FAO and Rabobank seek to strengthen strategic partnership

FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu met today with Berry Marttin, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Rabobank, to strengthen the current strategic partnership that aims to promote smallholder investments.

They discussed FAO’s new Hand-in-Hand initiative, which prioritizes targeted work that benefits people in the world’s most vulnerable regions including small island developing states, least developed and landlocked countries. They focused on how the initiative can help create “new champions of development”.

Qu and Marttin also discussed ways to better connect the public sector, private sector and academia and leverage their networks.

Both agreed that the private sector is a key actor to achieve the SDGs and help feed 10 billion people by 2050.

Rabobank is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands. It is a global leader in food and agriculture financing and sustainability-oriented banking.