Photo captions: Minister for Agriculture Hon. Dr. Mahendra Reddy and UN Resident Coordinator for the Pacific H.E Sanaka Samarasinha with villagers of Votua Village in Lekutu Bua and from surrounding settlements following the announcement of the TC Yasa Emergency Support Project

 "The beauty of this project is that it deals with three different groups of people, not just the farmers will benefit but the farming households, the households of our fishermen and in particular households with people with special needs and I want to thank H.E Samarasinha for ensuring that households with persons with disabilities are not overlooked," said Hon. Reddy.

"This package, worth $1million provided by the UN through the FAO Office for agricultural households as well as households engaged in inshore fisheries will allow them to re-engage in the primary sector, fisheries or agriculture to produce for their household as well as generate surplus that can meet other cash demands that the household has," he added.

Minister Reddy made special mention of the timeliness of the assistance and praised the UN for rendering their support through the project within weeks of TC Yasa; "within 8 weeks of the cyclone, we were able to put together a very definitive proposal with detailed summary undertaken by the NDMO and the Ministry of Agriculture of each agricultural household affected by TC Yasa and we were able to put that data to demonstrate who were the most vulnerable households of those affected," he said.

The UNs intervention through the project will strengthen and restore the farming capacities of 2,200 households and entails the provision of planting materials, along with tool kits to be distributed to these 2,200 households across the hardest hit provinces in Fiji.

Another component of the project is targeting the small-scale fishermen who have lost all their assets and will target more than 1,100 vulnerable fishermen; additionally, the project will ensure specific attention is paid to people living with disabilities in affected communities with the FAO to liaise with the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation and the Pacific Disability Forum to identify people with disabilities and propose to adjust and tailor the agricultural packages to be adapted to their specific needs and capacities.

-ENDS-

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