Bilateral meeting with Ms Michele Sison, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs of the United States of America

New York - On the sidelines of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly, FAO Director-General QU Dongyu met with US Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, Ms Michele J. Sison. The Assistant Secretary was joined by Ambassador to the UN Agencies in Rome, Jeffrey Prescott.

Discussions centred on the food security challenges posed by ongoing conflicts, including in Gaza, Sudan and the Ukraine, and FAO's unique role in providing livelihoods support to vulnerable rural communities, including recent distribution of fodder in Gaza and seeds in Sudan, as well as its monitoring of food and commodity prices and global food security analyses.

The two also talked at length about the concrete progress of FAO in empowering youth and women through the recent establishment of an Office of Youth and Women at FAO.

The Director-General highlighted that the International Year of the Woman Farmer in 2026 would be an important opportunity to advocate for the empowerment of women in agrifood systems and garner support for its work in this crucial area, noting US leadership in the designation of the Year.

The Director-General also outlined FAO's continuing work since the UNFCCC COP 26 to fully integrate agrifood systems as a solutions area, with the work to continue through to the upcoming COP 29 in Azerbaijan and COP 30 in Brazil.

The two agreed that despite the strong progress made in raising awareness of the many solutions that agrifood systems offer for reducing poverty and hunger and addressing climate change, resources have not yet followed and there is a need to work on this.