179th Session of the FAO Council Opening Statement

Your Excellency, the Independent Chairperson of the Council

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear Colleagues,

Good morning.

Welcome to the 179th Session of the FAO Council.

I start by wishing Mr Mina Rizk, my young friend and newly elected Independent Chairperson of the Council, every success with his first Council session.

Mina, we count on your passion, your energy and your ingenuity to inject new vitality into our work.

Let us be the new chapter of the Council that will have the courage to modernize, to streamline, to empower and to be fit for purpose.

Let this be your legacy to begin with.

I also wish to welcome the new members of Council.

I look forward to working with all of you as we start the new biennium, and the implementation of FAO’s Programme of Work and Budget 2026-27.

To fulfil our objective, you must transform the Council to act with efficiency, effectiveness, and focus on delivering strategic impacts. 

We must transform from a model designed for a different century to one that is fit-for-purpose, modern, agile, and effective.

This requires the Council to champion an evolution in the governance process of this Organization.

To achieve this, we require a renewed business model centered on three core principles:

First: The Council should favour strategic oversight, over managerial micromanagement.

The Council's unique value lies in providing high-level strategic recommendations, and not focusing on operational details.

The Council should focus on the "what" and the "why," and entrust the "how" to the Director-General and Core Leadership of the Organization.

Second: The Council should enhance efficiency by sharpening its strategic focus, in line with FAO’s professional and technical mandate.

We should ensure our deliberations lead to decisive action, with concrete and positive impact on the lives of those we serve – the farmers and consumers of the world.

Let us measure our success by the tangible outcomes we achieve.

Third: Let us foster a culture of mutual trust and accountability for results.

A modern, agile FAO requires a governance system built on mutual trust, ensuring that every dollar and every effort contribute directly to our shared goals.

Be Comrades and not Controllers!

By adopting a more modern business model, we can transform FAO into an even more powerful force for ending hunger, building resilience, and creating a sustainable foods-secure future for all.

Dear Council members,

We are called together to identify solutions to address the many challenges affecting global food security and our agrifood systems.

We are all aware that our world is defined by an overlap of interconnected crises that test our resilience, and which demand a radical rethinking and redesigning of our approach.

Yet, within this complexity lies immense opportunity.

Today, let us look at the challenging landscape before us not as a set of obstacles, but as a catalyst for the profound transformation our agrifood systems urgently need.

Geopolitically, we see heightened tensions and conflict, which are primary drivers of hunger.

They disrupt supply chains, destroy agricultural infrastructure, and divert precious resources away from development, challenging our ability to find collective solutions.

Economically, the world is grappling with persistent inflation and food inflation, high debt burdens for many developing nations, and sluggish growth.

This squeezes national budgets, reduces public investment in agriculture, and makes essential inputs unaffordable for smallholder farmers.

Food inflation reduces household purchasing power, forcing families to buy cheaper, less nutritious food and increasing the risk of food insecurity and malnutrition.

Furthermore, market excessive volatility and protectionist policies continue to threaten the stability of global food trade.

Environmentally, the climate crisis is no longer a future threat - it is a present-day matter.

We are witnessing an increase in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events that destroy harvests and livelihoods affecting on average 4 percent of global agricultural GDP. Biodiversity loss and land degradation are eroding the very foundation of our food production and food diversity – affecting food availability, food accessibility and food affordability.

And socially, inequalities are deepening. Poverty, disparities between men and women, and lack of access for youth remain significant barriers to inclusive growth.

The fundamental human right to food is still a distant reality for far too many people.

Let us remember that this is our reality, but it is not our destiny.

As we mark FAO’s 80th Anniversary, we are at the turning point of reframing challenges as opportunities.

Keep optimistic, rather than pessimistic.

As we start the new biennium, we should focus on four key transformational pathways:

First: moving from crisis response to resilience building.

The challenge is the increasing frequency and intensity of shocks that make reactive measures insufficient.

