FAO taps Carla Mucavi to Kenya office

Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has appointed Mrs. Carla Elisa Luis Mucavi from Mozambique as the new representative to Kenya.

Before her appointment on November 1, 2020, Mucavi was Director of the FAO Liaison Office at the UN Headquarters in New York. 

The diplomat was welcomed by the Cabinet Secretary Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives after assuming her duties at the end of the mandatory two-week quarantine.

Mucavi, the first woman to hold the position of FAO Representative in Kenya, succeeds Dr. Heslon Gabriel Rugalema.

The FAO Kenya head assumes office after the organisation issued a desert locust invasion warning earlier, sighting important and widespread breeding in eastern Ethiopia and central Somalia, with new swarms expected to fly south to Kenya from mid-November and mid-December.

Support

Kenya Defence Forces has also been engaged by the Ministry and trained by FAO to support spraying affected regions of the country.

In addition to locust response, FAO will continue to support the country in line with the National Agriculture Sector Growth and Transformation Strategy (2019-2029), FAO’s Hand in Hand Initiative and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for Kenya.

Mucavi takes office at a time when Kenya’s agriculture, the country’s highest foreign exchange earner sector is in the spotlight, amid global travel restrictions adversely affecting sectors like tourism and manufacturing.

Kenya has allocated Sh1.3 billion to enhance resilience of pastoral communities as they battle the locust invasion. 

This is meant to sustain the farming communities as they employ thousands of workers in the agricultural sector.