 Take your seats to start. Thank you. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Marius George Addis. I am the deputy permanent representative of Cyprus to the UN agencies in Rome and the chairperson of the European Commission on Agriculture. It is my great pleasure to open the 43rd session of the European Commission on Agriculture once again in physical mortality. I'm delighted to see many familiar as well as new faces amongst you and finally not in a Zoom meeting. I would like to welcome all of you, 55 delegates from 36 countries plus the European Union, and seven representatives from civil society, non-governmental organizations, private sector and academia. I look forward to having fruitful technical discussions related to the items without political interventions. First of all, on behalf of the Commission, FAO and myself, I would like to thank the government of Hungary for hosting this ECA session here at Budapest. Before we start our work, I would like to provide some information regarding the session, including the relevant procedural information. This morning's session will be held from 9 to 12 o'clock. Lunch kindly offered by the government of Hungary will be provided in the hotel restaurant on the ground floor from 12 to 1 p.m. After lunch, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., there will be a side event on support to local rural development in Europe and Central Asia, which will be held in this room. There will be no official coffee breaks, however, coffee is available outside the room during the session. The afternoon session will begin in the plenary at 2 p.m. We hope to finish at 5 p.m. if the tag schedule permits. If you are planning to read the statement, please send it to the ECA secretariat at erc-ecad-secretariat-FAO.org prior to delivery. And please read it slowly and clearly to allow for interpretation. The secretariat will always treat the text as confidential and check against delivery before including it in the report. The European Union is participating in this session in accordance with paragraphs 8 and 9 of article 2 of the FAO constitution. I also inform you that the European Union has submitted the statement of competence in voting rights by the European Union and its member states, which is document number ECA-slash-43-slash-23-slash-3. I am particularly pleased to acknowledge the participation of civil society, non-governmental organizations and representatives from research and academia, as well as the private sector as observers in this session. Following the practice of previous ECA sessions and regional conferences, observers are allowed to take part in the debates of the session under the relevant agenda items without having to wait until all members have spoken. Now if there are no comments to other presented arrangements, we will start the session. I see no request for the floor. Thank you. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to give the floor to His Excellency Dr. István Nagy, Minister of Agriculture of Hungary, to deliver his opening remarks. Excellency, you have the floor. Dear colleagues, it is a great honor for me to welcome you in Budapest for the 43rd meeting of the European Commission on Agriculture. This year's theme is sustainable use of land and water resources in Europe and Central Asia. Nothing shows better the relevance of water issues than the fact that the United Nations held its first water conference in 2023. The FAO conference in July focused on water as a strategic resource and this year's World Food Day slogan is water is life, water is food. Natural water is limited. The populations and natural habitats of many countries around the world are already suffering from water scarcity, which is why it is in our interest and our shared responsibility to protect and sustainably use our water resources. Water management is more than just dealing with water due to its cross-sectoral integrated nature. It is an element of the natural environment, which is linked to many aspects of natural processes and human society. More and more water is used for agricultural, industrial and domestic purposes, and food production is heavily dependent on access to water, both quantitatively and qualitatively. We need to recognize the fundamental importance of water in the Earth's climate system. The profound impact of land use and land changes on temperature variability, hydrology and biodiversity. In terms of climate stability and water balance, each individual land area has an impact on the continent as a whole. The main challenges facing the European and Central Asian region include land degradation, soil salinity, lack of proper land tenure mechanisms, water scarcity and climate change. With regard to the latter, the trend of decreasing precipitation and increasing temperatures is continuing. The presence of extremes is indicated by the fact that during periods of major floods and inland water events, floods inland water and droughts may be present in a region in a single year. In order to ensure crop safety, it is no longer sufficient to apply appropriate agro-technology in crop production, but also to ensure conditions for water retention and water-efficient irrigation management. Thanks to its fortunate environments, Hungary is rich in high-quality water sources, so we regard clean water as a national treasure. Despite this, Hungarian agriculture also suffered last summer due to the drought. So the current most important task of water management is to keep the water in the landscape, in the backwaters of the rivers. That is why we have made a change of approach. We used to see water as a disaster, which we quickly drained away in case of flooding. So we have to manage water, store it and conserve it when we have abundant water. In order to maintain water security and save food production, our goal is the sustainable development of agriculture, which anticipates and keeps up with the expected effects of increasingly extreme weather conditions. We can achieve this primarily through the development of irrigation management, so that the start of the investment is always preceded by comprehensive analyses and complex decision-making work. Irrigation is in the public interest and the basis for a safe food supply. In Hungary, we prefer irrigation from surface water by properly storing, transferring, distributing and using surface water for agricultural irrigation. The adverse effects of climate change can be reduced. In addition, it is