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By pooling the ideas and knowledge of technical experts, partners, and concerned national institutions, Kyrgyzstan aims to prepare a high-quality proposal for financing by the Green Climate Fund. A three-day national facilitation workshop on Green Climate Fund readiness and project formulation – hosted and organized by Kyrgyzstan’s State Agency on environmental Protection and Forestry and FAO – opens today at the Park Hotel in Bishkek.

Last November, FAO signed a USD 10.5 million grant agreement with the Gates Foundation aimed at strengthening countries’ capacity to collect agriculture and food security data, and monitor the investment-process-outcome cycle leading to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For the purpose of promoting agriculture and food security development, the SDGs provide an ambitious and multidimensional plan of action, requiring governments to deliver more effective policies and programmes cutting across sectors and responding to economic, social and environmental challenges.

FAO and Norway have today launched a brand new, state-of-the-art marine studies vessel, among the most advanced of its kind — and the only research ship on the globe that flies the UN flag. Its mission: To investigate some of the planet's least-explored oceans, using cutting-edge technology and sophisticated equipment to help developing countries assemble scientific data critical to sustainable fisheries management and study how a changing climate is affecting our oceans.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva completed on Thursday 9 March a two-day visit to Egypt aiming at boosting collaboration between the Organization and the most populous Arab Country.  His visit included meetings with the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, H.E. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation H.E. Abdel Moneim Al-Banna, the Minister for Investment and International Cooperation H.E. Sahar Nasr, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs H.E. Sameh Shoukry, as well as the Secretary General of the League of Arab States H.E. Ahmad Abou El-Gheit.

A high-level conference in Belgrade today marks the first stage in a recently-begun four-year commitment on the part of FAO. A project worth US$3.75 million, financed by the Global Environment Facility, or GEF, is directed towards the long-term sustainability of forest ecosystems in Serbia.