Meeting with His Excellency Gilberto Silva, Minister of Agriculture and Environment of Cabo Verde

Rabat - FAO Director-General QU Dongyu met today in Rabat with His Excellency Gilberto Silva, Minister of Agriculture and Environment of Cabo Verde, on the margins of the 33rd Session of the FAO Regional Conference for Africa (ARC33).. 

The Director-General acknowledged the long-standing cooperation between Cabo Verde andFAO and reaffirmed his commitment to continue working with Cabo Verde towards agrifood systems transformation in the country.

The Minister thanked the Director-General for the support provided to Cabo Verde and informed that the country had a comprehensive programme on agriculture, including Blue Economy. He mentioned that Cabo Verde was also working through South-South Cooperation, in particular with China, to improve the sector as sharing of knowledge and experience was critical. He also stressed that FAO’s technical assistance and cooperation in strengthening the Blue Economy wasnecessary.

The Minister further stated that the country faced many challenges relating to agrifood systems due to several crises, including the impacts of the war in Ukraine. Production had decreased significantly, and the economy and livelihoods had been adversely impacted by the decrease inagrifood products. Finally, the Minister stated that Cabo Verde wished to launch a Statistics Programme and requested FAO’s support on this matter.

The Director-General reaffirmed FAO’s commitment to continue to support the people of Cabo Verde and to improve and strengthen the country office to ensure more effective and efficient support to the country. The Director-General also agreed that sharing national capacity development objectives through exchanges of knowledge, skills, resources, and technical know-how was very important.