FAO Representative to China speaks at the International Organisation “Month for Major-Country Youth”
Nov 15, 2021
Peking University, November 15,2021: On the afternoon of November 1st, the Student Career Center of Peking
University successfully held the first event in a series of talks
titled, “International Organisation Representatives Speak ”, as part of
the second International Organisation Month for “Major-Country Youth”.
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO)
representative to China, Mr. Carlos Watson and Dr. Dong Le, FAO Poverty
Reduction and Innovation Officer attended the event..
Assistant to president of PKU and Dean of PKU’s School of Economics Dong
Zhiyong met and welcomed the guests, thanking them for gracing the
event and presented them with a thank you letter. He expressed his hopes
that both parties will be able to further their cooperation in the area
of scientific research, and that more PKU students may have the
opportunity to intern in the FAO.
Dong Zhiyong presents Carlos Watson with a letter of thanks
Carlos Watson giving his speech
In his speech, Watson mentioned the FAO’s goal to achieve food security
for all and ensure people have regular access to enough high-quality
food to lead active, healthy lives. The FAO is not only the custodian UN
agency for 21 of the indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), but also a contributing agency to five of them. As a country
with more than 1.3 billion people, China has always prioritised food and
agriculture development, and has remained in close cooperation with the
FAO.
Watson shared that the 21st century marked a new age of cooperation
between the FAO and China. Aside from necessary assistance, China also
shares her experience with other developing countries, and has become a
main supporter of the FAO’s work to fight hunger and food insecurity. In
the future, the FAO will refer to the UN’s priority areas in China and
its own Strategic Framework (2022-2031), using China’s agricultural
development framework as a base while focusing both internally and
externally to build the Country Programming Framework for China
(2021-2025). Watson also expressed the FAO’s commitment to strategically
supporting China to realise her rural revitalisation, food security,
and high quality agriculture development goals in a post-pandemic world.
Dong Le shared the FAO’s three-prong strategy in aiding China’s poverty
reduction and rural transformation efforts. To quicken the reduction of
hunger, poverty and inequality through rural transformation in Asia and
the Pacific Ocean region, the FAO started the Digital Villages
Initiative, focused on helping rural people acquire more resources
through information technology. China also organised the Smart
Agriculture Competition, where AI and expert-grown strawberries were
compared. Dong also shared job availabilities at the FAO, detailing the
entire hiring process.
Carlos Watson’s well wishes to PKU
Written by: Glenda Ho
Edited by: Ng Joong Hwee
Source: PKU News (Chinese)
