Bilateral meeting with H.E. Joseph Nyuma Boakai, President of the Republic of Liberia

Monrovia - The FAO Director-General, Dr QU Dongyu, met today with His Excellency Joseph Nyuma Boakai, President of the Republic of Liberia, during his official visit to the country.

The President welcomed the Director-General and thanked him for honouring his invitation to visit the country to strengthen collaboration, build on successes, identify gaps and reassess cooperation efforts to develop rural farmers and accelerate agrifood system transformation. He expressed appreciation to the Director-General for FAO support for the launch of the One Country One Priority Product (OCOP) and Hand-in-Hand initiatives to develop value chain for Liberica Coffee and improve the entire agriculture sector.

The Director General thanked the President for the warm welcome and for Liberia’s support to FAO through the generous contribution for the establishment of the Liberia Situation Room and FAO headquarters. The Director-General reaffirmed FAO’s commitment to continue to support Liberia’s agrifood system transformation agenda and also informed that FAO would assist Liberia with a new Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) entailing the National Agriculture Research Centre, land design and development of new agricultural design, with an integrated and holistic design under the Four Betters to improve agricultural productivity, with focus on aquaculture and growth of the goose industry.

The Director-General further recognized Liberia’s great potential to grow its agriculture sector through climate smart agriculture and in cost effective ways, including post-harvest loss management, water management, climate change mitigation projects with new science and technology, and innovation techniques to develop value chain, as well as to assist with capacity building for farmers to increase agricultural productivity.

The Director-General and the President concluded the meeting with a commitment to continue to closely collaborate to improve livelihoods for rural farmers, to address land issues, and to accelerate efforts for agrifood system transformation.