FAO and WHO aim to boost joint efforts at country-level

7 October 2019, Geneva – FAO Director -General Qu Dongyu and his counterpart from the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in talks today made a strong commitment on close cooperation between their respective agencies, in particular at country-level.

During their meeting, the two principals reviewed existing collaborative efforts including on topics such as Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), food safety and nutrition, a discussed future cooperation on disease prevention and control affecting both humans and animals.

Ghebreyesus expressed great interest for the 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.

Both he and Qu underscored the importance of the Codex Alimentarius as a model of inter-agency cooperation with a direct benefit for Members, underlining the importance of capacity development efforts.

Ghebreyesus also expressed WHO’s willingness to contribute to the 2020 edition of FAO’s State of the World’s Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report that will focus on water management issues.