 Okay, so let's start. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone joining us here in Poland or virtually My name is Daniela Dejan Antonio And I am the team leader for digital agriculture at the FAO regional office for Europe and Central Asia I am delighted to welcome you all to the side event on fostering the digital transformation of agriculture through strategies national and local perspectives Today, we will hear directly from some of the actors that are contributing to shape this transformation From a different level from European to national to local We aim at discovering how national digital strategies and locally driven bottom-up Initiatives can serve as a bridge to close the rural and digital divide Whether you're joining us online or here in Poland We of course welcome your questions, which we will take at the end of the discussion if you're joining us online on Zoom, please use the Q&A session section at the bottom of your screen and Here with me my colleague Valentin Naji Junior technical officer on digitalization in agriculture will be reviewing the questions Please also be informed that this event is a live interpreted in several languages So if you're joining us on Zoom, please pick the language you prefer and Now it's my pleasure and honor to give the floor to mr. Laurent Thomas Deputy Director General of FAO for his opening remarks Sir floor is yours. Thank you very much, Daniela Ladies and gentlemen Dear ministers Invited guests ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming along with us this morning With you joining us here in Poland or virtually It's a pleasure to welcome you to this parallel session and this round table the world and in particular Europe and Central Asia are Facing major challenges Obviously, I'm talking about the war in Ukraine the COVID-19 pandemic climate change are ongoing problems like food security and malnutrition and Reaching the SDGs all of these need to be dealt with the shock and re picket will have Severe repercussions on the agri-food system. It's deepening the divide between rural and urban areas To take effective action is going to mean dealing with some of the major issues at the regional and global level And this is a hard task in this regard digital transformation And innovation are going to be key accelerators that are at the heart of FAO's work They're part of the of the four strategies of the organization and contribute to the four bettors that mobilise all of us the FAO is determined to capitalise on their potential to improve In the environment the living environment living conditions nutrition and food security IT Acknowledges they can be one of the crucial accelerators when it comes to transforming our economies and societies including agriculture and Agri-food systems and rural development It can also be a tool for Eliminating the disparities between urban and rural areas and a gender and age divides It might also enable job creation and facilitate Farmers young people in accessing information markets and finance however The advantages that are being offered by these technologies are not being distributed equally digital transformation needs to not only offer these Technical innovations, but also social innovations and ensuring adequate conditions for one and all and in this context Inclusion and protection of human rights for one and all are vital to ensure a sustainable transition towards digital agriculture to this end FAO in its strategic framework is focusing on what they call the Compliments in which we look at governance institutions and a human capital which can guarantee inclusion and protect human rights of One and all in parallel and I would even say in synergy with the acceleration of digital Digital transformation and agriculture the FAO has set up a number of programs and initiatives to make this Into a concrete reality here in Europe and Central Asia This means that across its rooms they've come out its Regions that's come up with strategies for the implementation of digital transformation. There are also There's assistance for rolling out the action plans and these are based on a tangible targets both regionally and nationally in the framework of the Thousand digital villages for example in this initiative. They are setting out a Community-led initiatives so as to make digital transformation in rural areas a reality in 2019 the organization created the data platform based on the geographical and spatial data with the hand-in-hand initiative which is a common good of a digital which enables for the creation of interactive Cartographies to try and address the gaps in real time This geospatial a platform enables us to map the capacities at the end the agricultural sector and Try to improve environmental socio-economic Aspects of of farmers lives. It also enables the targeting of a financial Financial initiatives to improve impact. I'm delighted to share with you today the information that yesterday the FAO received the prize of excellence of the prestigious world geospatial forum 2022 at the ceremony that was held in Amsterdam This prize recognizes the excellent of the geospatial hand-in-hand initiative platform and the results achieved with the cartographies that have been Performed so I should like you to all give a round of applause to our teams for this outstanding prize Which I do think a test to the quality of their worker of Of them and your FAO The international platformer for for digital agriculture and food set up by the FAO is going to be a space for dialogue for a drafting of policies for strengthening the connections and Between that those working in agriculture and the digital economy It's also going to enable states to improve Everything that they are doing in their digital digital sphere while addressing legitimate concerns the FAO Has also managed to bring together all stakeholders so as to undertake a constructive Dialogue on the strategies to be undertaken to exploit the potential of these technologies in an inclusive and Sustainable way today. We're here to listen to different stakeholders and discover the various different approaches and initiatives and and tools that they are using when it comes to Boasting the digital transformation of rural areas and agriculture the agri-food system and and and a rural development to require collective