Bilateral meeting with Toily Kurbanov, United Nations Volunteers Executive Coordinator

Rome – FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, met today with Toily Kurbanov, Executive Coordinator of United Nations Volunteers (UNV) at FAO headquarters.

The Director-General welcomed the Executive Coordinator, lauded the noble mission of UNV and expressed his commitment to supporting a volunteer movement to further strengthen FAO’s work on the global transformation of agrifood systems and rural development. He noted that there was ample opportunity to unleash greater potential between FAO and UNV, and bring the volunteer spirit and skillsets to the communities that FAO serves in more than 130 countries, in particular at the grassroots level.

Executive Coordinator Kurbanov highlighted the existing, strong collaboration between FAO and UNV at the regional and country level.  He noted that UNV receives strong interest and large numbers of applications for FAO vacancies due to its concrete mandate, technical expertise, and ability to provide support to people in remote areas, as well as strategic country-level engagement across agrifood systems.

The two agreed to highlight the FAO-UNV partnership at the 2025 World Food Forum in Rome, and to explore further ways to strengthen the volunteer movement across FAO’s global portfolio.