The opportunity will be to move from merely responding to crises to systematically building resilience at the national and local level.

This means scaling up our work on climate-resilient agriculture, anticipatory action powered by data, and early warning systems, and supporting the development of shock-responsive social protection systems, among others.

Social protection isn’t just a post-disaster safety net. It’s a foundation for helping households transition to climate-resilient livelihoods and a cornerstone of any strategy to reduce global hunger.

Our goal is to help Members create agrifood systems that can withstand, adapt, and recover, but to do this they need to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable.

Second: Moving from input-intensive to knowledge-intensive agrifood systems.

The challenge is the rising costs of inputs like fertilizers and pesticides that are unsustainable, both economically and environmentally.

The opportunity is that we will champion the transition to biotech-based agriculture, data driven use of inputs, digital innovation and AI driven transformation.

By leveraging FAO’s data platforms like the Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform, we can provide farmers and governments with targeted, context-specific advice and live situation services.

For example, SOILFAIR is FAO’s initiative to improve global soil data, monitoring, and governance, enabling countries to protect soil health and strengthen sustainable agrifood systems.

Investing in digital literacy and rural infrastructure can turn a smartphone into a powerful tool for sustainable production, expanded market opportunities, better resource optimization, and higher profits for farmers.

Third: Moving from silos to synergies.

The challenge is the fragmented approaches that waste resources, reduce or even eliminate potential complementarities and as a result limit impact.

The opportunity is that FAO will intensify its role as a central hub and global platform for partnerships.

The Hand-in-Hand Initiative is our living proof of this model. We will continue to deepen these country-led, data driven partnership platforms that accelerate targeted investments to reduce poverty, hunger, and inequality in the areas where support is needed most, bringing together governments, the private sector, financial institutions, and research bodies.

The update of our Private Sector Strategy will allow us to be more agile, open and focused in the collaborations with these essential stakeholders.

Furthermore, we will continue to champion the Four Betters – better production, better nutrition, better environment and better life - as an interconnected agenda, leaving no one behind.

And Fourth: Moving from global commitments to localized action.

The challenge lies in the persisting gap between international frameworks and on-the-ground impact.

The opportunity for FAO is that our work will be increasingly decentralized and tailored.

Through our Country Programming Frameworks, we will ensure that global goals – such as those from the SDGs to the Global Framework on Water Scarcity in Agriculture - are translated into concrete, localized actions that meet the specific needs of our Members.

We will empower our regional and country offices to be even more effective catalysts for change.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As I told the Joint Meeting last month, to turn these challenges into opportunities we need to align our strategic ambitions with the practical means to achieve them because the challenges of global food security demand from us not just vision, but decisive, well-resourced action.

Reform should be carefully and holistically designed.

First, we need to identify and protect key areas; then we need to sustain these priority areas, and only then can we cut the superfluous.

Thereafter, we can move towards an integrated reform, to finally achieve the comprehensive deeper reform we aspire to.

It is critical that these four stages be holistically designed, planned and implemented.

This is the basis of the Programme of Work and Budget 2026-27, and the Adjustments presented to you.

In this process, there has been broad agreement on protecting areas that define our comparative advantage, including the Technical Cooperation Programme, Codex alimentarious, the International Plant Protection Convention, data and statistics, the country office network, and our response capacity for transboundary animal diseases.

Standard setting work is critical for food safety and for phytosanitary measures, and critical for facilitating trade and ensuring market access for millions of farmers, especially rural and smallholder farmers, around the world. 

Last Friday, I presented the Global Partnership Programme for Transboundary Animal Diseases, which aims to renew and scale FAO’s work through innovative, coordinated, and country-led action.

It introduces a model that unites governments, development banks, regional organizations, the private sector, and all partners under one platform built on solidarity and predictable investment.

I urge Members to join and support this initiative to secure global animal health through cooperation, shared responsibility, and long-term resilience.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

FAO has been strategically advancing its use of Artificial Intelligence - AI - both to enhance its internal operations, and to amplify the impact of its external work with Members.

