On Saturday, 6 December, Mr. Grant Morrison, Deputy Director of the Middle East Development Unit in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs andTawfic Raad, Programs Manager at the Australian Representative Office in Ramallah, paid a visit to the food security project (AMENCA 2) that MA’AN is conducting in the Tulkarem Governorate in partnership with Australian NGO, Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA.
The visit started with meeting beneficiaries and community-based organizations members in the Kafryat Municipality. Mr. Imad Al Zibdeh, Mayor of Kafriyat, highlighted how the project managed to leave a permanent development impact in the area, evident in an enhanced productivity, irrigation, and access to land.
Mr. Sami Khader, Director General of MA’AN, welcomed the guest and highlighted the achievements of the project that included enhancing the access to 3300 dunums through agricultural roads, increasing the productivity of 796 dunums of land, and enhancing the irrigation of 1270 dunums of land through irrigation pipelines.
The visit included visiting samples of different project activities such as land rehabilitation, greenhouses, beekeeping, and irrigation networks. Mr. Morrison also visited the “Women’s Training and Empowerment Center” that was created through a grant from the project. The visit was concluded with a visit to “Beit Qad Permaculture Farm” established by MA’AN in Jenin.
At the end, Mr. Morrison praised the project’s contribution to enhancing the food security of residents and indicated that a future phase of the project is needed to duplicate and spread the success to other areas and localities.
The program is being implemented jointly in both the WB and GS and covers seven villages near the Barrier Wall in the Tulkarem Governorate and three villages near the Access Restricted Area in the Khan Younis Governate. To date, the project has constructed and rehabilitated about 880 greenhouses, rehabilitated 1523 dunums, rehabilitating 7.8km of agricultural roads, constructed and rehabilitated 253 cisterns, and distributed 429 beehives and 115 chicken units.
The project has also built the capacity of community-based organizations working in the areas through providing more than 700 hours of training to staff and members, conducting 25 awareness-raising civic debates, and providing 40 grants to these organizations to be better able provide services to their communities.
