Lebanon National Agriculture Strategy (NAS) 2020 – 2025

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Lebanon is facing an unprecedented period of challenges and stresses, triggered by the financial and economic crises following the start of the popular protests in mid-October 2019, coupled with the effects of the Covid-19 outbreaks in mid-March 2020. The risks and uncertainties the country is facing require an effort by all productive sectors. In such a difficult context, the agri-food sector can play a key role in absorbing the crises-induced economic shocks as well as contributing to the recovery of the Lebanese economy, eventually contributing to bring the economy on a sustainable growth path. This calls for a clear set of interventions and priorities to make possible immediate recovery, build longer term resilience and pave the road for a transformative sustainable development. To this end, the National Agriculture Strategy 2020-2025

 Lebanon National Agriculture Strategy – NAS 2020-2025 6 (NAS) represents the operational instrument to transform the agri-food sector thus responding to the various demands accruing from the Lebanese society. The NAS canvasses a consistent policy and investment framework for the agri-food sector that will help in: (a) mobilizing required national and external resources for priority public investments; (b) encouraging/triggering private investments in the sector; (c) supporting the coordination between different actors; (d) consolidating the policy framework. This is fully acknowledged by the Response Plan,5 endorsed by the Government in May 2020. In these two documents, the agri-food sector is considered as one of the drivers for the relief, recovery and development of the whole country’s economy. NAS Overall Objective. The NAS will contribute to increase the standards of living of the Lebanese people both in the short-run (recovery) and in the longer run (development) because it will transform the Lebanese agri-food system in a more resilient, inclusive, competitive, and sustainable agri-food system. The NAS structure and contents fully reflect national priorities (the ownership), identifying a set of feasible interventions that are based on analytical works (the evidence) and respond to stakeholders’ perceptions and priorities (the demands). Audience. The NAS is a tool to facilitate evidence-based decision-making process for the stakeholders involved in the agri-food sector. While it primarily serves as strategic guiding document for the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), it aims to reach out all stakeholders involved in the agriculture, food and nutrition security sector – within the public institutions as well as among external actors, development partners and private entrepreneurs and their organizations. Maximizing efficiency of public finance, and catalyzing private financing to bring results to scale. The NAS broad audience and the breadth of interventions represent an opportunity to enlarge the participation in the decision-making process. Moreover, although the NAS is meant primarily to mobilize resources for public investment, it offers also policy, regulatory and institutional measures to encourage private investment in the agri-food sector as the major contributor to the dynamics of the sector, with public resources geared to provide the enabling conditions to unlock the investment potential. Monitoring and stakeholders dialogue to keep momentum and relevance. The regular monitoring and communication mechanism related to the NAS will allow to identify progress and advancements towards the set targets, but also to facilitate an evidence-based stakeholders dialogue in order to provide continuously relevant strategic guidance. The MoA will play a critical role in this but a joint effort is required also by other institutions to ensure an effective NAS governance.

[pdf-embedder url="https://www.e-lebanon.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/NAS-web-Eng-7Sep2020.pdf"]

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