By supporting FAO’s efficiency and digital workplace initiatives, we contribute to strengthening FAO’s role in promoting collaboration and efficiency in the UN, and will enable us to pilot safe, practical GenAI applications to improve compliance, service quality, and cooperation across the UN wide system.

Through the FAO Efficiency roadmap, we will continue to work to reduce costs and time and to be increasingly fit for purpose in strategic areas as finance, procurement, logistics, Share Services Center, HR and IT.

Guided by the FAO Science and Innovation Strategy, the Organization has strengthened its capacities across science–policy interfaces, digital and AI-driven agriculture, demonstrating our shared commitment to delivering on the Four Betters.

The E-learning Academy has surpassed one million users, becoming one of the most accessible and free-open knowledge platforms in the UN system.

We also advance global knowledge through the Agrifood Systems Technologies and Innovations Outlook (ATIO), which continues to evolve as a major open-access reference for emerging technologies and trends.

Its launch during the Science and Innovation Forum in October showcased a forward-looking vision, demonstrating how science and innovation can accelerate progress and support sound investment and policy choices, aligned with the FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31.

With the Asian Development Bank, under our new Framework Agreement signed this year, we are deepening collaboration to scale up private sector investment in agrifood value chains and advance the adoption of digital, AI-enabled and climate-resilient solutions across the agrifood sector.

With the launch of the FAO Risk Monitor Platform, FAO has taken a major step forward in the proactive management of agrifood systems crisis and risks.

Capitalizing on geospatial data, expert analysis, and automated alerts, the Organization is now better serving decision-makers around the world to identify food security risks in real time and mitigate their impact through anticipatory and rapid responses.

Moreover, through the Financing for Shock-Driven Food Crises Facility (FSFC), FAO is introducing innovations with re-insurance partners to deliver rapid, pre-arranged financing that helps countries act early and protect vulnerable households when food systems are hit by shocks.

This digital solution has been combined with a dedicated facility at FAO headquarters, the Liberia Situation Room - thanks to the generous support from the Government of Liberia - forming an integrated system to monitor natural hazards like droughts, floods, and earthquakes, as well as man-made threats such as conflict and political instability.

Reflecting the Organization's growing leadership in agro-informatics, FAO has been elected as Chair of the UN Geospatial Network for the first time.

Inside FAO, we continued to foster a vibrant culture of innovation.

The ELEVATE incubator is strengthening organizational capacity by enabling 26 multidisciplinary teams to develop, test, and scale new ideas.

This work is nurturing experimentation and cross-regional collaboration, ensuring that innovation becomes part of our daily work.

In our Human Resources function, we are applying AI to implement change management, and I am encouraging the technical divisions to move forward from using AI only for professional publications, to also using it to manage change – to enter the Digital Society.

I am also pushing the services divisions to take a leading role in how to use AI to manage and improve efficiency, especially in areas like translation and interpretation, and communication.

Following the successful launch of FAO CertusCare - our first digital HR chatbot - in July this year, FAO took another bold step forward with the launch of FAO’s first Virtual Colleague – “Ms FAO AI” in early November.

A digital “companion” that supports colleagues in making informed decisions, answering questions, and making our services more reliable, more efficient and more effective.

With Ms FAO AI, we are entering a new era of operational excellence, service quality, and innovation.

But innovation is not new to FAO.

Eighty years ago, our founders used the tools of their time - science, data and multilateral cooperation - to build an Organization working to end hunger and malnutrition.

Eighty years later, the world needs a sustainable and professional FAO that continues to lead in technical expertise based on science and innovation.

Today, we use the tools of our time - digital systems, knowledge networks, and collaborative thinking - to make FAO smarter, faster, and more connected than ever before in working towards our mandate.

When we launched the Digital FAO on 1 December 2019, our goal was to modernize systems, to modernize thinking and to digitalize FAO operations. To move from paper to process, from delays to delivery, from ordinary to extraordinary.

