 Chairpersons, Honourable Ministers, Director-General of FAO Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is an honour for me to make a statement at the Regional Conference for Europe as Chairperson of the Committee on World Food Security, CFS. I am grateful to Director-General Mr Chiu Dong Chiu for these opportunities and the invitations. Currently, all countries in the world are going through very difficult times with the COVID-19 pandemic. Hunger and food insecurities are increasing dramatically, further impairing the achievement of SDG2 zero-hungers and other related targets of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. The Committee on World Food Security, CFS, provides policy guidance in many areas to address the challenges of food security and nutrition and is more relevant than ever to help your countries identify relevant topics and actions. CFS policy guidance has proven to be relevant to many countries in the regions. Let me first say a few words about the Committee on World Food Security as some of you may not be familiar with CFS. The Committee was established in 1974 as the Committee of the FAO Council, but was then fundamentally reformed in 2009 to become an independent multi-stakeholder platform for dialogue and debate on global food security and nutrition policies, jointly supported by FAO, EFAT and WFP. CFS vision and the roles was defined in 2009 to focus on the key challenges of ending hunger and ensuring food security and nutrition for the progressive legalizations of the right to adequate food. A remarkable feature of the Committee is its inclusiveness, which gives it policy recommendation and unrivaled level to legitimacy and authorities. The CFS advisory group includes all the main actors involved in food security and nutrition from the UN system, civil societies, international agricultural research system, international and regional financial institutions and private sectors and philanthropic foundation. Since the 2009 reform, CFS policy debate and work have benefited from scientific evidence and knowledge provided by a CFS high-level panel of experts on food security and nutrition, HLPE, whose report are outstanding. Finally, this unique UN platform report to the United Nations General Assembly through FAO conference and the Economic Social Council, ECOSOP. Let me now present to you CFS achievements since you met at the regional conference in Voronezh last two years ago, as well as the CFS program of work for 2020 to 2023. Since it reformed in 2009, CFS has issued outstanding policy work, providing developed and developing country with effective instruments to fight hunger and malnutrition, and I would like to mention to some of you, the well-known Voluntary Guideline on Responsible Governance of Tenors of Land, Fisheries and Forestry in the Contact of the National Food Security, CFS VGGT. The next one is the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food System CFS Ride Principles. And the third one, the Framework for Action for Food Securities and Nutrition in Protracted Crisis, CFS FFA. And we still have other 14 sets of policy recommendations stemming from CFS high-level panel expert reports on a wide range of food security and nutrition topics. All CFS policy products can be downloaded from the CFS website. Please visit us. CFS is currently developing Voluntary Guideline on Food System and Nutrition for expected endorsement at CFS 47 in February 2021. The preparation of this guideline is informed by the CFS high-level panel expert report on nutrition and food system and by contribution received at open meeting and regional consultation in 2019 last year. CFS is also developing policy recommendations on acro-ecological and other innovative approaches for sustainable agriculture and food system based on a CFS HLPE report on the same topic. We anticipate negotiating these next springs and adopting them next year ahead of the UN Food System Summit. CFS will also provide global policy guidance or new topics as per its program of work for 2020 to 2023, which was approved at CFS 46 in October 2019 last year. And some of those work streams are gender quality and women empowerment in the context of food security and nutrition. The term of reference of the Voluntary Guideline are expected to be endorsed at CFS 47 in February 2021 next year. And the guideline will be endorsed at CFS 49 in October 2022. The next work stream on youth engagement and empowerment in agriculture and food system to promote policy that foster enabling environment capable for tapping into the energies and skill of youth to improve food system to be endorsed at CFS 49 in October 2022. The next work stream data collections and analysis with the objective of strengthening the capacities of country to collect, analyze and utilize quality data to approve decision-making on food securities and nutrition which will be endorsed at CFS 50 in 2023. And the last one, the work stream on reducing inequalities for food securities and nutrition including gender inequalities with an analysis of the driver for socio-economic inequalities between actors within accurate food system that influence food securities and nutrition outcomes. The discussion will start at the end of 2023. And we will be looking at way to review our policy recommendation on water and on climate change to see how they have been used and if more can be done. Honorable ministers, excellencies, dear colleagues, the situation today is extremely worrying. We all agree that we must act to address the pressing challenges of today. And after the coronavirus pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities and the weaknesses of our food system, CFS policy products are existing to help countries progress toward the achievement of SDG2-0 hunger and the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda. And we'll make every effort to support your country with its policy guidance. CFS also needs you members and stakeholders to participate actively and constructively in its debate to gain full ownership of its outcome and to communicate and implement its policy recommendation where appropriate at the national level, at the ground level. If your country is not yet a member, I urge you to join us now. I'm grateful to the director generals for the support expressed to the work of the CFS and accordingly I would like to underline the importance of FAO field offices supporting the work of the CFS and to see how best to operationalize CFS products and achieve more concrete results and outcomes. I look forward to welcoming you to Rome at the next panel recessions of the Committee on World Food Security CFS in February 2021 to continue this conversation. My last words are to thank again FAO for its great contribution and continue support to the Committee on World Food Security CFS. Thank you very much.