Readout of the bilateral meeting with H.E. Ms Aura Maria Duarte Rojas, Vice-Minister for Agricultural Affairs of the Republic of Colombia

Georgetown, Guyana - FAO Director-General QU Dongyu met with H.E. Ms Aura Maria Duarte Rojas Vice-Minister for Agricultural Affairs of the Republic of Colombia on the sidelines of the FAO Regional Ministerial Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean (LARC38) in Georgetown, Guyana.

The Vice-Minister thanked the Director-General for the projects implemented by FAO in Colombia in support of smallholder farmers, especially Indigenous Peoples, women, youth, and Afro-descendants. 

She also highlighted that Colombia had joined the FAO Hand-in-Hand Initiative in 2023, with a focus on investments in the dairy sector in the country's southwest region. 

The Director-General noted that FAO's programme in Colombia was the largest in the region in terms of number of projects, staff, and partners, and that sharing experiences with other countries was important. 

The Vice-Minister informed that Colombia was preparing to host the CBD COP16 in Cali from21 October to 1 November and emphasized the importance of nature in the global environmental agenda ahead of COP30 in the Brazilian Amazon in 2025. 

The pair further agreed to continue collaboration in support of innovation for the transformation of agrifood systems and to achieve the Four Betters.