19 April 2012, Baku, Azerbaijan - Estonia has signed an agreement with FAO that for the first time provides voluntary funding to the Organization's development programme.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva and the Estonian Minister of Agriculture Helir-Valdor Seeder at a ceremony on 18 April, the day before the opening of the Regional Conference for Europe.

It commits Estonia to long-term support for FAO's core work on food security and rural poverty reduction, economic development and environmentally sustainable agriculture. Estonia provides an initial 23 000 euros to finance the use of its agricultural experts in FAO development projects. The money will also help strengthen statistics in Moldova.

The agreement, which specifies that Estonia would like to assist countries from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucuses, runs until 2017. A member of the European Union since 2004, Estonia becomes an FAO development programme donor at a time when international aid has fallen due to the global recession, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

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