Building strong and lasting partnerships
Building strong and lasting partnerships
30/04/2021
The Director of the FAO Liaison Office in New York, Guangzhou QU, has continued holding courtesy calls throughout April 2021, with discussions focusing on strengthening partnerships, recover better from the COVID-19 pandemic, and transform agriculture and food systems to accelerate efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda. FAO has continued to highlight its flagship initiative aimed at eradicating poverty and hunger – the Hand-in-Hand Initiative.
Meetings with Member States
During the meeting with Ambassador Nicolas de Rivière, Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations, the FAO Director reiterated that France is a key partner for FAO. FAO is committed to catalyze transformation towards more resilient and inclusive food systems.
Ambassador Pedro Comissário Afonso, Permanent Representative of Mozambique to the United Nations, and Guangzhou QU spoke about their commitment to strengthen collaboration and about FAO's important role in addressing food insecurity and promoting sustainable development.
When meeting with Ambassador Jukka Salovaara, Permanent Representative of Finland to the United Nations, they spoke about the importance of food and agriculture in the context of the 2030 Agenda.
The FAO Director and Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations had an excellent discussion on strengthening the important collaboration between their offices. They also discussed FAO's work in Ukraine.
In his meeting with Ambassador Yoka Brandt, Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the United Nations, discussions focused on the importance of food systems transformation and Netherlands's leadership in agricultural innovation. Ambassador Brandt also reiterated Netherland’s support to FAO to build more resilient food systems in protracted crises.
In his meeting with Ambassador Jonathan Allen, Deputy Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, the FAO Director recognized the United Kingdom's leadership on famine prevention. They discussed the links between conflict and hunger, and FAO's role in data provision for early warning and for reporting food insecurity and famine risk in countries with conflict situations.
Ambassador Darja Bavdaž Kuret, Permanent Representative of Slovenia to the United Nations, and Guangzhou discussed the celebration of 2021 New York Observance of World Bee Day and to highlight the importance of bees and pollinators and their contribution to biodiversity, the environment and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Guangzhou met with Ambassador José Alfonso Blanco Conde, Permanent Representative of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations. They discussed strengthening collaboration on conflict-induced hunger, FAO's Hand-in-Hand Initiative and support to Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
Deputy Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations, Guenter Sautter, had fruitful discussions with Guangzhou and looked forward to strengthening collaboration on humanitarian issues and conflict-induced hunger, and on working together to support SIDS through FAO's Hand-in-Hand Initiative.
The Deputy Permanent Representative of New Zealand to the United Nations, Craig Hawke, and the Director of FAO New York discussed FAO support to Pacific SIDS and the Food Systems Summit. Hawke also welcomed the proposed focus of FAO’s new strategic framework.
Meetings with UN counterparts
Guangzhou QU met with Alexander Trepelkov, Acting Director of the Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) in the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). They underlined the strong existing collaboration between UNDESA and FAO, and they spoke of possibilities to expand this collaboration during 2021 ECOSOC cycle.