The 2026 FAO Partnership Award was jointly awarded to HELP Logistics, the Jordan Youth Innovation Forum, and the Maasai Integrated Development Initiative, recognizing their strong results for people and communities across diverse contexts.
The annual prize pays tribute to outstanding cooperation with FAO in advancing its mandate, including partnerships with Members, UN agencies, international institutions, academia, civil society, the private sector and media.
Speaking at the award ceremony held on Wednesday at FAO’s headquarters in Rome, Director-General QU Dongyu praised the winners, highlighting that their achievements demonstrate how collaboration, knowledge-sharing and action-driven partnerships can drive transformation.
“These partnerships reflect different contexts and approaches, but share an important characteristic: working towards concrete results for people and communities,” Qu said. “Your achievements demonstrate that transformation happens when we work together, share knowledge and best practices, to turn partnerships into coherent action.”
Noting that no single institution can address today’s global challenges alone, the Director-General described partnerships as critical to make agrifood systems more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable.
The 2026 Awardees
HELP Logistics, a non-profit subsidiary of the Switzerland-based Kühne Foundation, was recognized for its partnership with FAO in strengthening humanitarian agricultural supply chains through a structured, innovative and scalable approach. Over the past decade, the collaboration has combined FAO’s technical leadership with supply chain expertise to deliver a comprehensive Supply Chain Action Plan, endorsed in December 2025. As the strategy moves into implementation, it is expected to improve the efficiency, coordination, and timeliness of agricultural input delivery in crisis settings, and to serve as a replicable model for strengthening supply chain operations across regions.
The partnership between FAO and the Jordan Youth Innovation Forum was recognized for advancing youth engagement and innovation in agrifood systems. By establishing a national platform that integrates innovation, policy dialogue and capacity development, the initiative has delivered measurable results, including strengthened youth skills and innovation pipelines aligned with national priorities. The creation of a World Food Forum National Youth Chapter ensures sustainability and offers a model for replication in other countries.
The Maasai Integrated Development Initiative (MIDI) was recognized for promoting climate-resilient pastoral development through innovative agroecological approaches. In partnership with FAO, it has successfully adapted the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) framework and the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) to pastoral systems. The initiative has strengthened biodiversity, livestock productivity and community wellbeing, while reaching 10 villages and 23 additional self-help groups – 90 percent led by women – demonstrating inclusive and scalable impact.
