FAO and Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs sign Letter of Intent to support women and young people

December 15, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt - FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, and Egypt’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sameh Shoukry, today signed a Letter of Intent (Loi) aimed at strengthening their collaboration to support the country’s rural women and youth.

As they endorsed the Loi on the margins of the 2019 World Youth Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh, the two leaders stated that young people, in particular, were critical for driving future innovation.

The FAO Director-General appreciated Egypt’s support for FAO’s recently announced Hand-in-Hand initiative which is designed to create “matchmaking” between donors and recipients to target the world’s most vulnerable people and help to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Qu noted that today’s agreement with Egypt would open a new chapter of collaboration between the country and FAO and help to build a different kind of future for agriculture in Africa.

The joint collaboration aims to foster employment as well as capacity development for women and young people working on farms and elsewhere in agriculture and the rural sector.