FAO and Russian private sector: new vistas for cooperation

On 1 July 2022, the FAO Moscow Office team, on invitation of the “National Network of the Global Compact” Association, took part in the round table discussion of new ways and forms of cooperation with the Russian business community against the background of a changed global environment. The meeting, organized in a hybrid format, brought together representatives of the members of the Association – leading industrial companies, extractive companies, banks, and agricultural holdings. 

Opening the meeting, Alexander Plakida, Chairman of the Governing Council of the Association, reminded the participants about the importance of building a dialogue and called upon the stakeholders for a comprehensive assessment to develop constructive suggestions for maintaining partnership between FAO and the Russian private sector. 

Natalia Dorpeko, Executive Director of the Association, highlighted the need to preserve international contact during challenging times for business and particularly noted in this regard the prospects of FAO partnerships as a non-politicized technical cooperation organization. 

Oleg Kobiakov, Director of the FAO Moscow Office, noted that “Global Compact, one of those partnerships created within the UN, under its auspices and on its platform, is of special importance. Moreover, in the document “The future we want”, which was adopted in 2000 by the UN, the private sector was identified as the main stakeholder group for implementing the “Agenda 21”, and this period almost coincided with the establishment of the Global Compact.” 

“Today, the ESG principles have become a norm in our lives. In this regard, the paths and the interests of the organizations of the UN system, of their member states and of the private sector not only coincide but are largely identical. At the same time, our Organization is interesting for business because its mandate goes far beyond the traditional agricultural sector. The area of responsibility given to us by the member countries on a global scale is forestry and fisheries, rural development, contribution to their infrastructure and investments. Rural areas make up 80 percent of the territory of the countries, as well as attract from 20 percent to 80 percent of employed population,” the Head of the FAO Moscow Office stressed.  

“The agrifood chains we deal with cover all areas, including the production of precursors, and these are energy resources, fertilizers, plant protection products, seeds, human labour. In subsequent processing, food reaches the final consumer, and every inhabitant of the planet acts as such. Here, we are all shareholders of this large “concern”, which is supported by FAO,” Oleg Kobiakov concluded. 

The Director of the FAO Moscow Office also called upon the participants of the meeting to pay attention to the presentation of the annual State of Food Security and Nutrition (SOFI) report, which will be held on 6 July within the framework of the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HPLF) in New York.   

“In addition to providing the latest data on the state of the food situation around the world, practical FAO suggestions for the creation of a Global Food Import Financing Facility, to which donor countries would make financial contributions, are going to be presented. Such an initiative, in the face of rising prices and logistics challenges, could allow states facing a critical food situation to finance the import of food products that are becoming more expensive,” Oleg Kobiakov summed up.  

Presenting the provisions of the FAO Strategy for Private Sector Engagement, 2021-2025, Igor Shpakov, Consultant at the FAO Moscow Office, spoke about the main areas of partnership with business, the stages of establishing and maintaining relationships, the types of legal documents that consolidate the partnership. Besides, he spoke about the existing restrictions and regional peculiarities in choosing the format of cooperation. He also showed specific examples of existing cooperation with business, including the example of the FAO Moscow Office activities. 

“The main distinguishing feature of the new Strategy is building partnership with business through the prism of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This very approach will allow FAO to fundamentally transform agrifood systems, make them more efficient, sustainable, inclusive and resilient to external factors,” the expert noted.  

“If we take a separate food chain, which is called “from farm to market”, the private sector is well represented in all its elements. At the same time, business, like no other, has both powerful technological tools and financial resources, knowledge and accumulated experience, i.e. everything that is essential for strengthening agricultural and food systems. It is this combination that makes it a key strategic partner for FAO,” Igor Shpakov emphasized.  

“Businesses often ask themselves why should they partner with FAO? In this direction, a number of opportunities open up for the private sector. FAO is a platform for establishing useful contacts and exchanging information with the widest range of stakeholders. The cooperation with our Organization facilitates the dialogue between the business sector and national governments and, at the same time, improves its reputation at the international level.  

In addition, this is an opportunity to directly take part in the development of significant norms and codes of responsible business practices that will determine the sectoral areas of development for many years to come. Companies can keep abreast of upcoming changes and timely bring their corporate development strategies in line with the requirements of international standards.  

