ROME, 24 JUNE – Italy has many ideas on the agenda to increase cooperation with FAO and enhance the importance of the UN pole in Rome focused on food, the Italian Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Emanuela Del Re, said on sending her congratulations to the Deputy Minister for Agriculture of China, Qu Dongyu, who yesterday was elected Director General of FAO.
In line with the position of the European Union, Italy voted for the French candidate Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle, sources at the Prime Minister’s office said Monday after China’s Qu got the job. Rome had informed both France and China about its vote ahead of the election via diplomatic channels. Premier Giuseppe Conte subsequently confirmed it to French President Emmanuel Macron, the sources said. “As Host Country, Italy is ready to work with you closely to face our common challenges on hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition and to achieve a more sustainable and equal world”, Conte told Qu after the election. “Italy wants to work together to activate immediately the UN food pole in Rome”, added the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Enzo Moavero.
Qu’s candidacy gathered 108 votes, while Geslain-Laneelle, with the support of the European Union, received 71 votes and Georgia’s Davit Kirvalidze 12, according to official results. The United States had backed Kirvalidze.
The election took place during the 41st session of the FAO Conference (22-29 June 2019), the highest governing body of the Organization. Qu Dong Yu, who was born in 1963 and is a biologist by training, will be FAO’s ninth Director-General since the Organization was founded on October 16, 1945, and the first from a communist country.
The term of the new Director-General, who will succeed Brazil’s José Graziano da Silva, will start on 1 August 2019 and run to 31 July 2023.
FAO, which has over 11,500 employees around the globe, works closely with other U.N. agencies to achieve the goal of a hunger-free world by 2030. Today, more than 800 million people are facing hunger and many experts doubt that the 2030 goal will be reached. Prior to the vote, Qu said that he aims to focus on hunger and poverty eradication, tropical agriculture, drought land farming, digital rural development and better land design through transformation of agricultural production. An expert on agriculture and rural areas, he has worked in the field for more than 30 years. (@OnuItalia)
