FAO's Work in Mountains: Building the Road to Recovery for Mountain Peoples

The COVID-19 crisis has added urgency to an already difficult situation in mountains. Mountain communities are highly dependent on agriculture, tourism, and remittances for their survival, and their vulnerabilities to a range of challenges—including climate change, poverty, and food insecurity—have been exacerbated by the pandemic. This has increased their vulnerability to poverty and hunger. The aftershocks of COVID-19 deepen concern as to whether the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can be achieved. The Mountain Partnership is the only United Nations alliance of partners dedicated to improving the lives of mountain peoples and protecting mountain environments. Its secretariat is hosted at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It is working to improve opportunities for mountain peoples in the 2030 Agenda spirit of leaving no one behind.

The COVID-19 crisis has added urgency to an already difficult situation in mountains. Mountain communities are highly dependent on agriculture, tourism, and remittances for their survival, and their vulnerabilities to a range of challengesincluding climate change, poverty, and food insecurity-have been exacerbated by the pandemic. This has increased their vulnerability to poverty and hunger. The aftershocks of COVID-19 deepen concern as to whether the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can be achieved. The Mountain Partnership is the only United Nations alliance of partners dedicated to improving the lives of mountain peoples and protecting mountain environments. Its secretariat is hosted at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It is working to improve opportunities for mountain peoples in the 2030 Agenda spirit of leaving no one behind.

Leading the way for sustainable mountain development
Within the United Nations (UN) system, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has played a leading role in sustainable mountain development since 1992, when it was appointed task manager for Chapter 13 of Agenda 21 (UNCED 1992

Highlighting solutions in mountains
MP members promote the prioritization of mountains on national, regional, and global agendas by building synergies with key UN and international processes. As part of the process toward the UN Food Systems Summit, the MP highlighted the relevance of sustainable food systems in mountains as development drivers. With the Centre for Development and Environment (MPS and Tribaldos 2021), it developed an information sheet and hosted an independent dialogue and a parallel session during the presummit meeting. Several MP members brought forward solutions for advancing action and recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in mountains through sustainable food systems. Proposals included enabling access to services and education to create alternative livelihood options and youth engagement, building equitable and sustainable value chains for mountain producers, and strengthening and maintaining traditional knowledge, including agroecology approaches.
In the lead-up to the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the MPS developed a policy brief calling on the parties to the CBD to ensure that mountains are explicitly included in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and in all CBD processes (MPS 2021). The brief promotes the identification, development, and inclusion of indicators specifically related to and important for safeguarding mountain biodiversity and mountain communities. These include the mountain green cover index (FAO nd)

Improving livelihoods in mountains
The MP Products (MPP) Initiative (Figure 2) promotes sustainable food systems, agrobiodiversity conservation, and strengthening of value chains in mountain regions. To date, around 10,000 farmers-6000 of whom are women-have benefited from technical and marketing support. In addition, the labeling scheme has helped some mountain producers to increase their selling price by up to 25%.
In 2020, a new joint initiative aimed at enhancing agrifood value chains to increase the resilience of mountain communities was officially launched. Involving the MPS, the UN Development Programme Global Environment Facility's Small Grants Programme, and Slow Food International, the partnership offers a mix of financial and technical support to mountain producers. Projects focusing on women, youth, or indigenous peoples are being prioritized, and the first call for proposals targets Guatemala, Lesotho, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, and Rwanda.
A project funded by the government of Japan aims to build capacities in a risk-based watershed management approach while developing sustainable agricultural value chains to improve local livelihoods. Activities for the Enhancing Community Resilience to Climate Change in Mountain Watersheds project will be implemented in Peru and the Philippines, with lessons learned disseminated to other mountain areas.  In collaboration with IFOAM -Organics International, the MPS held online training sessions on implementing participatory guarantee system initiatives for MPP producers in Latin America between July 2020 and January 2021.

Outlook
The vulnerabilities of mountain peoples, the potential of sustainable mountain food systems as development drivers, and the importance of mountain ecosystem services mean that including mountains in the UN Decade of Action is vital to achieving the 2030 Agenda. The MPS supports sustainable development in mountain regions through advocacy for mountain issues by building synergies with key international processes, developing mountain-specific tools and solutions, and promoting country-specific activities and investments. The MPS continues to foster multistakeholder members' engagement, strengthening knowledge and skills and promoting campaigns for wide engagement that highlight why mountains matter.