Finally, FAO is a knowledge organization that not only accumulates innovative solutions and developments, but is also an active intermediary in their dissemination, providing relevant expertise and experience on the broadest range of issues,” concluded the FAO consultant. 

Milana Verkhunova, PJSC SberBank Managing Director for ESG, told the panelists at the round table about the company’s significant contribution to the sustainable development agenda.

“SberBank is not just a bank, it is an ecosystem of companies. The agricultural sector accounts for 25 percent of our portfolio. Therefore, it is important for us from different points of view. We are promoting the development of this sphere towards sustainable farming and we have already elaborated some interesting solutions: on drones, on precision agriculture, on fertilization, on mapping and productivity planning. We have, probably, the strongest competence in the country in the field of artificial intelligence, environmental sensing, space images analysis, forest fires, productivity forecasting. Let us reflect on the ways that we can interact in this context,” suggested Milana Verkhunova.

Answering the questions of the panelists at the round table in the second part of the meeting, Aghasi Harutyunyan, Deputy Director of the FAO Office, spoke about the activities in reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals.

“As part of monitoring by our Organization of 21 SDG indicators out of almost 230, relevant publications are annually issued in FAO. Last year saw the publication of a specific Guidance on how national governments can take into account the contribution of business to the implementation of SDG indicators that fall under the mandate of FAO. This work is mainly focused on the achievement of SDG 2, SDG 13, SDG 14, and SDG 15. 

In May this year, during the XV World Forestry Congress, we released another edition of “The State of the World’s Forests” (SOFO) report. It provides the latest data on the state of forest cover. This component plays a great role in promoting the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and for this purpose a very interesting forest cover monitoring system called FERM has been developed,” informed the expert.

During the discussion, Alena Vysokikh-Alyasiri, Director for Sustainable Development of the Department for the Implementation of State Programmes, and for Sustainable Development and Forest Policy of the Management Company Segezha Group LLC, noted: “We are closely following the reports published by FAO. It is of high importance for us that it is your Organization that we have started this new year’s international cooperation with, because for us, as a timber industry company, this is the main object of interest.”

Alexander Antonov, Head of the Department for International Projects of PJSC PHOSAGRO, expressed his satisfaction with the discussion and outlined his vision of the prospects for cooperation with FAO. 

“We are glad that the first coordination meeting has taken place. This form of interaction, which is going to support Russian business, is very useful. We, as a company operating both in the domestic market and in the international arena, are going to make every effort to strengthen this partnership. It is necessary to return to the format of holding joint events, to attract more business representatives under the auspices of FAO and of the “National Network of the Global Compact” Association, suggested the representative of PJSC PHOSAGRO.

“I also like the idea of ​​developing collaborative publications. If we cannot directly implement some of the projects at the moment, we should convey this information through publications. We must bring the topic of food security to the world community through scientific works. To do this, we could organize a joint working group and develop a publication plan for the next year,” Alexander Antonov concluded.

Sergey Tkachenko, Deputy General Director of the STEPPE Agroholding, Director of the R&D Centre, showed interest in developing practical steps in cooperation with FAO: “We are planting forest belts, the very carbon footprint that everyone is trying to reduce. We are switching to subsurface tillage, which means carbon sequestration. We have a dairy herd, and we are engaged in decreasing the level of methane from cattle. We are working with higher education institutions to open new specialties as part of the 2030 Agenda. We have it all. Let us move from top-level agreements to specific joint steps at the working level.”

At the end of the meeting, Elena Dolgikh, Sustainable Development Adviser to the President-CEO of PJSC IC RUSS-INVEST, suggested compiling a questionnaire and sending it to the companies involved to identify their interest in the most significant FAO mandate areas.

“I believe that we need to actively use this platform and promote, among other things, our interests and initiatives. Based on the answers received, I suggest organizing a substantive round table by autumn, where representatives of industries will either receive answers to their questions or will immediately suggest joint projects or initiatives,” the representative of the Association expressed her opinion.

The meeting participants agreed to continue the active discussion of options for interaction in the format of a round table, as well as to be active in organizing joint events on the topic of sustainable development, thereby contributing to the implementation of the goals and objectives of the areas mandated by FAO.

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Presentation “FAO Strategy for Private Sector Engagement 2021-2025”