AA/Dakar/Alioune Ndiaye
The Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Qu Dongyu, was received on Sunday at the Palace of the Republic by the Senegalese President, Macky Sall, a press release announced on Monday. UN institution.
The bilateral meeting was devoted to the collaboration between FAO and Senegal and between the organization and the African Union, of which Sall is current president.
“They discussed mutual ambitions to leverage science, innovation, information, communication, technology and partnerships to transform Senegal’s agricultural sector, to improve nutrition and livelihoods,” said the statement from the FAO office in Senegal.
Dongyu and Sall, according to the paper, discussed the need to improve access to nutritious food in Africa, where almost a billion people currently cannot afford nutritious food.
“Better nutrition is one of the four best of FAO’s Strategic Framework 2022-2031, along with better production, better environment and better life for all, leaving no one behind,” the statement insisted. .
“At the same time, the African Union has declared 2022 the year of building nutrition resilience on the African continent: accelerating human, social and human capital development,” the document added.
The two leaders agreed that transforming agri-food systems is an urgent priority to boost nutrition in Africa, to improve production and increase resilience, according to the same source.
The visit is Qu Dongyu’s first-ever visit to Africa since taking over as head of the FAO in August 2019, according to the statement.
The FAO Director-General arrived in Senegal for a brief visit following attending the 32nd session of the FAO Regional Conference for Africa in Equatorial Guinea (April 11-14).
On the occasion of his meeting with the President of Equatorial Guinea, Téodoro Obiang Nguema, on the sidelines of the Conference, the FAO Secretary-General stressed the importance of youth empowerment and the need to address it through the innovation and digitization of agri-food systems, reported the website of the UN institution.
“The two leaders spoke of the need to transform Africa’s agri-food system to be more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable,” it added.
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