important to reduce the use of groundwater resources, which provide a significant proportion of domestic drinking water demand and have a longer recharge period. We know that effective water management requires the simultaneous use of multiple water conservation strategies. Local practical applications and measures with regional and global impact are equally important. Understanding the interplay of climatic effects of local practices is key. For example, collecting rainfall, discharging it into wells and reusing it during drought is a less commonly utilized procedure, but it has great potential. This could not only alleviate water scarcity, but also raise water levels below the surface and help ecosystems to regenerate. The widespread use of rainwater retention surfaces and rainwater harvesting solutions in urban environments not only contributes to a more liveable urban microclimate, but also has an impact on the regional environment. The restoration of floodplains and galleries has benefits for water conservation, groundwater recharge and ecology. The adaptation of alternative agricultural management systems is also essential in order to preserve soil quality and water resources. The appropriate agricultural practices of farmers are essential for sustainable agricultural water management. The use of natural water retention methods, for example infiltration within the field, protection against erosion and territorial water retention, and in general the adaptation of mosaic land use and cultivated plants to local environmental conditions. Furthermore, we have developed a new investment and maintenance support program for the creation of new areas where it is not worthwhile to continue arable production and where wetlands and small-scale water facilities for regional water retention can be created. In order to protect soil and biodiversity, it is important to comply with environmental requirements such as crop diversification, maintaining permanent grassland and creating biodiversity support areas on arable land. Healthy soil is full of life, and there are more living things in a handful of soil than there are people on earth. Soil is the basis for producing enough healthy and good quality food. Healthy soil serves not only food security, but also environmental and climate protection. Its carbon sequestration and purification capacity is outstanding, which has an impact on the quality of life. Soil is an extremely important environmental resource and economic factor in our country. Almost 54% of Hungary's land is under agricultural use. The agricultural area per capita is 0.50 hectares, which is considered high, both in the EU and globally. Hungary ranks sixth among EU member states and 20th in the world in terms of arable land per capita. Fortunately, farmers have much more information than ever before to learn about their soil. The Hungarian agricultural policy prioritizes soil improvement and sustainable soil management. In 2021, the government adopted the Soil Protection Action Plan, which builds on shared responsibility and shifts the focus from post-punishment authority work to preventative knowledge sharing soil protection. The role of research, development and innovation in increasing the efficiency of sustainable soil and water use is crucial. Precision technology allows less and targeted water use by adapting irrigation to the real needs of the plant. Thus, safer and more predictable agricultural production and higher product quality can be achieved without damaging the environment. Community engagement and education are also very important. The active participation of communities and individuals is needed to achieve sustainable land and water use. Early and adequate education and awareness raising initiatives are essential to promote responsible consumption and environmental protection. Last but not least, I would like to stress the importance of global cooperation as international cooperation is essential to tackle cross-border issues such as land and water management. Ensuring sustainable use of these natural resources requires political commitment and a systemic approach to contribute to more resilient food systems and biodiversity conservation in the region. Dear colleagues, let us commit ourselves to a more sustainable and climate resilient use of land and water resources so the future generations can live in a world which is rich in natural resources. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Your Excellency, for your warm welcome. And as you correctly stated, clean water is considered a national treasure and healthy soil is full of life and both should be managed sustainably. Let me now invite Mr. Nabil Kanji, officer in charge for the Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia and Deputy Regional Representative to deliver his opening remarks. Mr. Kanji, you have the floor. Thank you, Your Excellency. Excellencies, Your Excellency, Honourable Representatives, Observers and colleagues, it is my honor and pleasure to welcome you to the 43rd session of the European Commission on Agriculture, taking place in this beautiful city of Budapest. Thank you, Mr. Minister, for ordering the great weather and I'm happy that we can all meet in person again under the sun of Budapest after the break of the COVID. It is also very encouraging to see 36 countries plus the EU, plus seven observer organizations participating today in the European Commission on Agriculture, which shows basically our relevance for all members in the region. Let me take this opportunity to express my gratitude, sincere gratitude to the government of Hungary, specifically to the Ministry of Agriculture for their hospitality, not only for the Commission, but actually for FAO. The Regional Office has been working here for several years. Thank you, thanks to the hospitality of the Ministry of Agriculture and today our Commission on Agriculture is also hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture. I would like also to thank them for the arrangements for the field trips, which I hope that we will all be able to go. There are two very different opportunities and I think if you could please, if you haven't registered yet, please do with the secretariat. It is the mandate and a good tradition of the Commission to discuss issues that are most relevant to further development of agriculture aspects in the countries of the region. In the sessions we try to address the needs and challenges existing in the region within