The Developing Eight Organization for Economic Cooperation and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have expressed their cordial intent to facilitate close co-operation between the FAO and the D-8 with the objective of promoting and accelerating inclusive and sustainable agricultural development, focusing its activities on poverty reduction, elimination of hunger, alleviation of rural poverty and increase in resilience of livelihood through sustainable agricultural development in the States of Common Membership.

Dr. Seyed Ali Mohammad Mousavi, Secretary-General of D-8, met Mr. José Graziano Da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, on 04 May 2016 in Antalya on the sideline of 30th Session of the FAO Regional Conference for Europe (ERC). 

The discussion aimed at mutual collaborative partnership in areas such as, collaborative partnership in common scope of work, institutional linkage under the auspices of South-South Cooperation in order to utilise the expertise and specialized capacities, sub-areas within agricultural cooperation in order to avoid duplicity of resource mobilization, joint/common projects in agriculture and food security, capacity building in the D-8 in partnership with FAO etc. The FAO having institutional capacity for inclusive and sustainable agricultural development linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) may assist in capacity building within the D-8 Organization. 

The D-8 Secretary-General updated the FAO Director-General with latest developments taking place within the Organization and added that cooperation in D-8 priority area of agricultural cooperation is taking concrete shape. He hoped that in close cooperation with the FAO, the D-8 Organization would be able to accelerate its capacity in agricultural development. 

The FAO Director-General warmly welcomed the D-8 Secretary-General and appreciated the information and ideas put forward by him. He informed Dr. Mousavi of the Organization’s scope of work. Both concurred that the two Organizations had a lot of scope for joint effort in order to yield mutual benefit, sharing of information and analytical framework in particular. He appreciated the Secretary-General for the inputs and looked forward to working together in future. 

Both the interlocutors agreed to work closely to further inclusive development, build capacities of Member States and explore avenues for common projects.

The meeting was held in a very warm and congenial environment.