Helsinki, 4 July 2023
The Conference of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization FAO is currently meeting in Rome. Permanent Secretary Jaana Husu-Kallio delivered Finland’s statement at the Conference and met the re-elected Director-General Dongyu QU. Finland and FAO have close cooperation especially in forest and water issues.
The 43rd statutory Session of the Conference of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization FAO is held in Rome on 1–7 July. The Conference that meets every two years is FAO’s highest decision-making body.
Jaana Husu-Kallio, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, delivered Finland’s statement at the Conference. She also met Director-General of FAO Dongyu QU, who was re-elected for the second four-year term.
In her statement, Husu-Kallio highlighted the cooperation between Finland and FAO especially in water and forest issues. Finland has significant expertise in forest issues and will continue to serve as an important partner of FAO in global work on forests. Husu-Kallio pointed out that Finland’s expertise and experiences on water issues will also bring important added value to FAO’s work. Water will be the overarching theme for FAO in the next two years.
FAO’s work on both forests and water is inextricably linked with the sustainability of food systems and, in particular, the challenges related to climate change. Drawing attention to the role of water in food security is highly important, and a most topical theme from the perspective of global food security. Water is food, and food security is a prerequisite for life. The food security concerns of many countries often include matters such as the joint management of frontier waters. This has come out in the follow-up of the UN Food Systems Summit as well.
Food, water, energy and forests are interlinked and should be managed as a single whole. Finland stressed the need to invite all stakeholders together to discuss and evaluate complex entities and openly assess common solutions to these. Cooperation among international organisations is also important. All UN organizations dealing with water issues should engage in effective cooperation.
At the Conference, Finland also stressed the special role of FAO in creating common norms and standards based on scientific knowledge.
The role of water in food security is a very topical issue, and a serious challenge that is directly linked to climate change and loss of biodiversity.
Source – Finnish Government