FAO Deputy Director presents new climate change strategy
7 July 2022 – FAO Deputy Director of the Office for Climate Change and Biodiversity Zitouni Ould-Dada visited Brussels to present FAO’s newly adopted Strategy on Climate Change. At the invitation of the Working Party on Development and International Cooperation (CODEV) under the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Ould-Dada presented the Strategy at the CODEV session with the title “Food Production and Resilience to Climate Change”. He also outlined FAO’s continuous work on mainstreaming climate and biodiversity into national plans of action.
During the session, which also saw presentations by the World Food Programme and the European Commission, Ould-Dada underlined the importance of partnerships. He highlighted the example of FAO’s collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in the context of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, which he characterized as an efficient vehicle for identifying synergies and complementarities in addressing the complex challenge of making food production more sustainable.
The FAO Strategy on Climate Change, and its close link with FAO’s Strategy on Science, Technology and Innovation, were also at the center of a meeting between Ould-Dada and Dimitrios Zevgolis, Acting Head of Unit Multilateral Affairs at the European Commission Directorate-General for Climate Action.
The meeting discussed the role of agrifood systems as part of the solution to climate change, as well as preparations for the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), to be held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022, where FAO will highlight inter alia its work on water, biodiversity and agriculture in relation to climate change.
On the last day of his mission, Ould Dada joined a meeting of the UN Brussels Task Force on the European Green Deal, which is co-chaired by FAO and UNEP and exchanged with the Task Force’s members on ways and means of further strengthening UN collaboration.
He also met representatives of the European Bureau for Conservation and Development, which leads the Secretariat of the Intergroup of the European Parliament on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainability, of whose Advisory Group FAO is a member.
You can read an exclusive interview with Zitouni Ould-Dada with the FAO Brussels team here