 Welcome to all of you to this webinar on solutions for youth employment and developing rural areas in relation to the UN Decade. So we need really solutions for rural areas in order to give it home to engaged youth but also to create employment opportunities and a vibrant agriculture sector which produces healthy food in a sustainable manner. Almost one third of the population in Europe and Central Asia live in rural areas and farm structures are in many countries dominated by small family farms with less than five hectares. This is in particular the situation in the western Balkans, in Caucasus and in most countries in Central Asia. Recent FAO country studies in the region found that small family farms face multiple challenges. Small holders have a in general limited access to finance. They use outdated technology. They have low input quality and low labor skills. Many of the challenges are the same or interrelated with the challenges faced by the rural youth. Also, many of the solutions can be integrated. Small family farms are not one homogeneous group and therefore there isn't a one size fits all approach. They should be considered when we provide policy recommendations for their development. Is agriculture really still an attractive profession for young people? I think definitely. And I think definitely also from the aspect of the societal aspect of it. So it's a community and being part of that community and also as agricultural youth organizations or even rural youth organizations. It's important to be embracing and welcoming for all kinds of people who are interested in that lifestyle. Because I think one of the biggest barriers is this, that you don't have the connections. You don't have the you don't know anyone who lives in a rural area. And then you wouldn't even if that would be your dream, you wouldn't go there because you don't have the social connection. And this is especially important for young people. I think in a certain age where you're creating your social network on your own that you need that sort of support. If you are asking me personally, what which of recommended measures is my favorite? Then for sure it is to facilitate structural transformation of small holders and family farms and support their productivity growth, which is also very closely connected with the approach targeting those looking for for diversification. There are two distinct questions. How can farmers, especially the small holders influence public policies in food and agriculture and how they're actually influencing it? We have very high underfinance in agriculture in Kyrgyzstan. So the huge underinvestment in all public facilities, roads, schools, hospitals, the future and even even an internet access is very complicated in remote rural areas. We need more insights and more applicative scientific projects, looking at the behavior aspect and behavior economic of rural youth and and the farmers generally. In rural areas, people demonstrate lower education level and I talked with many farmers and they found a lot of recommendations which we academics doing. Let's say two sophisticated, they want to be more applicable and to be presented in more simple manner. So what we need now is more education, more knowledge, more support from our country and support from international organizations. We believe that instruments like the UN Decade for Family Farming, the UN Declaration for the Rights of Peasants, the UN Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous People are the best opportunities we have right now to switch into a better direction with the process of shaping public policies in the food and agriculture process. It's very important to use instruments who have been created based on the experience from the ground because oftentimes public policies are created by people who are disconnected from the realities. Young people are not brought to the discussion about their own lives, they're not brought to the discussions about their own futures and they need to be part of the discussions about how their life is going to look. We need to prioritize local markets, we need to prioritize human rights, we need to prioritize the young people to not take away anymore the opportunities from the young people in rural areas by allowing wild investments that are grabbing our land, that are grabbing our resources and that are grabbing the opportunities for the future. So we are here, we are part of the conversation because we have partners like institutional partners like FAO that we appreciate very much for their openness and for their understanding of the reality and we're ready to contribute, we need our governments to be more open.