action and consistent action So without any further ado enable me to offer you all of my best wishes for fruitful discussions Thank you very much for your kind attention Thank you very much deputy director general for your inspiring introduction and let me extend my Congratulations to the FAO colleagues that have worked on the handy and geospatial platform for the award They received yesterday congrats So Mr. Thomas you mentioned the work done with digital agriculture Strategies the need to move from strategy to implementation and the need to harness the opportunities brought by technologies To accelerate the digital transformation in rural areas So in today's session we aim at discovering and discussing more in-depth all these elements And I am very excited to learn more from our panelists. So let me introduce them Welcome to her Excellency Vanya Avram Assistant Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina Welcome to dr. Doris mark Bart Program officer at the European Commission directorate general for agriculture and rural development and Welcome to miss Claire Jordan managing director at a dole the European Association for information on local development and Now I would like to open this panel by posing a first question to her Excellency Vanya Avram As mentioned the FAO original office for Europe and Central Asia has assisted several members in the region in developing Inclusive and sustainable national strategies for the digitalization of agriculture Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the countries that most recently embarked and Completed a national strategy making process with FAO So could you please tell us more about this effort and how you plan to move from strategy to implementation Your Excellency floor is yours Thank you Good morning again from Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina First I would like to thank you for invitation. It's my pleasure to participate in Today's session and talk about Digitalization in agriculture as is well known the FAO made Very important effort and carried out an analysis of the situation in the agricultural sector through the prism of digital transformation in this sector Creating a strategic framework for the development of digital agriculture Digitalization of agriculture is a process aimed at a wide range of participants Through many activities a large number of participants were involved especially from the public and private sectors identify as key ones ministries from the agricultural sector at the state and entity levels agriculture and food agencies advisory service Farmers associations IT companies chambers and others as well as the academic community and farmers a Number of workshops have gathered options and goals of major actors to be key players of digital transformation The analysis established the position of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the process of digital transformation Which is considered to be at the very beginning of the process Positive and negative factors have been identified Through all phases of the analysis Which deterred the priorities to be made in the coming period in terms of real progress in the process of digital transformation in agriculture Thus five priorities have been defined for the implementation of strategic goals of digital transformation The first one is accelerating digital transformation in the public sector then implementation of IT solution in private sectors human and institutional capacity development for the digital agriculture Improving digital infrastructure in rural areas and raising awareness of the benefits of implemented IT solution in agriculture These goals are certainly of a framework nature and in the coming period. It is necessary to define harmonized action Plans that will lead to the implementation and realization of the goals and strategic plans in the field of digital transformation The precondition is is certainly the adoption of a new strategic plan for rural developments That will include priorities Define measures and activities that will be implemented through a strong Administrative and coordination structure that is able to ensure coherence of activities At all levels of authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina The motivation for this process lies in the fact that is necessary to enable two processes The first one is the accession to the European Union Which requires among other things the establishment of information system Which definitely leads toward the direction of digital agriculture The second process is the necessity of strengthening the competitiveness of agriculture that moves towards the digitalization of agriculture and For the end of this answer It is very important to keep in mind that management and administrative structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the agricultural sector were responsibilities are mostly at entity and particular district levels and partly at the Continental levels in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Document is available at these levels with the intention on harmonization Harmonization policies and practices in this area throughout the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina Thank you Many thanks to you your Excellency for elaborating on the strategic goals you aim to achieve with the implementation of this strategy You noted several important points one aligning your actions to the requirements to access the EU Secondly the importance of learning From more technically and technologically advanced countries and then Importance of ensuring that this strategy is mainstreamed is adopted by the canton's the districts So that the strategy is really translated into action at local level. Thank you very much. Excellency And now let me turn to you our second panel member Dr. Doris Mark Bard Program officer with the European Commission DG Agri So Dr. Mark Bard, we just learned of Bosnia and Herzegovina's strategic plans for the digitalization of agriculture So let me ask you Which Instruments does the European Union provide in support of digitalization? in rural areas and agriculture Thank you for the question and thank you for the invitation with mourning and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen The European Union offers a portfolio of policy us