ROME, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Italian government is to donate 10 million euros (13 million U.S. dollars) to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for agricultural and rural development programs and food security projects this year, the FAO said on Thursday.

    "We warmly thank the Italian government for this new contribution at a time when the ongoing economic and financial crisis risks reducing the level of development assistance," assistant director-general Jos Mara Sumpsi, who heads FAO's Department of Technical Cooperation, said.

    The new donation, from the Italian Directorate of Development Cooperation, raises the nation's voluntary, extra-budgetary contributions to the FAO to a total of 60 million euros (78 million dollars), making Italy one of the organization's leading donors.

    "We are glad to be able to direct part of Italy's development assistance funding toward the FAO's agricultural and rural development programs. We share the organization's objectives of combating hunger and poverty for sustainable development," Pietro Sebastiani, Italy's representative to the United Nations agencies in Rome, said.

    Italy said it intends to put food security and in particular hunger in Africa as a central focus of the Group of Eight in 2009,when it holds the group's rotating presidency.

    Of the 100 million euros (130 million dollars) pledged by Italy in 2002 during the World Food Summit, 87 million euros (113 million dollars) have been paid up, the FAO said.

    The funds were paid into the FAO's Food Security Trust Fund, helping implement 29 national projects in 41 countries as well as regional projects in 15 Caribbean countries and in 15 Pacific Small Island Developing States.

    In 2008, the Italian government approved about four million euros (5.2 million dollars) in support of the FAO activities in crucial sectors such as biodiversity and environmental protection as well as development initiatives in Laos and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

    Italy's voluntary contributions to the FAO's emergency program shave also helped finance projects in particularly vulnerable food-insecure regions such as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the Middle East, Eritrea, Djibouti, Uganda, Myanmar, and the DPRK, among others, the FAO said.