the FAO's biennial theme adopted by the conference as overall framework. Thus after discussions at the meetings of the Executive Committee and considering proposals collected from the members, we agreed that the main theme of this session should be the management of land and water resources. Accidences land and water equals life. Some wise persons that once give me agriculture, I give you civilization. And land and water make agriculture and agriculture makes civilization. Because of the current challenges to achieving the sustainable development goals and at the request of the Executive Committee, an update on FAO's response to the multiple crisis has been included also in your agenda. I would like to thank the ECA secretariat and the Executive Committee for all their conceptual and preparatory work throughout the two years between the sessions. I would also like to express my appreciation for the work of the technical officers from the regional office headed by the regional program leader. I hope that members have found these documents helpful in providing sufficient background information for productive sessions and discussions. With this, and without further ado, I look forward to active participation from your membership. During this session, I would like to wish everybody fruitful discussion in the plenary and in the side events. And I had the pleasure actually of attending the first side event in the morning on gender and I really would encourage everyone to try to attend the second session in the, during the lunch break. Finally, I'd like to thank the government of Hungary. And basically, thank you all for being here and I hope you can enjoy the finest of the weather of Budapest. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Kanji, for your opening remarks. With the session officially open, we can begin our work. The first item of business is the adoption of the agenda and type timetable for the session. The secretariat has prepared the documents and the agenda is document number ECA slash 43 slash 23 slash 1. And the timetable is document number ECA 40 slash 43 slash 23 slash 2 rev 2. Are there any objections or proposals to the agenda and timetable as presented? I see no request for the floor. I therefore consider the agenda and the timetable adopted. Let us move to item two, appointment of the reporters. Prior to the session, Mr. Katerina Vibornova, Russian Federation, has been nominated to be a reporter. Are there any objections to these nominations and are there any other nominations? I see Spain on behalf of the European Union and its member states. Thank you very much, sir. Welcome to all of you. Spain on behalf of the EU and 27 member states would like to abstain from the appointment of the reporter. Thank you. At this point, I would like to inform you that countries, member states can nominate more than one reporter. So if there are any other nominations, please provide them to us at this moment. Spain, please. You have the floor. Gracias. Thanks again, sir. Just one thing. Could we perhaps put forward a candidate after lunch? Would that be possible? Thank you, Spain, for your suggestion. Yes, this would be possible. Please contact the secretariat, and this could be arranged. Thank you. Another suggestion would be to the Commission if there is a request for a quick break, 10 or 15 minutes, for a coordination between the EU and its member states to come forward with the nomination at this moment, that could also be possible in your hands. Gracias de nuevo. Thank you again, sir, for offering that alternative. If possible, we'd rather do it after lunch. That will give us more time. Thank you. Yes, thank you for taking. So I therefore consider Ms. Caterina Vipornova appointed as a trabuter with the abstention of the European Union and its 27 member states, and we are still waiting for another nomination after the break. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, next, Spain. Perdón. I'm sorry. I don't know whether you heard this. We had abstention rather than dissociation. I'd like to confirm that we said dissociation rather than abstention. Thank you. I believe there was an issue with the translation, or I didn't get the word right. So it's dissociation, not abstention, just for the record. Yes. Thank you. I see no further request for the floor. Ladies and gentlemen, next on the order of business is agenda item three, sustainable use of land and water resources in Europe and Central Asia. The background document number for this agenda item is ECA slash 43 slash 23 slash three. This item is intended to introduce only the main theme of the ECA session, and thus members and observers are requested to deliver their statements not under this item, but at the next agenda items detailing the specific sub-topics. As you are aware, this is an extremely important and urgent topic. By 2050, the agricultural sector, the largest user of water globally will have to feed an estimated 9.7 billion people. We need to find a way to manage land and water resources sustainably and treat them as integrated. This way they will be in a position to effectively fight climate change, food insecurity and contribute in achieving the sustainable development goals and their respective targets by contributing to its transformation to more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable food systems. I would now like to invite Ms. Tania Santibanes, agricultural officer in the FAO regional office for Europe and Central Asia to introduce this item. Ms. Santibanes, you have the floor. Good morning everyone. Dear Chairperson, dear participants, dear colleagues, allow me to start the presentation by underlining that natural resources, biodiversity and ecosystem are the foundation of agri-food systems. It is evident that ecosystem services are the basis of economical and social service for food security and improved livelihoods. However, in the current scenario of the global crisis, land degradation and water scarcity have reached the limits of productive capacity as a result of the agriculture production system putting enormous pressures on land, soil, water and especially in rural communities where the resource base is limited and dependence of land and water resources is high. It is clear that unsustainable land and soil and water leads to land degradation, erosion, decreased soil quality, soil and water pollution and drops in growth ground levels, consequently decreasing growth and livestock production which