instruments and support of Digitalization and rural areas and agriculture This includes regional development funds the connecting your facility also recovery and resilience facility the digital youth program and noteworthy the common agriculture policy All instruments have different focal points for instance fostering support to digital innovation new and capacities or digital infrastructure It is important that European and national events and support of digitalization I use in a synergistic way Some initiatives framing and supporting efforts to boost digitalization and agriculture and rural areas Are carried out at European level for instance joint research and innovation or the exchange of experience between stakeholders Yet the situation as regards digitalization rural areas and agriculture varies across many For instance in some countries connectivity in rural areas has to be strengthened in others digital skills While in some countries times are technically very advanced and highly digitalized It is important to take stock of the strengths weaknesses opportunities threats to respond in a tailored way to national needs There's a common agriculture policy starting post-2020 digitalization as an integral part of the so-called cross-cutting objecting of modernizing the sector by fostering knowledge innovation and digitalization in agriculture and rural areas While cross-cutting or horizontal supporting digitalization offers the opportunities to contribute to other CEP objectives and support digitalization may not be seen in isolation Digitalization is no end in itself Digitalization can be regarded as an abler For instance the potential of digital technologies can help to increase sustainability performance and competitiveness of the agriculture sector and rural communities And to increase the quality of life And by means of digitalization strategies An enabling environment for using the enabling potential of digitalization can be envisaged There's a common agriculture policy post-2020 Member states are asked to elaborate digitalization strategy as part of the national CEP strategic plan Those strategies allow to account for the national situation situation and to follow a comprehensive approach towards digitalization considering for instance human capacities digital technologies and infrastructure and the provision of data and no mercy to mitigate digital device Fostering a strategic approach also allows using the toolkit of policy instruments in a synergetic and tailored way The comprehensive approach towards digitalization may also include linking public and private efforts in the interest in digitalization In the context of the Common Agriculture Policy Examples in this field include the reduction of administrative burdens for farmers and the administration and life and the use of digital tools or the provision of public data for the development of database solutions for farmers Overall, it is important to reach a kind of trickle-down effect from systemic action at national level to the ground to ensure that the potential of digitalization can be used effectively by stakeholders such as farmers and associations and rural communities Thank you Thank you very much Dr. Mark Vard for the interest in points Thank you for sharing key information on the EU portfolio of policy instruments I noted several additional insightful points here Digitalization not to be seen in isolation, but we regard it as an enabler The need to harness strategies to create an enabling environment The need for a comprehensive approach linking public and private sector and that member states are asked to elaborate digital agriculture strategies in the framework of the Common Agriculture Policy But strategies that put emphasis on digitalization can also emerge from the bottom up Right, Ms. Jordan So let me introduce you to Ms. Jordan She is the Managing Director of ADO, the European Association for Information on Local Development An organization that learns from and fosters community-led innovation to revitalize local communities across Europe So let me ask you, based on ADO's experience and in particularly the studies you carried out around the concept of smart villages in the EU Can you tell us more about how strategies for a digital-led rural development can emerge from the bottom up? And what do they need the most to succeed? Thank you very much Hello to everybody Good morning and good afternoon And thank you for inviting me today To answer your question, smart villages They can be understood simply as rural communities that refuse to wait for change to happen to them So such communities, they are made up of rural people who take the initiative to mobilize themselves and to explore practical solutions to the day-to-day challenges that they face So what they do is they build on their existing strengths and assets and they try to seize new opportunities to improve their quality of life And so there are thousands of such rural communities across Europe who are doing this in various ways with initiatives covering a wide range of fields such as innovation in rural services, renewable energy, urban rural linkages, the bio-economy, agricultural and food, environmental sustainability, etc And these initiatives, they usually begin with local people coming together around a common problem or a common vision to implement some form of plan of actions in order to achieve a specific goal And these initiatives, they can come from civil society organizations, from local authorities or even private sector actors And they tend to start small and they focus on key opportunities or problems that motivate local people And the success of these bottom initiatives, they really involve having to build platforms and partnerships among the relevant stakeholders, as has already been said a little bit today And particularly it's very important to have the active involvement and the support of the appropriate local and regional authorities Because while the initial idea for a smart village can start at the level of a small village or even a hamlet the success often depends upon the cooperation with other nearby villages or towns and cities And this is why national and regional policy makers and implementers really have to ensure that the right policy tools are made available in the right place at the right