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Agriculture and food security

Agriculture and food security

Many refugees originate from rural areas and hold valuable agricultural skills as crop producers, livestock keepers or fishermen. Given the right support and assets, they have the potential to not only feed themselves and their families but enter lucrative markets and prosper. They could contribute to local economic development, benefiting refugees and host communities alike.

UNHCR helps refugee farmers to be economically empowered and food secure through sustainable, climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive agricultural livelihoods.
UN Refugee Agency UNHCR agriculture food security for refugees farmers livestock keepers fisherman sustainable, climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive agricultural livelihoods

Our work is focused on supporting refugee farmers to improve their production efficiency and access viable markets, as well as to become more resilient against risks such as extreme weather conditions and market shocks. Our goal is to see farmers and host communities become economically empowered and food secure through sustainable, climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive agricultural livelihoods. 

To achieve this, we collaborate with development actors and specialized agencies in agriculture:

  • Our joint strategy with the World Food Programme the framework for collaborative initiatives to enhance food security and self-reliance by synchronizing livelihoods interventions and food assistance in a sequenced and protection-sensitive strategy.
  • We are strengthening our cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN through joint agriculture development programmes for refugees, including value chain development for livestock, forage, crops and vegetables. 
  • We partnered up with the World Bank to conduct a study on new agricultural approaches that can be adopted in refugee contexts. 
  • We are working to mainstream climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive agriculture in new funding opportunities including with private sector donors such as the IKEA Foundation.

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