directly impact food security and human health. In this sense, in Europe and Central Asia, we are facing several challenges related to water and land. In Central Asia, estimates are around 7% of growth land, 48% of pastoral land and 4% of forest land are degraded. More than half the land in Central Asia is salinized. In Western and North Europe, the land degradation is due to land use change through high urbanization and new infrastructure. While in the Mediterranean region, soil degradation is primarily caused by erosion, the insecurity of tenure of land and water resources increase management problems. In Europe, only 4% of surface water bodies are good or in better ecological conditions. Moreover, water resources and ecosystem in our region are also affected by climate change. Reduction in precipitation due to the impact of climate change may lead to rise in water wind row for agriculture. By 2030, it is expected that every country in Central Asia, Caucasus, except Georgia, will experience high and extremely high levels of water stress. It is also the case for Ukraine, Norma, Macedonia and Turkey and for several European countries include Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The main causes of this challenge include unsustainable agriculture practices such as overgracing the excessive use of chemical fertilizer and pesticide, agriculture farming and improved water management practices. In addition, in our region, there is a lack of coordination among the water, agriculture, forest and energy sectors that prevents an integrate approach in the management of water sheet and produce, in some cases, contradicted policies and insufficient development results. Therefore, it is urgent to address this challenge through effective land and water governance and implementing integrate water and land policies. In this regard, advancing land and water governance is embodied in FAO strategic framework and it's for better, especially better environment and better production. In response, FAO has established at global level a series of instruments, mechanisms and approaches such as global framework on water scarcity in agriculture, the global water information system, Aquastat, the global soil partnership. And it is interesting that during COP 27 last year, FAO established the Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation Initiative to deliver three wins for people, for climate and for nature. In addition, FAO promotes the voluntary guidance in the responsible governance on land tenure, fisheries and forests. And also, we are promoting land degradation neutrality in the framework of UNATE conventions to combat the certification. We also welcome to newly adopted Nature Restoration Law in the European Union, which plays the covering measures on 20% of land and sea by 2030 and covers all the graduate ecosystem by 2050. At the regional level, FAO is supporting the program countries in the region through various projects and actions to address land and soil and water challenge through two programmatic umbrellas. First, Regional Initiative One on empowering small farmers, family farms, youth transformation, basic on sustainable use natural resources. And Regional Initiative Three, which focus on managing natural resources sustainable and preserving biodiversity in a changing climate. The FAO Regional Office aims to enhance water policy in Central Asia countries by conducting studies on water policies and establishing a regional water policy platform for Central Asia. In addition, FAO Regional Office published a technical guide for support policy makers on how secure tenure rights can contribute to land degradation neutrality and provide possible solutions to land tenure challenge. FAO supports 12 member countries in the region with land consolidation and in the Republic of Moldova, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Bolsheviks and Central Asia countries FAO is supporting to achieve land degradation neutrality using new technologies. Moreover, to facilitate connection among others networks and technical areas related to green agriculture such as land management improvements, land degradation neutrality, soil water management, last year we launched the green agriculture platform. This brief overview of the importance of natural resources related to agriculture and its interconnection with land and water resources is just a summary of the four technical topics that we will discuss today. The first topic, as you know, is on integrated land and water resources management. The second and third topic presented under agenda five is on governance of tenure, land degradation neutrality and the final topic is water governance. Let me conclude that the aim in discussing these topics is to encourage collaboration and coordination among the actors which could lead to integrate land and water policies and regulation across sectors and across countries. The discussion will be also identified the most important practical solutions and recommendations to promote, integrate land and water management, improve land and water governance and to achieve land degradation neutrality in our region. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Sandivanes for introducing the main theme of our agenda. And with this I would like to close item number three of our agenda. Our next item is agenda item four, enhancing the resilience and sustainability of national aqua hood systems throughout integrated land and water resources management in Europe and Central Asia. The background document number for the item is SECA slash 43 slash 23 slash four REV1. For this item I would like to ask Ms. Sara Marjani-Zadej, land and water officer in the FAO sub-regional office for Central Asia to introduce this item. Ms. Marjani-Zadej, you have the floor. It's not on. Okay. I apologize. