FAO-CIDA partnership - From responding to shocks to building resilience in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
In the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS), recurrent conflict and restrictions over natural resources, markets and services are depriving families of their basic needs for survival and placing their ability to cope under severe strain.
Food security and livelihoods have been directly impacted by controls on the movement of people and goods; impediments to construction and infrastructure investment; confiscation of land and natural resources; and the direct destruction of homes, crops, livestock assets and infrastructure. Unable to produce food or earn income, many are becoming dependent on external aid.
Small-scale farmers, herders and fishers in the WBGS are among the hardest hit populations, despite the potential of agriculture to reduce reliance on imported food, minimize vulnerability to international price hikes and increase economic access to food by enhancing employment and income.
The loss of Palestinian land, limited access to markets, destruction of key agricultural assets (including water resources), and the separation of farmers from their fields and fishers from the sea continue to sever the rural poor from their livelihood.