time for local communities to use in a way that is flexible so that they can be adapted to different and evolving circumstances allowing smart village strategies to start small and then to grow And specifically when it comes to digital strategies for rural communities Studies have shown that even in countries with significant investments in broadband infrastructure these can have a limited impact on rural communities if there isn't a coordinated governance at regional and local level So again what really helps drive the development of rural digital services is those partnerships Okay, they have to involve multiple stakeholders and a coordinated governance framework from local to regional or even national scale to link regional strategies with local initiatives. That will really help build the capacity of the rural stakeholders I think maybe another aspect that we have seen in our experience when supporting these bottom up initiatives is related to connectors to individuals or agencies that support the digital coordination of local actors helping select the best technologies, promoting data sharing, promoting interoperability Those intermediaries in a way, those brokers, those shared spaces are very important to support the digital transition in rural areas For example, we can talk about digital hubs, fab labs, co-working spaces, living labs and other intermediate bodies that can help develop local capacity to innovate This kind of support villages can create, they can contribute to new smart products, new smart services that are really designed to benefit the rural communities and their stakeholders So to go a little bit deeper in this idea of having those co-creation spaces I think what's important, what we have really realized is that while local people know what their needs are they may not be aware of the best technological solutions available for meeting those needs and the successful projects from our experience are often those that adopt a co-creation approach involving a range of service providers, rural organizations and local residents For example, we can have rural digital hubs which tend to operate at the micro-local level They can be located in village halls, community centers or libraries and they can really help rural villages build on the social capital that is inherent to the rural community in question They can also be linked and supported by regional level initiatives For example, there can be regional digital platforms that use co-creation methods to enable rural residents to use digital applications that can support their own social and economic development And finally, I want to talk a little bit about living labs This is something that we have experimented with a lot and we have studied a lot A living lab is usually a multi-actor approach that is used to tap into local insights and come up with practical and sustainable innovation The living labs, what do they do? They facilitate the development of prototypes They facilitate innovation workshops and they really help find joint relevant solutions They provide an environment where potential partners from the industry also can be involved and can explore their solutions quickly having real end users involved And that's very valuable Just to give you one quick example, in Germany, near Lake Constance A living lab is currently looking at how to improve the organic fruit production value chain by involving local and national organic agriculture associations Regional governmental agencies for agriculture, but also research associations Regional governmental agencies, sorry, I've already said it, consulting agencies, environment and biodiversity institutes So a very multi-actor type of approach And this project is interesting, it gives priority to improving the digital infrastructure and skills of family businesses in that particular rural area And it promotes the cooperative use of digitalization services So to conclude, I mean, if I was to maybe sum it up in three key recommendations to best support and nurture these bottom-up community-led initiatives There would be one, to really understand the local digital ecosystem and to focus support on the most promising areas Two, to support the animation, facilitation and brokerage during the project preparation activities to ensure a participatory process And three, to support the development of these enablers and multipliers that we talked about such as living labs and various forms of digital hubs within villages and rural settlements Thank you very much Thanks to you, Ms. Jordan So many interesting experiences to learn from So smart rural communities that take the initiative to mobilize themselves to drive the development of digital services the need to understand the digital ecosystem but also, you know, for FAO, the need to have connectors, to have brokers that are able to support their digital transition Thanks a lot for all these experiences, really So, and now, before I turn back to Dr. Mark Vard for a follow-up question and a second round of questions to the panelists let me remind the audience joining us online on Zoom to write their questions in the Q&A box that they see at the bottom of their screen And we will take all the questions at the end of this second round So, second question to you, Dr. Mark Vard We just learned of locally driven bottom-up initiatives of smart villages Let me ask you then, how does the European Commission foster bottom-up approaches and how they can contribute to accelerating the digital transformation of rural areas Thank you also for this question There are various instruments supporting a bottom-up approach relevant in the context of the sustainability development of rural areas and the agriculture sector I think we have lost Dr. Mark Vard Let's wait just a few seconds to see whether she comes back online Otherwise, I think we will need to give her a few minutes So, she comes back online So, let me then ask a second question to Ms. Joydan Let me go back to Aido So, Ms. Joydan, you have just told us of smart villages and it was mentioned in the opening remarks of Mr. Thomas that FAO has launched a global corporate program called Digital Village Initiative whereby FAO has set the goal to transform 1,000 villages across the globe into digital village hubs and the regional office of Europe and Central Asia is