FAO Representatives in the Near East and North Africa Region, Assistant FAO Representatives, technical officers from the regional office and staff from Office of Strategic Planning (OSP), Office of Human Resources (OHR) and Economic and Social (ES) Programming are meeting in Cairo in a two-day learning workshop on Country Programming Framework.

The Objective of the workshop is to strengthen the capacities in the FAO Representation and in the Regional Office for the formulation of country programming framework using the new CPF process, templates and tools.

In his words of introduction, Mr. Abdessalam Ould Ahmed, Assistant-Director General and Regional Representative, stressed the importance of the Country Programming Framework as a strategic tool to guide the cooperation with the member countries. “It is the main delivery mechanism of the FAO Strategic Framework and therefore Country ownership is critical for the relevance and success of the CPF” he stressed.  He underlined the enormous progresses made by the organization in integrating the FAO work at country level in the global programme of work of the organization. “While the FAO Representatives are driving the CPF process, it is important to recall that it is a corporate endeavor supported by the management at the highest level” he added.

“The purpose of this workshop is to closely work with FAO representatives who will be preparing Country Program Frameworks (CPFs) and to make sure that they apply the new approach to CPF formulation and end up with the best quality in their CPS” said Mr. Salomon Salcedo, Senior Strategic learning Officer at the OSP.

Participants will actively engage in discussions on Managing for Results, the new CPF process, The SDGs and the mainstreaming of gender, nutrition and climate change in the CPF. The workshop includes also hands-on exercises and cases studies on the formulation of CPFs, Priority setting and resources mobilization.

It is expected that at the end of the workshop, the FAO Representatives and Assistant FAO Representatives will be able to formulate high Quality CPFs. A number of FAO Representatives are planning to develop Country Programming Frameworks during the course of 2017.