On Wednesday 17 July, the WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger in Brazil, represented by Director Daniel Balaban and Partnership Officer Joélcio Carvalho, met with the Executive Secretary of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, Kelli Cristine de Oliveira Mafort. The meeting was held to present the work of the Centre of Excellence and the WFP and to strengthen relations.
When presenting the WFP’s work around the world, it was emphasised that the WFP is the UN’s largest humanitarian agency, carrying out global operations in both the purchase and distribution of food for more than 130 million people around the world. These operations, as well as being essential for saving lives, can be an opportunity to promote markets for Brazilian family farmers by creating opportunities for international sales.
The Centre of Excellence, in turn, is a platform funded by the Brazilian government itself to disseminate public policies to combat hunger and poverty, such as the National School Feeding Programme (PNAE, in Portuguese) and the Food Acquisition Programme (PAA, in Portuguese), as well as Brazilian social technologies such as cisterns, underground dams and productive transition to regenerative and agroecological practices.
Secretary Kelli Mafort said that she was interested in deepening discussions with the WFP and how the General Secretariat of the Presidency could invite and articulate channels for inter-ministerial dissemination and with civil society, through the National Commission for Agroecology and Organic Production (CNAPO, in Portuguese).