We turned every challenge - even the pandemic - into an opportunity to rethink how FAO works, and to make it better.

Through Digital FAO, we have saved 79 percent of paper. If we also consider headquarters and the subregions, this figure rises to 90 percent.

That is one of the biggest contributions to the green economy and sustainable development directly and tangiblely.

Moreover, we have developed FLAPP and OPTIWASTE, digital tools that help countries measure, analyse, and reduce food loss and waste across agrifood value chains. FAO is leading by example, with OPTIWASTE implemented in all our cafeterias and testing it for school feeding programs.

Six years ago, at FAO there was not much talk about science and innovation, or biotechnology, or gene editing or AI.

Now, FAO is not just the first Organization talking about AI and supporting AI, but we are implementing AI.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Allow me to provide a brief report on the key achievements in FAO’s technical work since our last session of Council.

During the past year, FAO continued to place agrifood systems and food security at the center of the multilateral climate agenda.

I attended the COP 30 Leaders’ Summit in Belem, Brazil, last month, with a central message: food security is climate security.

FAO is helping integrate agriculture and food across negotiation tracks, from the Global Goal on Adaptation, to climate finance, technology, and just transition.

FAO has been entrusted by the Brazil COP 30 Presidency to support the design and implementation of global initiatives under the Action Agenda, which includes the:

• Resilient Agriculture Investment for Net-Zero Land Degradation initiative to accelerate investment in agricultural land restoration, to be carried out by the FAST Partnership – the primary COP to COP mechanism hosted by FAO;
• the Bioeconomy Challenge; and
• the Together for the Expansion of Resilient and Restorative Agroforestry and Agroecology (TERRA) global platform. FAO with our Investment Center, is providing technical support for the TERRA project through the recently signed partnership agreement with Italy’s CDP financing institution to help local financial institutions boost financing for the project.

In addition, FAO provided technical support to the COP 30 Presidency’s Action Agenda, on two important new initiatives on forests, namely the:

• newly launched Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which seeks to reward countries and forest stewards for conserving tropical forests through long-term finance; and
• Call to Action on Integrated Fire Management and Wildfire Resilience, which highlights the commitment of countries to tackle the growing risk of wildfires in a changing climate, including through mechanisms such as the Global Fire Management Hub.

Related to forestry, we also recently launched the five-year FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025, which provides the most comprehensive, transparent and up-to-date data from 236 countries and areas on forest resources, and reflects FAO’s key role as a knowledge-based organization.

The First International Green Cities Conference was held in mid-October and brought together all stakeholders to celebrate achievements, exchange knowledge, foster partnerships, and mobilize resources for the adoption of integrated urban and peri-urban solutions.

The conference also marked the launch of the FAO Green Cities Principles and Criteria, a framework of conditions to guide local governments in translating FAO Green Cities’ vision into actionable policies, governance mechanisms and investment strategies.

The Green Cities in Action for Africa, funded by the Italian Government, project supports ten cities across five African countries in developing evidence-based Green City Action Plans to adapt to climate change, while generating co-benefits for urban communities, the environment, and local economies.

Every three years, FAO as the lead UN agency on mountains, together with the Mountain Partnership Secretariat, prepares the UN Secretary General’s report on Sustainable Mountain Development.

The 2025 report focuses on the critical need for sustainable development in mountain regions, and sets out international efforts and innovative projects to tackle the impacts of the climate crisis.

The report also serves to assess progress under the FAO Five Year Action Plan for the Development of Mountain Regions.

Today, we will also launch the State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture (SOLAW 2025) report, which highlights that 1.66 billion hectares of land are degraded, including over 60 percent of agricultural land.

The report reinforces the essential role of science, data, and innovation in guiding approaches to improve our shared land and water resources.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

FAO is the partner of choice for accessing finance and investment in agrifood systems, especially among Small Islands Developing States (SIDS), Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs).