now setting the grounds for the implementation of the initiative for bringing it to the region, learning from the European experience Aido is FAO's strategic partner in defining and establishing an approach that leverages the experience of the European smart villages for the implementation of the FAO Digital Village Initiative in Europe and Central Asia So, could you please tell us more about this? Yes, with pleasure, thank you So, this specific assignment that you are referring to called capitalizing on the good practices and lessons learned from the European smart villages initiatives aims at gaining practical knowledge with a view to better implement FAO Digital Village Initiative in Europe and Central Asia and that's where we as Aido are trying to contribute The work is still very much in progress but we're working with FAO to develop a tailored approach for the transfer of knowledge, technology and experiences from existing smart villages to potential digital villages in the focus countries and this knowledge transfer approach is about connecting villages to learn from each other, to share their experiences and good practices on digitalization focusing on agri-food systems and rural areas and among other things we're drawing inspiration, let's say, from existing approaches such as, for example, town-twinning and for those who are not familiar with this concept town-twinning is a model of long-term cooperation between two towns or municipalities usually based in two different countries based on friendship, trust and mutual enrichment and, for example, we think we can adapt this type of collaboration to facilitate the transfer of digital solutions or to test them in different contexts but this knowledge transfer approach could also take the form of rural networking, for example whereby we will establish formal and informal agreements between villages who decide to cooperate to deliver physical virtual trainings or simply to share information and ideas So one of the first deliverables that has already been produced within this effort is a set of guidelines for the identification of potential digital villages These guidelines come with a scoring system across various factors and give a picture for a particular village of its maturity level within the digital villages process and in ways also there to help assess the preparedness level of a given village to engage in a digital village transformation process So we hope these guidelines will be useful and what I can say so far is that in my opinion FAOREU is really uniquely positioned to bring together lessons and best practices from different angles building, of course, on what is being done in other FAO regions under the 1000 Digital Villages Initiative but also tapping into the good practices and experiences of these European smart villages ADEL is here among other things to help identify and mobilize existing smart villages in the EU to design and implement knowledge transfer and or twinning type activities that will benefit the selected villages in the various target countries and this year we aim to pilot one round of such activities with the intention of learning from it and drawing recommendations for future scaling up I hope I have answered your question Thank you Thank you very much, Ms Jordan We are really looking forward to moving to implementation soon identifying candidate villages and supporting the transferring of knowledge good practices and experience arising from European smart villages So now I see Dr. Marc Bart back online We were asking you how does the European Commission foster bottom-up approaches how can they contribute to accelerate the digital transformation of rural areas Yes, thank you again and my apologies for any connectivity and aspects So there are several new instruments supporting the bottom-up approach relevant in the context of the sustainability development of rural areas and the agriculture sector This includes NIDA, smart villages we heard about and the European Innovation Partnership for Agriculture Productivity and Sustainability the so-called EIPI NIDA and the smart villages often enable rural regions and rural villages respectively to use the development potential following participatory approach And NIDA, the holistic cross-sector approach to the development of the region is fostered Smart villages, as we learned in the previous presentation developed innovative solutions to use their capacities in a smart way Capacities may concern for instance social capital or natural resources which are capitalized through innovative solutions With the European Innovation Partnerships, EIPI following a multi-actor approach embodying practitioners and scientists innovative approaches in support of sustainable agriculture production are developed Nowadays, we know it digitalization is in a set to use the full development potential in rural areas as nearly all daily lives and business actions are linked to digital technology Many smart villages initiatives via local action groups and EIPI operational groups use an enabling potential of digitalization Some of them also foster innovation in the use of digital technology These button-up initiatives may also concentrate as we learned today already other types of innovation so in other fields of action depending on the point of departure of the region, of the village and the objectives they foster It is important that national digitization strategies and bottom-up initiatives go hand in hand and that local actors are empowered and have the capacities to fully exploit the enabling potential of digitalization and to further innovate in various domains In the European Union and beyond those bottom-up approaches are accompanied by support to networking or the exchange of experiences which is organized at the European level for instance to the European network for development the smart villages platform or a network of national broadband competency offices This allows stakeholders to get inspired by innovative solutions developed elsewhere and to get motivated to adapt them to the situation in their village or region Thank you Thank you very much Dr. Mark Ward Let me put emphasis on a sentence that you mentioned the importance that national digital agriculture strategies and local bottom-up initiatives go hand in hand Very inspiring