The WTO and the UN Meals and Agriculture Group (FAO) agreed on 1 December to spice up cooperation and collaboration on a variety of points within the space of meals and agricultural commerce and local weather change. The initiative comes at a time of rising crises affecting international meals safety and sustainable agriculture manufacturing.
WTO Director-Normal Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and FAO Director-Normal Qu Dongyu signed a Framework Memorandum of Understanding which identifies areas of frequent curiosity between the WTO and FAO to facilitate the organizations’ shut cooperation in these areas. The MoU was signed on the twenty eighth UN Local weather Change Convention of the Events (COP28) in Dubai which the 2 group heads are attending.
The MoU will consolidate current collaboration between the WTO and FAO, making a steady framework inside which future joint initiatives can happen.
Underneath the MoU, the WTO and FAO will strengthen collaboration in 17 areas of frequent curiosity, together with assist for the WTO’s ongoing negotiations on agricultural reform, the implementation of the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies adopted on the WTO’s twelfth Ministerial Convention (together with on initiatives funded via the Fisheries Funding Mechanism Belief Fund), and internet hosting the annual World Cotton Day celebration on 7 October of every 12 months.
The MoU additionally requires strengthened assist of FAO to the WTO Committee on Agriculture (CoA) and boosting current collaboration on sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical boundaries to commerce. Each organizations will proceed their lively participation within the Requirements and Commerce Improvement Facility, housed on the WTO, to assist growing economies improve their meals security and animal and plant well being capability and facilitate protected commerce.
The 2 organizations will even collaborate on local weather and commerce initiatives, together with within the context of the annual COP conferences, as nicely collaborating within the context of intergovernmental processes such because the Group of Seven and Group of Twenty economies.
The WTO and FAO additionally pledge to develop joint publications on subjects of mutual curiosity, together with the nexus between meals safety, agriculture, fisheries, biodiversity, local weather change, diet and commerce. As well as, they’ve agreed to undertake joint technical cooperation actions and assist to regional commerce agreements, with a give attention to Africa.
The WTO and FAO already work collectively inside the context of the UN Global Crisis Response Group on Meals, Vitality and Finance arrange by the UN Secretary-Normal within the areas of meals and fertilizer, and inside the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS), the market transparency mechanism arrange by the G20 economies and housed in FAO.
As well as, FAO commonly experiences on the present meals safety state of affairs and presents its flagship publications and analysis findings within the CoA, the place FAO has observer standing. The WTO, in flip, actively participates in numerous FAO our bodies the place it has observer standing, such because the Committee on Commodity Issues.
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