With the support of FAO, these countries have been able to access and channel increased financing for sustainable and resilient agrifood system solutions, and for building resilience to the impacts of the climate crisis.

2025 is a record year for the FAO-Global Climate Fund (GCF) partnership, with the largest sum ever approved for FAO-led GCF climate projects in a single year with a total of more than USD 400 million.

By October 2025, FAO had helped 19 SIDS, 28 LDCs, and 16 LLDCs to access investments through the GCF Readiness Programme.

Through the FAO-Global Environment Facility (GEF) Partnership, FAO has facilitated access for SIDS, LDCs, and LLDCs to approximately USD 300 million, supporting them to access finance for the design and implementation of National Adaptation Plans, and building the necessary capacity and institutional arrangements for future investments.

FAO continues to expand and strengthen the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) network - as FAO turns 80, the GIAHS network has expanded to 104 sites.

Thanks to bilateral funding, FAO is intensifying efforts to scale up further support for GIAHS by developing a tailored monitoring and evaluation framework to ensure proper tracking and safeguarding, as well as marketing, capacity development and targeted technical support.

FAO’s work on Bioeconomy for Sustainable Food and Agriculture has grown in line with the ambition of the Programme Priority Area (PPA) set out in the FAO Strategic Framework.

As part of its 80th Anniversary, FAO convened the Global Agrifood Biotechnologies Conference in Rome, which brought together more than 1200 participants from across different sectors, who reaffirmed that science, technology and innovation are key to transforming agrifood systems.

In late September, during FAO’s Sustainable Livestock Week in Rome, a number of key events were held including: the Second Global Conference on Sustainable Livestock Transformation; the Global Forum for Animal Feed; and the Sustainable Livestock CEO Forum.

In May this year, FAO launched in Uganda the International Poultry and Feed Initiative, with aims to support the upscaling of successful smallholder poultry value chains, with a particular focus in Africa.

In 2026, FAO will convene the First Global Conference on One Health in Agrifood Systems — a landmark event showcasing country-level good practices that connect the health of people, animals, plants, soils, and the environment.

Tomorrow, FAO will kick off the celebration of the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, to advocate for increased responsible investment and adapted policies for the pastoral sector, and rangeland management and restoration.

And on 4 December, we will launch the International Year of the Woman Farmer, which aims to raise awareness on the multiple and crucial roles that women farmers play in agrifood systems, including their contributions to food security, nutrition and poverty eradication.

In the context of the UN Decade on Family Farming, 385 policies, laws and regulations have been approved. In the last two years, 90 new policies, laws and regulations were enacted to reinforce the vital contributions of women, farmers and pastoralism communities.

The 44th Session of the FAO Ministerial Conference in July endorsed the Guidelines for Sustainable Aquaculture, the first global normative instrument for sustainable aquaculture that paves the way for the sustainable expansion and intensification of this fast-growing sector. 

In collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, FAO aims to unlock the contribution of aquaculture in targeted countries through the Global Sustainable Aquaculture Advancement Partnership.

I wish to congratulate Members on the entry into force of the Agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction.

FAO will continue to work closely with Members and the existing network of Regional Fisheries Bodies to support implementation - and we are already supporting 12 countries through a collaborative GEF funded project.

I also with to recognize China, Saudi Arabia, Tuvalu, Ukraine and Tanzania for acceding to the Agreement on Port State Measures in 2025, and encourage all remaining FAO Members to accede and continue the global efforts against IUU fishing.

FAO and the European Union have launched the New Aquatic Food Value Chains for Sustainable Healthy Diets in Fragile Contexts initiative, a five-year programme aimed at increasing access to safe, nutritious, and affordable aquatic foods in Chad, Colombia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, and South Sudan.

The Joint FAO-IAEA Atoms4Food initiative completed four assessment missions in Burkina Faso, Pakistan, Peru, and Benin, with upcoming missions planned for the Philippines, Türkiye, and Liberia.

