GLOBAL – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has adopted a new Strategic Framework aimed at driving the Organization’s efforts to transform agri-food systems and address hunger, poverty, and inequality over the next decade. 

FAO will now embark on implementing the strategic framework after FAO Conference, the supreme decision-making body that brings together all FAO Members – 194 countries plus the European Union endorsed it on the last day of the 42nd Session. 

According to the FAO, the Strategic Framework 2022-2031 seeks to support the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by making agri-food systems more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable. 

To achieve its goal, FAO plans to implement four cross-cutting “accelerators” to all its program interventions to maximize efforts and facilitate the management of trade-offs, according to national priorities.  

These accelerators are technology, innovation, data, and complements (governance, human capital, and institutions. 

The Conference also approved the Program of Work and Budget 2022-23 and the Medium-Term Plan 2022-25. 

Together with the strategic framework, FAO says these documents will guide its work at a critical time as the world faces the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which could push up to 132 million more people into chronic hunger by the end of 2021. 

It further noted that the strategic documents also reinforce and complement the organizational structure and management changes already put in place to make FAO a more modular, flexible and agile organization. 

Hans Hoogeveen elected new Independent Chairperson of the Council 

During the 42 session of the FAO, Ambassador Hans Hoogeveen, the Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the UN Organizations in Rome, was elected the new Independent Chairperson of the Council (ICC) for the next two years (2021-2023).  

FAO Director-General QU Dongyu congratulated Hoogeveen on his election and said he looked forward to “a constructive and efficient collaboration.” 

Hoogeveen has worked with FAO in various roles for more than 25 years where he served as chair in a number of committees. 

He has for instance served as Chair of the FAO Programme Committee, Chair of informal consultations on the 10 Elements of Agroecology, Chair of the Committee on Food Security (CFS) working group on food systems and nutrition, and as vice-chair of the FAO Regional Conference for Europe. 

The outgoing Independent Chairperson of the Council, Khalid Mehboob from Pakistan, said that it had been an honour and privilege to serve in that position for the last four years. 

The Conference also welcomed progress made under the previous Programme of Work 2018-19, noting that FAO had achieved 95 percent of its targets in that period.  

It also commended FAO for mobilizing significant funds for climate action during the last biennium and welcomed the decision to anchor the Programme Priority Areas (PPAs) of the new Startegic Framework in the 2030 Agenda. 

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