Employee Recognition Awards 2025 Opening Remarks

Dear Colleagues,  

Greetings from Rome and welcome to this year’s Employee Recognition Awards ceremony!   

Today, we celebrate our 100 Young and 100 Young-at-Heart colleagues, 20 One FAO Teams, as well as our 25 Year Medal recipients.  

This is the 7^th time this event has been held - and just like FAO, it is going from being more dynamic to more dynamic, from solidarity to solidarity, as ONE FAO!

A true demonstration of how we are better together as one big family.   

This year we celebrated a milestone: FAO turned 80 - definitely Young-at-Heart!

Our mandate, rooted in the goal of achieving “freedom from want” as laid down by our founding Members in the FAO Constitution, has never been more relevant and urgent.  

The world needs an FAO that continues to lead in technical expertise based on science and innovation, evidence and data.

We are united by our new Strategic Framework 2022-31, under the overarch of the Four Betters and food security.

Today, we celebrate all FAO employees whose efforts help to make this a reality.    

In this remarkable year of our 80^th birthday, we have made many structural additions and improvements, including the FAO Museum and Network, the new FAO gardens, as well as the recently opened new entrance and Parking Building.   

This has been a year of adding more “firsts” since 2019!

On World Food Day, we welcomed Pope Leo XIV to FAO headquarters for the first time where he emphasised the need for global cooperation and peace with foods security. 

And on the eve of this year’s World Food Forum, we held the First FAO Global Exhibition “From Seeds to Foods” outside FAO premises.  

We also look to the future as the first UN agency to be fully Digital!

We are applying AI to change the way we work and for the first time we now have a virtual colleague – Ms FAO AI – to help us work even better!

The recently held 3^rd Global Working Conference of FAO Representatives in Cairo once again provided an important platform for discussion on how to improve the way we work together, and how to do more and better across the globe as ONE FAO.  

Dear Colleagues,   

All of you are the engines for implementing the Strategic Framework and turning the aspiration of the Four Betters into tangible results on the ground.  

Every one of you has your part to play like a big machine, and to contribute to the Renaissance of FAO by walking the talk.    

This year we have continued to think together, learn together, work together, grow together and, more importantly, contribute and collaborate together - for an even more reliable and impactful Organization. 

I introduced the Employee Recognition Awards in 2019, and I am happy to see how this celebration has become an important gathering at the end of the year.   

In the past six years, we have honoured 600 Young and 600 Young-at-Heart employees, and over 80 teams.  

For the 2025 awards, over 500 nominations were received across streams, offices, and divisions, as well as offices in the field: 200 of these were selected by colleagues in the Organization-wide poll.  

94 nationalities are represented from 82 duty stations.

Our strength through inclusion continues to be our immense diversity. 

This year I have endorsed 20 teams for their excellent work, the results they have achieved, their impact on the ground, and their spirit of collaboration that has led FAO’s working culture to change.  

There are 200 individual awardees being recognized today, but there are many more who deserve to be celebrated.  

I thank ALL employees for their dedication, passion, their 4Es spirit, and deliverables.  

Today, we also celebrate 41 colleagues as they mark 25 years of continuous service with the Organization - a quarter of a century of service is a truly remarkable commitment.    

Young colleagues are the future of FAO, but we must also remember the importance of respecting our seniors, and learning from each other.  

I encourage all of you who received the 25-year medal today to share your experiences and your lessons with the younger generations.   

Dear Colleagues,

2026 is the Year of the Horse. The Horse is characterized by energy, enthusiasm and drive forward.

The Year of the Horse is about fast action.

Let 2026 be a year of more efficient action.

I encourage you to be千里马（running 1000 miles a day) and FAO to 一马当先 (be ahead of the pack)!

I wish you all 马到成功（instant success), a good holiday season and a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous 2026! 

Thank you.