APN | Cairo

16 April 2026

During her engagement in the FAO Civil Society Consultation for the Near East and North Africa region, held in Egypt on 16 April 2026, APN Chairperson, Razan Zuayter, called for a reassessment of humanitarian and development approaches in the region. She stressed that the gap between humanitarian response, recovery efforts, development, and peacebuilding remains wide, despite international consensus on the importance of the so-called “Triple Nexus”.

In her intervention, she stated:

“Although the United Nations has highly qualified expertise, prominent national figures, and vast capacities to achieve major accomplishments, we have nevertheless witnessed a systemic failure in linking humanitarian response with recovery, development, and peace efforts. Local communities are often viewed as mere beneficiaries or people in need of material assistance, rather than as actors capable of building their own resilience and food sovereignty systems.

In the example we shared with you yesterday, we were able - despite limited resources - to link humanitarian and relief dimensions with development through our Revive Gaza’s Farmland project. We believe that institutionalized partnership between civil society and FAO can bridge the gap between theoretical programs and reality, and more importantly, between governments and farmers and food producers, who are the ones who sustain us and keep us alive on this earth.

Civil society can transform broad, abstract concepts such as climate change and sustainable development into tangible, meaningful realities”.