Bilateral meeting with the President of Iraq – H.E. Abdul Latif Rashid

New York – FAO Director-General QU Dongyu met His Excellency Abdul Latif Rashid, President of Iraq, on 23 March 2023 in New York on the sidelines of the UN 2023 Water Conference.

The Director-General congratulated the President on his appointment in October 2022, also recalling that President Rashid had previously worked in FAO, including in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The Director-General thanked President Rashid for his contributions to, and advocacy of, FAO's work and mandate, and spoke of a continued fruitful outlook of collaboration between Iraq and FAO moving forward.

President Rashid likewise conveyed his appreciation to the Director-General for FAO’s ongoing support, in particular considering the several and closely interconnected challenges that Iraq has been facing and to which FAO's expertise can prove critical. President Rashid outlined key areas in which he sees FAO's advisory, technical and resource mobilization support as timely, including drought response and risk management in contexts of rain shortages and rising temperatures; innovative irrigation and water harvesting practices and technologies; response to rising deforestation and prevalence of sandstorms; land degradation monitoring and surveillance systems; sustainable use and storage of water; and the need for meteorological monitoring stations.

The Director-General received these calls for support with attention, outlining how the FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31, anchored in the four pillars of Better Production, Better Nutrition, a Better Environment and a Better Life, represent a balanced and crosscutting response to these pressing sustainability, environmental, natural resource and agricultural production challenges. The Director-General further reaffirmed FAO's readiness to provide its technical support, in particular in land and water, and in forestry, as well as through the FAO Investment Centre to help mobilize the needed resources and expertise. The Director-General also confirmed FAO’s commitment to continue working together with the Government of Iraq on joint project proposals that can be informed by actionable solutions and by the needs, opportunities and tradeoffs specific to the Iraqi context.

The two also agreed on the urgent need for action against the backdrop of the current global challenges, which needed to be addressed in an interconnected manner, especially those related to rural development, agricultural innovation, and leveraging urban-rural linkages and promoting green cities, all of which contribute to a systems-wide approach for the effective transformation of agrifood systems.

The Director-General also highlighted recent FAO efforts and important platforms, such as the World Food Forum and its pillars, including the Science and Innovation Forum and the Hand-in-Hand Investment Forum, which together have contributed to developing actionable solutions for global agrifood systems transformations. The Director-General invited Iraq to participate in this year’s World Food Forum as an opportunity to present its proposals for agrifood systems transformations and outline investment opportunities and best practices at the juncture of food and water security.