Mr. President,

I will be delivering this statement on behalf of the List E.

First of all, the countries within our List express gratitude to the WFP Secretariat for preparation of this substantial and well-structured document. We highly appreciate the work done by the WFP Regional and Country Offices as well.

We welcome the WFP contribution to social and economic development of Nicaragua, which has helped this country to achieve a remarkable progress in reducing hunger and undernutrition in the last decade. Of course, it would not be possible without full and comprehensive support to the WFP initiatives from the Government of Nicaragua.

Our list supports four Strategic Outcomes proposed by the current CSP aimed at saving and changing people’s lives. We note with appreciation an important strategic shift of this CSP towards new areas of collaboration including climate change adaptation, resilience building and the pursuit of gender equality as a catalyst for zero hunger. But at the same time we underline the importance of proper planning and adequate funding of the traditional in-kind assistance identified as the most preferred assistance modality by the Government of Nicaragua.

We consider school meals as a core component of the national social protection system that could be leveraged to ensure access to food for the most vulnerable groups in the country and to promote community resilience and women’s economic empowerment through a home-grown school meals approach.

We appreciate the WFP’s Nicaragua Country office intension to expand its partnerships with the Rome-based agencies and other UN agencies, especially in the spheres of rural development, enhancement of early warning systems and strengthening of national programmes that focus on home gardening, sustainable agricultural production and linkages to smallholder farmers.

We believe that the submitted document represents a fair platform for WFP action towards existing challenges in the country and support the respective CSP for Nicaragua.

Thank you, Mr. President.