Bilateral meeting with the the President of Somalia – H.E. Hassan Sheikh Mahmud

Rome – FAO Director-General QU Dongyu and His Excellency Hassan Sheikh Mahmud President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, met on the margins of the UN Food Systems Summit +2 Stocktaking Moment taking place at FAO Headquarters from 24 to 26 July 2023.

The President began by congratulating the Director-General for his re-election for a second term, and thanked him for the support provided during his first term. The President noted the lifesaving assistance provided by FAO in the hard-to-reach rural areas faced with famine and floods. He noted the FAO Hand-in-Hand initiative and the support this will provide to the Government’s actions under its National Development Plan –including increasing production and productivity and food security by strengthening agriculture. The President looked forward to a close working relationship with the Organization to support agrifood system transformation for resilient and innovative agrifood systems.

The Director-General thanked the President and reiterated the Organization’s commitment to continue supporting Somalia. He congratulated the President on his vision and underlined that through innovation, data collection and dissemination the agriculture sector could be enhanced and modernized. The two agreed that in order to bridge the humanitarian-development nexus the resilience of agrifood systems was a key priority.