Bilateral meeting with H.E. Andrii Sybiha, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine

Rome - FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, and H.E. Andrii Sybiha, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, met to discuss ways to strengthen collaboration between FAO and Ukraine.

The Minister congratulated the Director-General on FAO’s 80s anniversary, noting that FAO’s core mandate on ensuring global food security was of paramount importance. The Minister stated that Ukraine had a lot of capacity to produce agricultural products and following the end of the war in Ukraine, the country was planning to increase this capacity even further. The Minister further added that the country had launched the “Grain from Ukraine” initiative in support of a world free from hunger and explained that the initiative was based on direct purchases of agricultural products from Ukrainian farmers and their transfer to countries at risk of famine.

The Director-General welcomed the Minister and agreed that FAO’s mandate was based on the universal value of the right to food as a basic human right.  He added that FAO recognized the potential of Ukraine to become the food basket of the world and reaffirmed that FAO stood ready to support the country to realize its agricultural potential. The Director-General highlighted that this was one of the reasons underlining the FAO reform to ensure that the Organization was more efficient and effective and more fit-for-purpose to meet Members’ needs.

The pair also discussed ongoing projects in Ukraine and importance of use of advanced technologies in the agriculture sector to increase production with reduced inputs.