The missions aim at better understanding the challenges and gaps, and identifying priorities to develop country-specific action plans for resource mobilization and partnership development.

The FAO–GAIN AFS Accelerator, launched at the UN Food Systems Summit, will speed up and align technical support to governments to advance national pathways, policies and programmes coordinated with strategies new investments, increased and targeted co-financing (including from the private sector, IFIs, and others) in agrifood systems. It will drive systemic investment to accelerate the process of transitioning agrifood systems towards delivering food security and promote healthier diets.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This year, the World Food Forum expanded, evolved, and accelerated its impact.

The numbers are staggering:

• over 300 events;
• 16 500 in-person participants;
• 60 000 online participants from all regions and almost 200 countries;
• 1.5 billion people through social media;
• more than 80 sessions of the Global Youth Action Forum;
• investment opportunities worth USD 17.2 billion through the Hand-in-Hand Initiative Investment Forum;
• 31 countries and six regional initiatives shared plans that can change the lives of more than 160 million beneficiaries;
• And the Science and Innovation Forum brought together more than 7,300 participants from 182 countries;
• with 125 speakers from 30 nations and more than 40 partner organizations.

This year’s World Food Forum opened with the Global Exhibition: From Seeds to Foods, which brought FAO’s work to the public – outside the FAO building - connecting 10 000 visitors and 200 exhibitors from 150 countries.

And through FAO’s One Country One Priority Product (OCOP) initiative, we saw country-level results on display – from chestnuts in Albania, potatoes in Lesotho and jackfruit in Bangladesh – demonstrating how targeted value-chain work can scale when countries own the priority.

The Rome Water Dialogue, now embedded in the Forum, reinforced a critical message: without smarter water governance and investment, the foundations of food security will not hold.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

FAO’s Vision and Approach to Nutrition will assist in prioritizing FAO’s work in this area, and in collaboration with global and national initiatives such as the UN Global Action Plan on Child Wasting and the G20 Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, FAO is responding to the nutrition needs of priority countries.

In September 2025, the International Food Data Conference was organized by FAO in collaboration with global partners and brought together experts from over 40 countries to explore the latest developments in food composition data.

FAO has also advanced the availability of various types of dietary data with the expansion of the Food and Diet Domain on FAOSTAT, and at the end of October new data was published.

At the UN Food System Summit+4 Stocktake in Addis Ababa in July this year, FAO took the lead technical and convening role, drawing on its normative expertise, global evidence base, and field presence to position the Organization as the strategic steward of global agrifood systems transformation.

FAO continues to support the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, hosted in FAO, and plays a catalytic role in supporting and enabling the Hub's mission to drive forward the outcomes of the UNFSS. 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Over the course of the past year marked by profound global challenges, FAO has remained focused on resource realities, urgent crisis settings, and science- and data-driven solutions.

FAO will close 2025 with around USD 1.624 billion in voluntary contributions. 

This is about eight percent below 2024, but still among the strongest results in FAO’s history.

Vertical Funds remain our top resource partner, now accounting for 45 percent of all resources mobilized.

This reflects deliberate diversification and disciplined technical delivery over the last several years when resources for global food security were greater, but it also brings less flexibility and greater competition as we look towards 2026.

Traditional donors have decreased sharply, due to external fiscal pressures and shifting global priorities.

One of the areas most exposed to these shifts is our emergency and resilience programme, which is almost entirely reliant on voluntary resources.

We have had to make adjustments in staffing and delivery, aligning capacities with available resources.

Throughout 2026, we will continue to manage extrabudgetary-funded capacities to ensure alignment, transparency, and value for money.

FAO recently launched the Global Emergency and Resilience Appeal 2026: a unified, demand-driven framework that will guide investments to deliver cost-effective, high-impact results in the most urgent crisis settings.

Emergency agricultural assistance remains underprioritized, despite clear evidence of its impact, and humanitarian needs remain extremely high.

