MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: EBRD, UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Training Farmer Cooperatives in Serbia

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), a UK-based development bank, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an Italy-based organization of the UN dedicated to addressing world hunger, recently have united to support farmer cooperatives in Serbia. With assistance from the Serbian government, the Serbian Union of Cooperatives and an undisclosed quantity of funding from the government of Luxembourg, EBRD and FAO have arranged seven roundtable meetings at various locations in Serbia. At these meetings, members of agricultural cooperatives and individual farmers are taught about the benefits of cooperatives, strategies to make them financially sustainable and how to conduct government-required audits. One year after the last of the roundtables has been held, FAO and EBRD will conduct a nationwide assessment of agricultural cooperatives to measure the impact of the project.

Headquartered in Rome, FAO works toward the “sustainable management” of natural resources, eliminating poverty and eradicating hunger. It does this by devising policy measures, collecting and disseminating data, and partnering with development banks to address problems associated with agriculture and natural resource scarcity. As of 2018, FAO has 194 member nations, and it operates in 130 countries. The organization’s budget for the 2019 fiscal year is USD 2.6 billion, including 39 percent from donor countries and 61 percent contributed by private-sector partners such as advocacy groups, foundations and research institutions.

EBRD was founded in 1991 and has 66 shareholding countries – plus the EU and the European Investment Bank – as of 2018. With a focus on “the promotion of private and entrepreneurial initiative,” it invested EUR 9.7 billion (USD 11.2 billion) during 2017 in companies in 36 countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. As of 2018, EBRD has invested EUR 4.7 billion (USD 5.4 billion) in 200 projects in Serbia.

By Nicholas Galimberti, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

EBRD press release
https://www.ebrd.com/news/2018/ebrd-and-fao-aim-to-boost-serbian-cooperatives-through-training.html

FAO background
http://www.fao.org/about/en/

World Farmer Organization description of cooperatives
http://www.wfo-oma.org/documents/agricultural-cooperatives.html

MicroCapital Brief; September 21, 2018; UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), MasterCard Partner to Build Inclusive Payment Systems in Low-Income Economies
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-uns-food-and-agriculture-organization-fao-mastercard-partner-to-build-inclusive-payment-systems-in-low-income-economies/

MicroCapital Brief; May 29, 2018; EBRD Loans $59m in Local Currency to ProCredit Bank of Bulgaria for On-lending to SMEs
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-ebrd-loans-59m-in-local-currency-to-procredit-bank-of-bulgaria-for-on-lending-to-smes/

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