FAO Council approves plan to establish Office of Youth and Women
Rome – QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, congratulated Members for approving his plan to establish an Office of Youth and Women, saying its actions would serve as “real game changers” for the Four Betters and to coordinate implementation of the FAO Strategic Framework over the next decade and beyond.
In closing remarks after the week-long 174th FAO Council, a governance body, Qu also recognized that, amid some disagreements, Members were always able to reach compromise and consensus and be united under FAO’s noble mandate for the elimination of hunger and poverty.
“The complex challenges we are facing as an international community demand that we work together – this is not an option,” he said.
The Council also endorsed adjustments to the Programme of Work and Budget 2024-2025 that will ensure FAO’s work over the next two years will be “targeted, prioritized and tailored” to Members’ needs, the Director-General said.
The ongoing COP28 climate summit in Dubai has underscored how food and agriculture must be at the top of the international agenda, using agrifood systems transformation to engineer climate solutions as well as ensure multiple social, economic and environmental benefits. Peace remains a prerequisite for food security, he added.
The new Office of Youth and Women will help FAO achieve more incisive influence in the global arena, where issues and initiatives increasingly cut across disciplinary boundaries. “We need them to think innovative, be action oriented and results targeted, to change and accelerate national and global pathways towards achieving more inclusive, more resilience and more sustainable agrifood systems,” Qu said.
The Director-General, switching from English to Chinese. offered a lengthy impromptu intervention on the epochal changes in gender relations in his home country since the time of his grandmother, and hailed Jean-Jacques Rousseau for having introduced the notion of equality between men and women. He signaled his hope that this spirit would spread everywhere.
“The FAO Renaissance will be realized only if we are determined to think together, work together, and contribute together to Recover, Rebuild, and Reform,” the Director-General added.