Bilateral Meetings with Ministers and Senior Officials participating in the 37th Session of the FAO Regional Ministerial Conference for the Near East and North Africa

Amman - On the sidelines of the 37th Session of FAO Regional Ministerial Conference for the Near East and North Africa, the FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, met with the following Ministers and High-Level Officials from the region:

• H.E. Abdullah bin Hamad bin Abdullah Al Attiya, Minister of Municipality of the State of Qatar;
• H.E. Abbas Hajj Hassan, Minister for Agriculture of Lebanon;
• H.E. Mohammed Hassan Qatana, Minister for Agriculture and Agrarian Reform of the Syrian Arab Republic;
• H.E. Mohammed Saeed Al-Nuaimi, Undersecretary in the Ministry for Climate Change and the Environment of the United Arab Emirates;
• H.E. Nasser Mohammed Taqi, Acting General Manager, Public Authority of Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources of Kuwait.
  

During the bilateral meetings, the Director-General thanked the Ministers and High-Level Officials for their participation in the regional conference and for their continued support to the Organization. He invited Members to step up their support considering the increasing challenges facing the region, including the climate crisis, ongoing conflicts, and economic downturns. To address these and other challenges, the Director-General provided an overview of the ongoing efforts to enhance the effectiveness of the FAO decentralized offices network to better position them to support Members at the country level.

The Director-General invited Ministers to attend the World Food Forum 2024 to be held in October at FAO Headquarters in-person in Rome and virtually, and further invited Members to benefit from the FAO flagship initiatives, including the Hand-in-Hand initiative, the One Country One Priority Product, the Green Cities Initiative and Reducing Food Loss and Waste. 

He also provided an overview of the strategic objectives of the Organization in line with the FAO Strategic Framework and the “Four Betters”: better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind.

The Director-General invited governments to support the use of Hand-in-Hand tools and approaches nationally and highlighted the importance of data. In this regard, he referred to the establishment of a Food Security Regional Observatory as a key step to help decision-making and transform agrifood systems.

The Director-General stressed the importance of using science, innovation, and digitalization in support of agrifood systems transformation and enhanced food security, and he reiterated that enabling policies, research, innovation, and investment were keys for an effective transformation.

In the meeting with Lebanon, the Minister provided an overview of national efforts to support the agriculture sector, focusing on increasing productivity, export promotion and capacity building. He appreciated FAO’s support for the establishment of a farmer’s registry in Lebanon, which he noted was a step towards formalizing the agriculture sector, expanding social protection and expediting response to shocks and emergencies. The Director-General and the Minister discussed how to further strengthen cooperation, especially in value chains and marketing of agricultural products. They agreed to explore further opportunities for cooperation, working with resource partners and International Financing Institutions (IFIs). The Director-General reiterated that FAO would continue to assist farmers to ensure the continuity and recovery of the agriculture sector in Lebanon in line with the National Agriculture Strategy 2021-2025, including through supporting climate-smart investments.

In the meeting with Qatar, the two sides agreed to make use of FAO flagship initiatives, such as the Hand-in-Hand and the One Country One Priority Product (OCOP), which could provide opportunities for agrifood system transformation in Qatar. The pair also agreed to continue cooperation to support the Pricing and Market Policies for Locally produced Vegetables and home-grown school feeding programmes.

In the meeting with Syria, the Minister provided an overview of the Government’s efforts to increase agricultural productivity and enhance self-sufficiency building on the comparative advantage of Syria in the agriculture sector. The Minister also referred to the efforts to enhance regional coordination with Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan. The Director-General and the Minister agreed to strengthen collaboration on smart agriculture, and village development, including through the OCOP initiative and the South-South Cooperation Programme. The Minister stressed that efforts are ongoing to make use of the Hand in Hand initiative for the advancement of the identification of priority territories and value chains. The pair also agreed to continue their cooperation to address the impacts of the climate crisis and achieve food and water security, underlining the need to enhance intra-country trade and intra-regional trade. 

In the meeting with Kuwait, the two sides agreed to accelerate the implementation of projects in Kuwait and in the region, focusing on the management of water resources; Blue Transformation; fisheries and aquaculture; and food safety. The two sides also agreed to explore South-South Cooperation, and to continue to collaborate to enhance the technical capacities of the Public Authority of Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources, building on the strong potential of the agrifood system in Kuwait.

In the meeting with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Director-General commended the advancement of agrifood systems transformation in the UAE, building on new technologies and innovations. He also thanked the government for hosting the FAO Subregional Office. The Director-General and the Vice-Minister agreed to continue to build on the outcomes of COP28 to support agrifood systems transformation in the region, and to promote the usage of innovation and technology to enhance food security in the UAE as well as in other countries in the region.