Thank you very much We learned of EU bottom-up approaches we learned of initiatives to foster rural development including smart villages introduced the FIO digital village initiative and the need to capitalize to learn from the European experience and to transfer it to other villages so they can take active steps towards a digitally driven rural development Thank you So let me turn to you again your excellency Vanya Avram and let me ask you how all of what we said resonates with Bosnia-Nerzegovina's strategic plans for rural development Thank you for your question The basic concept of a smart village is to combine the efforts of the community and a set of people who have knowledge and integrate them with information technology in order to provide benefits for the rural community Although there are different criteria that give different indicators the percentage of rural population in Bosnia-Nerzegovina is over 50% which ranks among the top European countries in terms of the share of rural population and indicates the importance of rural areas Even the complexity of the concept of smart and digital villages there is a need for multi-sectoral approach that includes actions of different stakeholders such as telecommunications infrastructure investment agriculture education technological development etc The current situation in this regard in Bosnia-Nerzegovina is that sectoral policies independently treat certain aspects of the development of smart and digital villages and the only systematic approach to this topic is currently in the strategy created within the FAO project Given that this document deals with digital agriculture it provides elements for the creation of digital villages Following the priorities stated in this document and in terms of the development smart and digital villages a possible course of action is to establish two or three pilot smart villages that would serve as examples of good practice in Bosnia-Nerzegovina and as a roadmap for other projects Taking into account the heterogeneity of Bosnia-Nerzegovina in terms of economic, infrastructural agri-environmental social and other aspects, these pilot projects should be implemented in three zones Mediterranean mountain and lowland areas However, in addition to achieving a satisfactory level of general digital transformation such ventures require financial resources to ensure the implementation of pilot projects as well as a specific analysis of project visibility for precise locations Thank you very much Thank you very much Your Excellency Thank you very much for elaborating on your country world development challenges and unique traits Thank you for stating interest in piloting village transformation approaches bottom-up approaches in Bosnia-Nerzegovina Dr. Mark Vart Ms. Jordan Thank you very much for your insights, views and perspectives We are eager to leverage these experiences and good practices that emerged from the discussion to implement initiatives and tangible actions that are truly transformation in rural areas throughout Europe and Central Asia And now, it's time to open the floor to the audience for questions I see already many questions in the Q&A box on Zoom For the audience here present in Poland please raise your hand if you wish to pose a question And now let me ask my colleague Valentin He can read out loud a couple of interesting questions that came up from the Zoom Q&A box Yes, thank you Daniela, as you mentioned we have received a couple of questions online However, due to the limited time we have I'm afraid we will not be able to answer all of them However, I would like to raise your attention to one asked by cannot from Kyrgyzstan can any village become a smart village or are there any preconditions for it Thank you, Valentin So let me repeat the question coming from Kyrgyzstan Can any village become a smart village or a digital village or are there any sort of preconditions to it Who would like to take this question from the speakers I'm happy to give one answer I don't know if it's the only answer because it's an interesting question actually I mean generally I would say that there are three basic conditions for a village to become a successful digital village it needs technological infrastructure so the digital and the internet capacity it needs human capital as has been highlighted by my fellow panelists several times so it's really important that the local stakeholders have the skills and the competencies to apply the new digital solutions and I also think what's important is the economic gains aspect for it to really be successful the village needs to have the capacity to exploit economically the newly acquired access to broadband and technologies with the value created remaining in the local communities but perhaps another really more fundamental factor even more than all these conditions for success I would say that the precondition is the interest and the motivation of the local communities themselves their desire to take matters into their hands to join together to create to not be afraid of trying and testing and sometimes failing it's an iterative process so a true bottom-up initiative can happen in many many places as long as people come together and decide to find a solution to a given problem that is very important to them and meaningful to them and that they're given the space to create, to test, to experiment and eventually to succeed Thank you very much Claire for elaborating on on these important aspects let me turn to Valentin for another question Thanks Daniela, thanks Claire Next question would be from Sophie Trinen What are the investment plans that the EU and the other partners can propose to support digital transformation of agriculture in Eastern Central Europe and Central Asia Is this possibly a question to Dr Mark Ward so what are the investment plans that the EU and possibly other partners can propose to support the digital transformation of agriculture in Eastern Central Europe and Central Asia Yes, thank you for the question I think I would like not to point to the investment plans I think as I referred to in the contribution that I made today in the European Union the investments approaches in the individual countries vary so what is important from my personal perspective is that if developing an investment plan in a country at national