A fruitful meeting with the Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Dr. Qu Dongyu was held yesterday, Wednesday 23 March 2022, at the headquarters of the Organization in Rome by the Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment Mr. During the meeting, the common objectives of Cyprus and FAO, areas of particular expertise and experience, as well as opportunities to further strengthen cooperation between the two parties were discussed. Kadis stressed that Cyprus and FAO have remained committed partners in the fight against global hunger and malnutrition since 1960 and thanked the Director-General for his and the Organization's endless efforts to put food security and malnutrition at the top of the global political agenda. He added that Cyprus has a wealth of expertise in the field of aquaculture, referred to the activities of the Agricultural Research Institute and the Universities of Cyprus and reiterated Cyprus' willingness to disseminate this knowledge to other countries through FAO.
The Minister underlined the importance that Cyprus attaches to tackling climate change and briefed Dr Qu on the latest developments surrounding the President's initiative to coordinate the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East in order to tackle the phenomenon. In this context, he invited the Director General to the June Ministerial Meeting to finalize the Regional Action Plan and the October Regional Summit for the ratification of the Action Plan by the Heads of State. Dr. Qu warmly congratulated the Minister on Cyprus' important initiative, stressing that FAO would support it, and stated that he would make efforts to attend the Summit. In turn, Dr. Qu invited Mr. Kadi to participate in the Science and Innovation Week to be held for the first time at FAO in early October.
An important topic of discussion was the alarming food security situation due to conflict, severe climate variability, the downward trend of the economy and inequality, exacerbated by pandemic COVID-19. He stressed that Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine, among other things, opened a huge wound with incalculable damage to food sufficiency and food prices globally and called on FAO to continuously provide updated analytical data on the impact of the war on food security, food prices, fertilizer prices, commodity markets and the food supply chain. For his part, the Director-General said that FAO as a technical organization has been working since day one on the crisis in Ukraine and that he strongly supports the UN Secretary-General's Global Crisis Response Team on food, energy and the economy.
At the same time, the Minister presented the Director-General with halloumi, as well as a copy of the drawing by schoolgirl Leoni Vassiliou, which received the first prize in the FAO World Poster Competition to celebrate World Food Day 2021, in the 13-15 age group.
(NΓ/ΣΧ)
Contents of this article including associated images are owned by PIO
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or PIO
Source
