Partnership with WASAG to stimulate policy dialogue and implementation practices on salinisation

Salinisation is rapidly becoming one of the biggest challenges to food production worldwide. Salinity severely affects crop development and growth, threatening food security, biodiversity, and the livelihoods of millions of people in various parts of the world. Global cooperation and collective action are deemed essential to effectively address this issue.

About the partnership

Hosted by the Land and Water Division of the FAO, WASAG aims to catalyse international cooperation on water scarcity in agriculture by uniting diverse stakeholders, including government agencies, United Nations (UN) bodies, research institutions, universities, advocacy groups, civil society organizations, companies, and other institutions. The partnership with WASAG is in the context of the Saline Water & Food Systems Partnership, which is jointly convened by the Netherlands Food Partnership (NFP) and the Netherlands Water Partnership. Together with NFP, NWP particularly contributes to the work of the WASAG Partnership by offering expertise with ongoing initiatives at the water-food interface, particularly the issue of salinisation. An example was the high-level hybrid event 'Towards a High-Level Dialogue on the Global Framework on Water Scarcity in Agriculture (WASAG), hosted at the FAO headquarters in Rome, last April. 

Jean Ruhiza Boroto, the senior Land and Water officer at FAO and WASAG’s team lead underscores the significance of the collaboration. "Through the partnership between WASAG, NWP, and NFP, we extend and deepen the longstanding collaboration between the Netherlands and FAO. We hope to benefit from mutual knowledge sharing on salinity and saline agriculture.” Nicole Hellwig of NWP, echoes this sentiment, stating: "Our partnership with WASAG marks a pivotal moment in our global initiative against salinisation, a commitment we unveiled during the UN 2023 Water Conference alongside NFP. We eagerly anticipate collaborating with WASAG and its esteemed partners to cultivate knowledge, craft guidelines, and best practices, to provide innovative responses to water scarcity in agriculture.’’