level and to take stock of the opportunities and resources and the instruments which are out there how they can contribute in the national context to support digitalization and how best synergies between different national, international and European Union instruments can be achieved and then to develop a specific tailored approach how to best use the different instruments so there will be instruments focusing more on digital infrastructure there will be instruments allowing to foster as we learn today the importance of human capacities to build for instance digital skills and then to maybe this eco-culture and rule development specific actions for instance there might be a common eco-culture policy for instance we ask support for investments in farmers for digital technologies for rural communities to have tailored interventions supplementing the national efforts and digital infrastructure so I think that's not one of the approach the importance is to take stock of the opportunities and then to develop a plan suitable for the country addressing the needs of the country and synergies between the different instruments thank you Thanks to you Dr. Mark Ward I can see many other interesting questions really being asked in the Q&A box and it's great to see so much interest we will note down these questions and reach out to you by laterally and I can tell that probably we will need to organize a follow up session very soon where we elaborate on some of the key concepts that emerged here village twin and this concept of knowledge transfer bottom up approaches how we ensure we mainstream gender elements in the development of smart villages but time is running up and it's time to conclude our panel so it's now my pleasure to invite Mr. Vladimir Olegovich Rachmanin FAO assistant director general and our regional representative for Europe and Central Asia for his closing remarks the floor is yours Thank you very much Daniella it's really extremely important topic because everybody is talking about digitalization now there is a simple point why we need to do it by 2050 we shall have 10 billion people and we need to produce healthy food for all of them and we need to use all tools in order to make our production efficient environmentally friendly and we need to deal with the crisis which are hitting the world those days so we need to deal from the good food or food at all so the challenges are high efficiency should be raised there are many instruments available but digitalization is one of the most prominent ones which will help us to put the good food on the table or the increasing population and not making any more damage to the planet second point which I want to make I just came from last week in digital conference digital agriculture conference in Baku and we have a bit participation from our region but most important is that this conference once again confirmed how diverse we are we have in our region we have European Union we have Central Asia with their experiences with their experiences everybody is working on digitalization very rich experiences what is important is to provide a platform and to share the best practices yesterday we also launched here the regional platform on green agriculture and this is also a digital platform which is providing us with many opportunities to see what is done by the others and to choose what is best for each and every country FAO is working on digitalization digital agriculture in various areas Deputy Director General Thomas was talking about geospatial platform which is very exciting tool we need to bring this tool to the countries at the national level will be able to use it when we talk about and of course the initiative of digital villages which we need to promote in our region and to see how best to promote it in the interest of the countries of course there was a question about what village can be digital to my mind every village can be digital but you need to have hardware you need to have cell phones you need to have software and be able to understand it so it very much depends on the promotion by the national governments by very much depends in terms of hardware because I studied EU experiences and sometimes even in the developed countries of European Union the question of broadband might make the spread and expansion of digitalization in rural areas a bit limited but I know that EU colleagues are working on that also the pandemic taught us how connected can we be and how we can use in a very practical ways the digital tools connection between supplies and consumers became very direct quite often the markets were closed so consumers were able to connect with suppliers immediately so people are very creative and we need to use this creativity and support this creativity in the time of digitalization around us yesterday I have a lot of meetings here in Poland yesterday I talk to my colleagues from Tajikistan and they are telling me that they introduced in the mountain areas of Tajikistan which allows the farmers to provide efficient irrigation just simply saying what is the humidity of the air what is the situation with the soil it's kind of a pilot project but it's very important that it's already showed it's efficient so these ways should be should be promoted more also when we talk about digitalization we need to keep in mind since we are in Europe here we need to keep in mind the European Union regulations on the use of IT and intellectual rights that should all be harmonized because otherwise that would be difficult to make it widespread and kind of universal so many issues to look into but what I can say that there is huge interest we need to work together in order to make this digitalization happening and promoting digital agriculture and showing the efficiency of that and of course FAO stands ready to provide the platform for that and connect all our members and partners in the government's private sector civil society in inclusive manner thank you very much we have a lot of things to do but we succeed definitely thank you very much thank you to the assistant director general for your closing remarks thanks again to her excellency Avram thanks to Dr. Mark Vard thanks to Ms. Jordan thanks to our guest here in Poland and the audience that has joined us online I wish you a very good rest of your day thank you