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. And thanks to my colleague Ms. Santinaves to actually introduce the topic of the day. I'm just going very briefly into the document that we have shared with you before about the integrated land and water resource management. Of course for the sake of the time I cannot go into a lot of details but I will just give you a very brief overview of what this topic is about and my colleague Tania already actually mentioned a lot of this. Sorry. Okay. I believe all of us know that agriculture is the main consumer of the water resources around the world. And this is just to show also that it's the same also for our region, for Europe and Central Asia and the Balkans and Caucasus. Of course depending on the country in Europe, less proportion than Central Asia but still between 70 to 90 percent of our water resources are being used in agriculture land. So this means that in order to basically properly secure our water quality and quantity, agricultural practices are key and also the other way around. If we want to achieve food security, we have to conserve and use our water resources efficiently. So they are very much interlinked and we want to emphasize that it's very important to look into land and water resources in an integrated manner and not just to look into water resources or only into the land management. They are actually together so we cannot achieve water security without looking in the for instance land resources management. So just to say a little bit about our region, before talking about the challenges I have to say that in general in our region we have in relation to food security, we have been able to have positive outcomes for instance and more nutrition in general in our region is less than other regions in the world mainly because of the European country's contribution if we want to see proportion wise. But in general malnutrition is relatively less than other regions but we have like many other regions in the world challenges as have been discussed also by my colleague previously. So as you can see we have from the loads of pollution, loads which mainly are contaminating the water resources in the Europe to also the low water efficiency in Central Asia so it's a mixture of both the quantity and quality of the water that we are facing, the degradation of basically the water resources that we have. We have the climate change impact which is affecting negatively our region and as you can see in these charts basically in Europe and Central Asia we have basically per capita somehow, I can't say the lowest but in Central Asia somehow the lowest per capita in over freshwater resources available. However the withdrawals in Central Asia is quite high, I would say in Europe based on the chart is relatively more efficient but in Central Asia we have a lower water efficiency which can be one of our targets for sustainable use of water and land resources. So I have to also emphasize that the land degradation as was mentioned before and all this integration between water and land resources is quite prominent in our region and if we don't look into these two in a nexus approach we cannot really achieve the sustainable management of neither of them for achieving the food security. So in order to have a proper integrated land and water resource management we need of course better stakeholder environment whether vertical or horizontal these are all mentioned in the document but it's quite important whether we are talking about at regional level, national level, inter-country levels, trans-boundary issues so it all needs a lot of stakeholder involvement. We need a lot of work on also land and tenure for instance women also access to land ownership is another important matter which was also discussed before in the side event recognizing different nexuses for instance water energy and basically water land food energy nexus. FAO started this initiative a few years back and I'm sure you are all aware of it but this is quite important for instance in the context of Central Asia we have to keep in mind that upstream countries for instance they have more interest in the energy production while downstream countries are looking more into the irrigation purposes so it's important to look into the different needs and demands of each country in each region while keeping in mind the sustainable land and water management and energy of course is an extremely important context just to give you a very small case study that shows basically the coordination and cooperation between the countries. I just brought here the European Union Water Framework Directive which started in 2000 and it talks about the loads of pollution and you probably all know about it so I'm not going to go into a lot of details but this initiative seized in 2011 I believe because they are other now bodies in action but this was mainly in order to we are now on the bank of the Danube River so this was in particular about decreasing the load of pollution which was coming both from the water resources and also the land degradation into the Danube River and into the Black Sea so this was of course it wasn't perfect because it also had its flaws but in general it is used as a good example of the success for cooperation between different countries and as you can see here it shows that at least it kept the load of nutrients and potassium in the Danube almost stable within the years and started decreasing so this was a good initiative and it focused a lot on the infrastructure especially the treatment of wastewater discharge into the river but also into the integrated land management so it wasn't only about the water but also about the land so it can be as an example of how we should move forward considering that as I said like all initiative it has also its flaws and this one just to show about key steps forward and if we have to come up with new initiatives or let's say improving our current initiatives in our region we should very much focus on Intersectoral Coordination as we mentioned Policy Frameworks Regional Coordination especially between Europe and Central Asia because there are a lot of lessons that we can learn from each other for sure European Union for instance can share a lot of expertise regarding the pollution control and we can learn also a lot from Central Asia so it's very important to have this coordination and cooperation between the countries if this is one message to convey about the integrated land and water resource management within our region and of course if there is a will there is a way so there are a lot of mechanisms in place already so we have all the road maps and action plans et cetera but sometimes we fail because there might not be the will that we are looking for so we know what we have to do but it's important that we work together and we coordinate and collaborate and we know our demands and also the benefit of cooperation. Thank you very much. Thank you Ms. Marjani Zadesh. I'm opening the discussion on this item. Would any member or observer representatives like to take the floor? Spain please you have the floor. Thank you very