LUSAKA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Zambia on Friday launched an initiative to improve food security aimed at reducing poverty for 3 million smallholder farmers.

The landmark initiative, called Strengthening Climate Resilience of Agricultural Livelihoods in Agro-Ecological Regions (SCRALA) will help small farmers cope with climate risks, make their farming more resilient as well as diversified and give them better access to markets.

The project will be financed by the Zambian government, which has provided 105 million U.S. dollars over the next seven years while a grant of 32 million dollars has been provided by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Green Climate Fund (GCF) and 1.4 million dollars by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Zambian Agriculture Minister Michael Katambo said during the launch that the project supports the government to take meaningful steps to enhance resilience of vulnerable populations in the targeted districts, many of whom are women and youth.

"These women and youth, who are reliant on agriculture-based livelihoods, will benefit from the project through scaled up use of tailor-made weather advisories to inform decision-making by the farming community," he said.

The Zambian minister added that the project will increase the resilience of smallholder farmers as climate change has become a serious challenge to sustainable development which also includes poverty reduction.

Jerry Velasquez, director of GCF's Mitigation and Adaptation Division, said that the increasing effects of climate change are particularly severe for countries like Zambia, where 70 percent of the country's workforce relies on rain-fed agriculture.

"GCF's financial support will help farmers better manage the impacts of climate change through improved climate information and early warning systems, enhance smallholder farmers' access to water for farming, and strengthen farmers' links to rural markets," he said.