High-Level Roundtable Governing Sustainable Agrifood Systems: Strengthening Legislation and Building Capacity to Support Implementation, Compliance and Enforcement Opening Statement
by Dr QU Dongyu, FAO Director-General
15/07/2022
High-Level Roundtable
Governing Sustainable Agrifood Systems: Strengthening Legislation and Building Capacity to Support Implementation, Compliance and Enforcement
Opening Statement
By
Dr QU Dongyu, FAO Director-General
15 July 2022
Excellences,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good morning from Italy.
1. Through laws and regulations, national policy is anchored, standards are set, and rights and obligations are formed.
2. Laws provide the framework for fulfilling international and regional obligations, for establishing institutions, and ensure accountability by all parties.
3. These are essential tools and mechanisms for the transformation of agrifood systems to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable.
4. As well as for the sustainable management of the environment, especially the agriculture environment, and to enable action for sustainable development at national level, and even at local level.
5. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations provides technical legal assistance to its Members.
6. We support Members in ensuring that their national policy objectives, strategies and international commitments are expressed in mandatory terms in law, thereby ensuring compliance.
7. The technical legislative support provided is focused on individual Member needs, tailored to their specific requirements, and is timely.
8. Legislation also plays an important role in achieving the 2030 Agenda through enabling compliance for the implementation of national policies aimed at ensuring better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life for all, leaving no one behind,
9. For this reason, and in line with the FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31, FAO is committed to strengthening its technical legislative assistance to Members, together with key partners.
10. Last month the FAO Council endorsed two new thematic Strategies on Science and Innovation, and on Climate Change, together with their relevant Action Plans.
11. We are really walking the talk, together with our partners.
12. In this regard, I am pleased that my dear sister, the Executive Director of UNEP, Inger Andersen, has jointed me today in this Roundtable.
13. Today’s roundtable discussion provides a platform for FAO and its partners, and all relevant stakeholders, to discuss the main challenges and find innovative and concrete solutions for the effective governance of sustainable agrifood systems.
Dear Colleagues,
14. FAO cannot do it alone.
15. FAO’s mandate related to food and agriculture is crosscutting, and developments in the agrifood sector impacts on others, and vice versa.
16. For example, agriculture affects, and is affected by, the environment, health, human rights, science and innovation, to name a few.
17. Today’s event is an opportunity to share national experiences and best practices on the adoption of meaningful and effective laws and regulations.
18. Laws, without compliance, are of no value.
19. We always say that the law is not only the handling of papers or filing of a book, it needs to be implemented, and sometimes we need to enforce its implementation and compliance.
20. Laws are critical to our livelihoods, our consumption and our production.
21. FAO has been assisting Members in drafting of laws, but we need to take this a step further.
22. The effective implementation and enforcement of laws requires appropriate institutions, with the necessary authority, capacity and available resources.
23. The support needed by governments to achieve this is complex and multi-disciplinary, and requires partnerships and collaboration at all levels, with all partners.
24. It also requires innovative thinking to address the evolving, complex and often overlapping challenges.
25. The world is complex and our lives are complex, for this reason we need coordinated synergies to address the challenges, and to deliver.
26. Effective laws are critical to achieve the SDG targets, ensure food security and nutrition, and reduce hunger and poverty.
27. We need innovative legal frameworks that can support our collective efforts towards achieving a better world for the generations to come.
28. Let us continue working together in an efficient, effective and coherent manner to ensure no one is left behind.
29. I wish to thank colleagues and partners for all their support, and in particular to my sister from UNEP, and to all our Members.
30. Thank you.