much sir for allowing me to break the ice. I'm honored to speak on behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states also to say that we fully agree with this statement by Albania Bosnia Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Ukraine. I'll start. We concur with the fundamental importance of integrating the management of land and water for food security and nutrition in the region and elsewhere taking into consideration relevant dimensions such as competition among different uses, forest and ecosystem degradation and the development of institutions that can ensure effective and inclusive management of water and land at local, national and trans boundary level. At the European Union the water framework directive adopted in 2000 while those who are focused on water quality represents a significant shift in how water resources are managed emphasizing a holistic and integrated approach which requires the assessment and management of water bodies' integrated systems. Moreover, water management under the directive is organized by river basin districts. This approach encourages cooperation among the EU member states which share river basins. While there is always room for improvement, the directive can be a source of inspiration for public policy design including the lessons learned with its implementation at national and regional level. As widely recognized and as the United Nations Water Conference held last March showed, water governance is a complex matter including addressing issues such as trans boundary water management cooperation or property rights related to water. Linking land to water management is embracing complexity which requires thinking anew supported by sound, science and evidence. We are fully convinced that ecosystem based solutions and sustainable management of natural resources are key when it comes to protecting water and land. In this context we invite FAO to provide support to countries in order to develop public policies that envisage integrated land and water management planning at a local and national level taking into consideration in particular local community involvement and gender and minority inclusion. We also invite FAO to work with the governments to develop collaborative frameworks to ensure inclusive and sustainable planning, financing, governance and implementation of trans boundary water management and also to tackle soil degradation to ensure the conservation and quality of water and land resources and also fulfilling the sustainable development goals of the Agenda 2030 for sustainable development. We stand ready to work with the countries in the region openly and transparently, mutually respecting their national sovereignty and full territorial integrity in order to share experiences to promote a more integrated water and land management and planning approach. The envisage solutions should encompass different sectors and priorities which can contribute to better managed trade-offs, foster synergies and improved coherence among the water, land and energy sectors in order to achieve food security, sustainable production and the SDG targets. Thank you very much. I'd like to add something if I may. The documents that we've received were received with some delay and this limits the response of the members. Also they arrived first in English and then they arrived a lot later in the official languages of the United Nations and that goes against the principles. So we would encourage the management to ensure that the documents are available all in all of the official languages with the necessary period of time to enable us to study them. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you Spain on behalf of the EU and its 27 member states for your statement on the item and also for the observation about the background documents. I believe that management and the regional office will take care of this matter in order to be avoided in next meetings. Now, if anyone else would like to take the floor, yes, I have the civil society organization. Please, you have the floor. Thank you very much, Chair. This intervention was supposed to have been made by Mr. Martin Bruder, a Hungarian livestock farmer and member of Varniela in Europe and Central Asia Civil Society Organization delegation. He was informed yesterday that he is a veterinary inspection on his farm today so we are reading it on his behalf. It just goes to show you how difficult it is for our small-scale food producers to make active contributions to policy but we overcome this by our collective work. So the statement is, sustainable use of land implies land regulation to ensure access to land settling a large number of small and medium-scale farmers and adopting an agroecological use of land. Land regulation should be based on the voluntary guidelines to tenure and implies fighting back land concentration and land and water grabbing which lead to the mechanization of practices, the desertification of rural areas, unhealthy soils, the loss of peasant territorial knowledge and also threaten food sovereignty through competitive market orientation and de-territorialized long supply chain production. Land is crucial, central and cross-cutting element to the new adopted global biodiversity framework and the CBD. Land is also a critical indicator for traditional knowledge of indigenous people and their preservation of traditional knowledge is inextricably linked to the preservation of traditional lifestyles that are relevant for the conservation and the sustainable use of biological diversity which in turn is linked to the land, the territories and the resources associated with the specific traditional knowledge and fighting climate change. Soil quality in Europe is declining dramatically. 