In 2021, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation (FAO) launched the global Digital Villages Initiative to promote digital innovations to rural communities. Now the initiative is being scaled up in Europe and Central Asia, aiming to improve livelihoods, wellbeing, and social cohesion in this region.

The virtual event ’Digital villages in action in Europe and Central Asia’ will launch the Digital Villages Initiative today in eight countries across the region. Building on past achievements and good practices of digital agriculture, the initiative will support digital rural transformation in Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Türkiye, and Uzbekistan to address agrifood systems’ challenges and improve the economic situation and resilience of rural communities.

High-level officials from the selected countries will share their approaches, tailored to local realities, for promoting the initiative in their respective countries. The event will provide a showcase for country experiences, including presentations of interim results, good practices, and achievements in the field of digital agriculture as baseline for the implementation of the initiative.

“In this region, the vision of the Digital Villages Initiative is to empower rural communities in a participatory manner and help them apply digital technologies and leverage their strengths,” said Daniela Di Gianantonio, FAO Digital Agriculture Team Leader for Europe and Central Asia. “We want to contribute to a long-lasting change.”

Rural areas are suffering from the socio-economic consequences of negative demographic trends, most notably the aging population and out-migration. Digital solutions and innovations have the potential to create better incomes and living conditions for rural populations and reverse the unfavourable trends.