Read-out of the bilateral meeting between FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, and Minister for International Development of Canada, Karina Gould

29 July 2021, Rome - The FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, and the Minister for International Development of Canada, Karina Gould, met virtually to discuss further collaboration between FAO and Canada.

The Minister commended the Director-General for the successful UN Food Systems Pre-Summit and FAO’s role in providing professional services, as well as logistical support.

The Director-General expressed his appreciation for the longstanding support of Canada and mentioned he would like to strengthen this collaboration in support of the most vulnerable countries. In that regard, he referred to the Hand-in-Hand Initiative, and in particular the innovative Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform, and thanked Canada for its support to the Platform.

The Minister mentioned Canada’s support for the Coalition of Action for Zero Hunger that was launched during the Pre-Summit. She commended the Director-General for FAO’s important role in the G20 Meetings and the Matera Declaration, as well as for the success of the recent FAO Ministerial Conference and the new FAO Strategic Framework 2022-2031 that was endorsed by the FAO Members.

The Director-General underlined that the new FAO Strategic Framework highlighted the importance of a transformation to more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agri-food systems. He also informed the Minister that the Action Plans for the 20 Programme Priority Areas (PPAs) and the Innovation Strategy would further guide the implementation of the new Framework. The Minister expressed her appreciation for the strong emphasis it has on Climate, Innovation and Gender, and underlined the importance of women and girls as part of the solutions for more sustainable agri-food systems.

Both highlighted the joint focus on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG1 (no poverty) and 2 (zero hunger). The Director-General underlined that investing in the agriculture sector is the solution to eradicate hunger. For this reason, it is important to focus on agri-food systems transformation to enable them to provide more opportunities for the poor, women and rural communities, leaving no one behind.

The Minister also mentioned the recent State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2021 Report that shows the number of people in the world affected by hunger increased in 2020 under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. She expressed Canada’s commitment to assist FAO in helping to put the world on track again to ending world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. She mentioned the recent contribution from Canada to FAO’s COVID-19 Response and Recovery Programme of CAD 22.4 million (USD 17.7 million) to boost the food security and livelihoods of vulnerable communities - especially women, youth and indigenous peoples - reeling from the impacts of COVID-19 in nine countries across Africa and Latin America.