60 to 70% of the EU's soil ecosystems are now unhealthy and suffering from continuous degradation. This is due to many factors such as compaction, salinization, poor waste management but is also a result of the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. Producing and using pesticides and fertilizers causes considerable greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and so on, often from fossil fuels. It also promotes an agricultural model and agricultural practices that release high emissions and pollute our water sources, rivers and oceans through runoff. Finally, these phytosanitary products also deplete soil quality, thus weakening the capacity of soils to sequester carbon. At the very least, we must meet the Green Deal target of reducing the use and risk of synthetic pesticides by 50% by 2030. The Commission must not roll back the Farm to Fork policy and must implement the prohibition of harmful chemical inputs. The model of industrialized agriculture controlled by national or multinational companies bears a fundamental responsibility for the climate and environmental crisis. It consumes huge amounts of energy, often responsible for CO2 emissions. It depends on huge amounts of water and uses synthetic chemical inputs that destroy the life of our soils. It removes hedgerows and other landscape infrastructure that is essential for biodiversity such as ponds and wetlands. The high concentration of polluting inputs often leads to local populations such as the uncontrolled use of synthetic pesticides, anti-biotic resistance and the risk of zoonosis. Finally, it is not true that peasant farming can coexist with factory farms. As this industrialized model grabs the resources, monopolizes markets and public subsidies. It competes with peasant farming by proposing to reduce labor costs as much as possible by destroying peasant employment and using an underpaid workforce with no social rights. It also inflicts poor standards of animal welfare and fails to respect basic animal needs. What we as civil society collectively request. Factory farms must be banned. First, public subsidies to these corporations and factory farms must be stopped immediately. Secondly, caps on farmland and animal numbers must be imposed to limit agricultural concentration. The largest structures must be dismantled. Sound transition plans need to be developed in conjunction with workers to ensure that they have adequate and dignified alternative options with fair pay for decent work, including transitioning towards more sustainable and agroecological farming that respects the ILO's norms and policies and human rights. As part of the transition, the states must set up rules to protect the rights of workers that face deteriorating working conditions as a direct result of climate issues such as unsafe high temperatures. And we welcome Spain's contribution as well talking about community governance, as this is very critical. Soil microbiota is reflected also in human microbiota. Poor soil leads to health issues in humans through the impact of pesticides, weed killers and the resulting lack of healthy microbiome. On the contrary, various well documented, validated reports with significant evidence show that human soil microbiome and agroecology lead to an increase in human health and up to 20% less cancer in non-communicable diseases. So we want to see the intermediate ban of glyphosate in all our region as well as other harmful pesticides and the promotion of peasant agroecology. And I thank you for your time. I thank the representative from the civil society organizations and I give the floor to Switzerland. Thank you very much. I will speak in French. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. In general terms, Switzerland supports the recommendations in the document under discussion, but I would like to stress the following points. When improving national political frameworks, we feel it's essential to address issues of governance and gender. Moreover, the political frameworks concerned should be harmonized with the overall objective of attaining the SDGs. Furthermore, we know that under item 6, importance of water governance for enhancing water security in Europe, we will be discussing more the question of policy and decision making. However, we believe it is important to mention here that to strengthen resilience and sustainability in national agri-food systems, it's essential to relate the technical work with political and decision making processes. Consequently, we suggest emphasis be placed on this aspect and the future work of the FEO on integrated land and water management in Europe and Central Asia. Moreover, we would like to stress the important work of WASAG regarding water scarcity and agriculture, and we would like to encourage the FEO to use multi-partner, multi-stakeholder partnerships on this issue. Switzerland also wishes to stress that the diverging interests regarding use of water in agriculture production, energy, food, and the environment could be more clearly highlighted in the document. Water is a shared natural resource which requires a systemic vision and comprehensive taking into account of the whole water cycle. This in order to marry the interests of diverging objectives of different sectors. Consequently, Switzerland encourages the FEO to use the water, energy, food, ecosystems, nexus in order to take into account all dimensions, especially when it comes to supporting coordination and intersectional planning at the regional level. Thank you. Thank you, Switzerland. I see now Ukraine asking for the floor. Ukraine, please. Mr. Chair, thank you for giving me the floor. I'm grateful to FEO and Hungarian side for the invitation and for the opportunity to discuss the current issue of agenda, distinguished delegates, dear colleagues. Our farmers that uses 18 months of full-scale war have been facing many difficulties, and those difficulties are not secret for you because we are talking about them all the time. The Russian Federation occupied more than 20% of agricultural land, which cannot be used even after the occupation because it's either polluted with mines or with military material, and its cleaning will take many years. A painful issue remains humanitarian demanding, which is included as one of the priority directions for the rapid recovery of Ukraine this year. More than 470,000 hectares are primarily needed to ensure the implementation of field works according to the national plan for humanitarian demanding of agricultural lands. We reaffirm our appreciation to FEO, World Food Program and international partners who are involved in this process. Currently only 17% of prioritized areas are demand. At the same time, active hostilities continue, so this figure does not include million hectares of land temporarily occupied by the aggressor. Nevertheless, we found opportunity to grow, store and export during the war. This year we are going to harvest approximately 79 million tons of grain, while the export is expected about 60 million tons despite the constant attacks on the new parts infrastructure by Russian Federation. Dear participants, the other important issue is the destruction of Kahovka Dam. The Kahovka