Bilateral meeting with Mr Masato Kanda, President of the Asian Development Bank

Milan - The FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, and Masato Kanda, President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) met at the ADB 58th Annual Meeting in Milan, Italy.

The Director-General commended the ADB’s announcement to expand its support for food security in Asia and the Pacific to USD 40 billion by 2030, noting that key areas of support including further development of agrifood systems infrastructure, social and policy assistance, nutrition and healthy diets were also important areas of FAO’s work and mandate, where the two partners could closely work together.

The ADB President appreciated the close collaboration with FAO, indicating the priorities of climate action, infrastructure, poverty reduction, private sector engagement, and domestic resource growth. Mr Kanda also referred to FAO’s further strengthening of policy assistance support to member countries and providing technical assistance to both centralized and decentralized governments.

The Director-General highlighted the long-term partnership with ADB that dated back to 1968 through the FAO Investment Centre, which had resulted in over USD 2.6 billion across 51 jointly designed investment projects, reflecting a shared legacy in advancing agrifood systems transformation across Asia.

The Director-General further expanded on the successful collaboration in Afghanistan, which showcased an excellent example of innovative financing, and where investment in emergency agricultural assistance in fragile and conflict-affected situations had delivered assistance at scale, reaching over 800 000 rural households – 5.6 million people – in all 34 provinces of the country.

The bilateral meeting was followed by the renewal of the FAO-ADB Framework Agreement to co-design, finance and implement impactful investment programmes. The agreement will combine FAO’s technical knowledge, field presence and data with ADB’s financial instruments and private sector platforms, creating conditions to attract quality private capital for agrifood systems transformation.

The FAO Director-General and ADB President renewed their commitment to further strengthen and expand collaboration.