Country Programming Framework for Sudan Plan of Action (2015-2019): Resilient Livelihoods for Sustainable Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition.

The Country Programming Framework (CPF) is a 5-year nationwide multisectoral document for the period 2015 - 2019, spread across three interlocking timeframes, signed by the Government of Sudan and the FAO Representative in Sudan as a roadmap for FAO-Sudan to support the concerned ministries and the Government in the improvement of food security, reduction of rural poverty, sustainable management of natural resources and overall development of the country’s agriculture sector. It is an update of the CFP 2012 - 2016. The CPF Plan of Action (PoA) for Sudan is a resilience-focused plan to operationalize the Framework. It aims at addressing the key challenges of food insecurity, malnutrition, and rural poverty in hazard-prone areas of Sudan by strengthening the resilience of vulnerable smallholders through a cohesive program supporting relevant household livelihood-protection and recovery, equitable and sustainable management of natural resources and agriculture development initiatives. The PoA, therefore, aims to (i) increase food availability and accessibility; (ii) diversify household incomes in order to decrease the risk of threats and crises faced by landless, marginal, and small-scale men and women farmers; (iii) promote interrelated and mutually supporting and sustainable short-, medium- and long-term interventions at all levels (i.e. household, community and institutional) contributing to overcome the underlying causes of vulnerability in Sudan. The CPF/PoA identifies four strategic intervention areas, namely (1) improved policy and institutional environment; (2) enhancing production, productivity and competitiveness of the crops, livestock and forestry subsectors; (3) natural resource management; and (4) control of threats to Sudanese food chains.
To help eliminate hunger and malnutrition, this PoA aims to (i) increase productivity and improved post-harvest management of crops, livestock, fish farming, and forestry products for smallholders in target wadi catchment areas; (ii) promote drought resilience and recovery of livelihoods, food security, and nutrition of vulnerable pastoralist and agro-pastoralist households; (iii) develop resilience building for malnourished rural families prone to extreme natural shocks (e.g. droughts, floods, pests, and diseases), in partnership with UNICEF and WFP; (iv) enhance resilience for forest-dependent communities in the Gum Arabic Belt; (v) increase production and reduce post-harvest losses of nutrient-rich foods; (vi) facilitate diversification of production; and (vii) incorporate nutrition promotion and education around food systems that build on existing local knowledge, attitudes, and practices.
In order to make agriculture and forestry more productive and sustainable, main actions shall be directed to (i) support disaster risk reduction (DRR) and crisis management in the agriculture sector; (ii) develop drought and heat-tolerant crops; (iii) expand a quality seed production system (with value addition for smallholder farm and community level seed multiplication) through PPPs; (iv) promote climate-smart smallholder agricultural production and post-harvest management through improved adaptive research and participatory extension systems; and (v) develop the national forest resource assessment and monitoring system.
Rural poverty will be mainly addressed through programs for small-scale agricultural development and resilience building for malnourished rural families prone to extreme natural shocks.
To enhance more productive and efficient agricultural and food systems the Plan aims to enhance market access (e.g. through capacity development of producer organizations).
Resilence of livelihoods to disasters will be increased through (i) environment, forestry, and climate change management capacity strengthening; (ii) climate change adaptation in key rainfed food crop, fodder crop, and pasture varieties; (iii) development of a national Transboundary Animal Diseases (TAD) surveillance, monitoring, reporting, early warning, and control system; (iv) promotion of climate-smart smallholder agricultural production and post-harvest management through improved adaptive research and participatory extension systems; and (v) promotion of local knowledge and skills on climate change and adaptation mechanisms.
As for Governance, main actions are (i) institutional strengthening of agricultural decision-makers and support services to promote international best practice in research and extension, climate-smart agriculture, and integrated food nutrition; (ii) support to disaster risk reduction (DRR) and crisis management in the agriculture sector; (iii) definition of a role for private sector service providers to support smallholder farmers in a reformed agriculture sector.