projects perfectly fine.
During the meeting held in the FAO office at Damascus on 16/3/2021, both sides agreed to prepare and implement the project of establishing an integrated system for animal milk ( production cycles, assembly, and manufacturing), and the project of rainwater-harvesting, rehabilitation of irrigation nets, and the project to enhancing the role of pastoral communities in Syrian desert (Al-Badia) in the face of climate changes.
Both sides expressed their happiness for that transparent successful, and fruitful meeting; they confirmed they had thus laid down a good foundation in the cooperation process between ACSAD and FAO. They also agreed on continuous consultation, which would positively reflect on the agriculture sector in Syria and the Syrian farmers and breeders.