Currently, more than 295 million people are in IPC Phase 3 or above, and the majority of those in need are farmers, livestock herders and fishermen and women.

This week, Council will receive updates on Gaza, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and others - areas where FAO’s role to support agriculture is essential to protecting lives and strengthening resilience.

South–South and Triangular Cooperation continues to deliver practical results, enabling countries to transfer knowledge directly and lower the cost of solutions.

A new global project to advance the cocoa value chain development in Samoa was launched on 18 November, funded by China through the FAO-China South-South Cooperation Programme.

Samoa has been selected as a ‘demonstration country’ to showcase examples to other Pacific Island countries.

A fruitful collaboration between Azerbaijan and Türkiye in advancing agricultural services received an award at the FAO Global Technical Recognition Ceremony on 15 October 2025 for its outstanding contribution to South–South and Triangular Cooperation.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Food and Agriculture Museum and Network opened its doors on 16 October – World Food Day - with a bold mission: to showcase the Organization’s mandate through cultural diplomacy, using art and culture to create dialogue among Members, partners, the private sector, and the public, including youth.

The Museum was inaugurated together with His Excellency the President of Italy, reflecting the strong collaboration with Italy and the generous support from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Opening day also welcomed high-level visitors and kids, including FAO Goodwill Ambassadors, business leaders, scientists as well as other esteemed world leaders.

In its first month, the Museum received 4,500 visitors from all regions and all sectors, including FAO Member representatives and delegates, and students.

With more than 40 Members already contributing, the Museum continues to grow as an inclusive and accessible space for dialogue, learning, and food culture—reaching an ever-expanding global audience.

Next week in Cairo, Egypt, we will hold the third FAORs Global Working Conference, a crucial moment to further connect our strategic efforts and the field execution capabilities we must ensure. We will also launch the FAO Villages recognition under the FAO MuNet.

World Food Day 2025 celebrated FAO’s 80th anniversary with global leaders, including Pope Leo the Fourteenth.

And Junior World Food Day welcomed 1,000 students for an interactive event led by celebrities and athletes.

The World Food Day campaign reached 1.5 billion social media accounts, generated more than 8,300 news articles, and was broadcast globally to over 50 million viewers via major media outlets globally.

In a rapidly evolving global web system, marked by a rise of AI-driven search, FAO’s knowledge remains a trusted resource.

The FAO website has already surpassed 99 million pageviews, exceeding last year’s record.

FAO Director-General outreach has also been prominent with over 250 speeches delivered, either in person or virtually, during 2025.

More than 200 written statements were published, including to the media, and close to 300 posts on X.

Here at headquarters and during my official travels I held over 430 bilateral meetings with Heads of State and Government, Ministers and high-ranking government officials to consolidate relations, discuss regional and national realities, develop policies and identify funding gaps for meaningful and sustainable transformation of global agrifood systems.

During 2025, I visited 34 member countries and, more importantly, undertook over 80 field visits.

I truly value these opportunities to meet with the farmers and local communities as they are the vital link that connects the Organization's mandate, technical expertise, and the financial resources provided by Members to the tangible realities on the ground.

They are where our global mission is validated, and our collective impact is measured.

By witnessing challenges and successes first-hand, I can ensure that FAO's work remains grounded, relevant, and directly aligned with the needs of the people we serve.

It provides the basis upon which we can turn challenges into opportunities for all, truly ensuring that no one is left behind.

Dear ICC,

Dear Council members,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

As we start implementation of the FAO Programme of Work and Budget for the 2026-2027 biennium, let us be bold and pragmatic, let us be innovative and passionate.

Let us remember the farmers, fishers, foresters, consumers, and the world’s most vulnerable, who depend on us.

Our agrifood systems are at a crossroads. Together, let us steer a new course towards sustainability, inclusion, and resilience.

Let us leverage this Council session to lay the groundwork for a 2026 that is not defined by the challenges we face, but by the opportunities we seize.

Thank you.