Korea supports implementation of new FAO Cash-for-Work project in Anjar

Three Korean experts from the Forest Research Institute in the Republic of Korea paid a visit to Lebanon on 2-5 December 2019 with a chief aim to explore the Lebanese forests, within the framework of latest collaboration between FAO and Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Experts’ first destination was Anjar in the Bekaa where they held meetings with local actors and authorities, followed by the Cedars of God in Besharre-North Lebanon and selected sites affected by the latest fires that sparked in the lower Chouf in Mount Lebanon.

On November 18, 2019, H.E. Young-Dae Kwon, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Lebanon, and Dr. Maurice Saade, FAO Representative in Lebanon, signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the implementation of FAO-led project titled “Enhancing the Resilience of Vulnerable Refugee Communities through Cash-for-Work”.  The project will be implemented in collaboration with the Association for Forests, Development and Conversation (AFDC) and the Lebanon Reforestation Initiative (LRI).

Korea, though its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, contributed an amount of USD500,000 to the said project aiming at enhancing the livelihoods of vulnerable Lebanese and displaced Syrians through labor-intensive reforestation and forest management activities in the municipality of Anjar in Bekaa. More specifically, and in close collaboration with the Ministry of the Agriculture (MoA) and the Municipality of Anjar, the project will implement reforestation and forest management activities over an area of 95 ha. This will be done through recruiting Lebanese and displaced Syrians laborers from Anjar, Kfarzabad and Qab Elias in the Bekaa governorate.

Through this project, the laborers will receive training on reforestation and forest management techniques, creating by that short-term jobs for both the displaced and local communities while contributing to sustainable forest management, creation of green belts and wildfire prevention.