St Vincent and the Grenadines is among CARICOM countries which will design multiple projects from international sources, allowing them to improve the resilience and adaptation of agriculture, food systems and rural communities to change the climate.
The projects stem from a new fund created by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID).
The agreement, signed in Rome last week by Director-General of FAO, José Graziano da Silva, and Luis Videgaray, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico creates the fund, which will have an initial budget of US$500,000, contributed in equal parts of US$250,000.
Ten of the projects will be presented to the Green Climate Fund, twelve to the Global Environment Facility and five to various European Union mechanisms. They will focus on vulnerable rural communities facing climate risks.
The fund between Mexico and FAO will also support CARICOM countries develop their institutional and technical capacities for planning, decision-making and project management, to enable them to better cope with natural disasters and extreme weather events.
Mexican experts and specialists from FAO will work side by side with their Caribbean counterparts in the design and implementation of the projects.
The countries that will develop the projects are St Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.