Bilateral meeting with CARICOM, represented by the Minister for Agriculture and Marine Resources of the Bahamas – T.H. Clay Sweeting

Rome – FAO Director-General QU Dongyu met a group of Ministers and other representatives from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries led by the Minister for Agriculture and Marine Resources of the Bahamas, T.H. Clay Sweeting, on the sidelines of the 43rd Session of the FAO Conference.

Speaking on behalf of CARICOM, Minister Sweeting congratulated the Director-General for his re-election as head of FAO, and conveyed the group’s appreciation for the work carried out by the Organization over the last four years.

The Minister listed several areas that CARICOM countries would like to strengthen in the coming years, including: the Caribbean target of reducing food imports by 25% by 2025, food value chain development, fisheries, resource mobilization, and capacity building for governance and management of resources.

The Director-General thanked CARICOM representatives for their support, acknowledged the region's challenges and mentioned some areas that could be strengthened in Caribbean countries such as aquaculture, biodiversity conservation and resilience building.

The Director-General further noted that the FAO Hand-in-Hand Initiative has the potential to support countries in achieving multiple goals by bringing partners together in pursuit of funding, and by providing Big Data for programme management. The Director-General also encouraged CARICOM countries to identify crops that could help increase domestic food production and tackle food loss and waste.

Attending the meeting in person or virtually were Ministers and high-level representatives from Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.