Read-out of the bilateral meeting between FAO Director-General QU Dongyu and H.E. Franz Fayot, Minister of Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, and Minister of Economy of Luxembourg

25 June 2021, Rome – The FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, and the Minister of Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, and Minister of Economy of Luxembourg H.E. Franz Fayot had a virtual meeting to exchange on areas of ongoing and future cooperation between FAO and Luxembourg.

The Director-General thanked Minister Fayot for the strong support in several important FAO projects and programmes. Some projects mentioned by the Minister and the Director-General were the support to household food and livelihood security and the development of an effective extension system in Afghanistan, national food safety emergency response plans in Senegal and Burkina Faso, and the support to professional integration and strengthened resilience of young people in the rural areas of Mali. The Director-General and Minister Fayot agreed to work together on strengthening these existing programmes and define new ones to improve the livelihoods of rural youth and women.

The Minister underscored the special attention that Luxembourg gives to supporting the Sahel countries and it being part of the Sahel Alliance. In that respect, the Director-General noted that the FAO Hand-in-Hand Initiative would be a suitable mechanism for Luxembourg to support rural development in these countries and help increase their agricultural potential.

The Minister commended the Director-General for FAO’s successful Ministerial Conference last week (highlighting that it was the first virtual one in history); and the adoption of the Organization’s new Strategic Framework for the next decade. The Director-General underlined that the new FAO Strategic Framework will be key in transforming agri-food systems.

The Director-General congratulated Luxembourg for their election to the FAO Council and stated that FAO was eager to work together with Luxembourg in the FAO Governing Bodies.

The meeting also agreed that the new SIDS Solutions Platform, to be launched later this year, offers another good opportunity for collaboration. The Minister stated that Luxembourg can offer a wide range of digital services for this new multilateral platform. The Director-General also referred to the newly established International Platform for Digital Food and Agriculture and the 1000 Digital Villages Initiative as good avenues for increased future collaboration.

Both agreed that FAO and Luxembourg can work closely together on developing innovative financial and digital services, two important service sectors in Luxembourg, in order to help de-risk and attract private sector investments for agri-food systems transformation.

The Director-General expressed his appreciation for Luxembourg’s strong commitment to FAO and its longstanding contributions to the Organization.