Reservoir was the main source of water in the south part of Ukraine. The hydraulic dam bridge caused a catastrophic flood, affecting agricultural land, causing chemical pollution, habitat destruction, and potential long-term environmental impact. In the aftermath of the destruction of the Kahovka Dam, the situation for rural farming households in Ukraine has worsened. Recovery from the Kahovka Dam disaster is integral part of Ukraine's government strategy for recovery and reconstruction from the full-scale invasion by Russian Federation. We are grateful to F.E.O. for its participation in the post-disaster need assessment under the leadership of UN Resident Coordinator for Ukraine to define a recovery strategy. The PDNA preliminary estimates more than 400 million U.S. dollars of total damage and loss to the agriculture sector. Most of the damage and losses around 90% in agriculture sector were attributed to crop production, primarily due to the disruption of irrigation. Damage and losses to fishery, aquaculture and livestock consist around 10% of the total damages. As a result of the destruction of Kahovka Dam, the state sturgeon plant, which is only one in Ukraine and unique, was flooded. It is due to the further reproduction of sturgeon fish population, which may lead to disappearance of these relics species in the water reservoirs of Ukraine. Further damages and losses on occupied territory remain unknown. Dear Colleges, you were briefly informed about key problems of water and land management in Ukraine. We recognize the crucial importance of integrating management of land and water for food security and nutrition with the countries respecting the national sovereignty and full territorial integrity, otherwise it cannot be. We call conference to reaffirm the decision on implication on world food security and agriculture arising from the aggression on Russian Federation against Ukraine, adopted by the FAO Council, by the 43rd session FAO Conference, and by the 33rd FAO Regional Conference of Europe. Distinguished delegates, thank you for the chance to confirm once again the position of Ukraine, that the implementation of effective mechanism for guaranteeing the global food security is one hour the most important task. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Ukraine. I now recognize Georgia. Please, you have the floor. Thank you very much. At first I would like to express gratitude towards organizers of the meeting in order to appreciate our country and to participate in the meeting. I would like to draw your attention on those topics which are mentioned in the papers prepared by Eka. My name is also Eka, that's why sometimes I'm confusing, I mentioned this word. So first is land degradation. Land degradation is one of the world's most pressing environmental problem and it will get worse over time without rapid remedial action. And in the context of land degradation we must not forget the soil factor as my profession I'm a soil scientist and that's why I would like to emphasize a topic of soils. Soil is the most basic natural body in the world, perhaps the most basic although for meeting our meeting our requirements. So scientists warned us that 24 billion ton of fertile soil was being lost per year largely due to unsustainable agricultural practices and if this trend continues 95% of the earthland areas could become degraded by 2050. The mentioned statistic shows us that in the near future the world will face the threat of food shortage however the process has been started. So the question is what is the cure keys in order to harm the process? This is a very significant question for us and yes, FAO prepared a focal point in the GSB Global Soil Partnership and has communications between and I know how professionals are there so they prepared significant concepts and recommendations. So I would like to answer those topics in the form of documents and however their introduction to the local level is associated with a number of barriers sometimes. For example, I would like to show some examples of Georgia. For example, in Georgia land consolidation is a really daunting challenge because in the 20th century we entirely changed the land management approaches. So under land reform land fragmentation as well as less economically viable farming was formed where land consists of 0.25 hectare seen small farms. Land fragmentation is a problem for the state and it caused limitation of conducting common agricultural policy increased cost and reduced efficiency. Fragmented agricultural services included fragmented irrigation and drainage systems. Needs for sometimes construction of additional internal agricultural roads at the expense of fertile soils. So in order to define rational agricultural policy in the country land consolidation concept should be developed and we need to specific some topics in order to achieve some progress in these kind of problems. Second, the soil as I mentioned is my profession Georgia is called as a museum of soils under the open sky and it's noticeable that almost all types of soils spreading in the world can be found in such a small country as Georgia. Unfortunately so country faced formidable challenges in recent history so almost half of any agricultural land areas approximately 47% was excluded from the agriculture and production because of erosion, secondary salinity and water logging. What is the challenge in this direction? We don't have master plan of soil salinization we don't know how to manage rationally saline soils and we don't have new technologies how to manage saline soil so in this direction we need international support and we hope that FAA or other international organizations will give us some assistance in order to overcome these kind of problems. Third issue is water. Water is mentioned and I absolutely agree with Spain that international integrated water manager this is very important issue for us also and water stress scarcity, its sanitization and rational management of water resources is one of the basic issues on which our ministry, I represent Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia focus this on. Georgia worked out considerable amount of political as well as strategy documents in order to tackle these topics in the frame of conducting EU directives and other international convention obligations we're taking significant steps within the framework of the highly slowly concept however there is still much to do moreover the country's policies aimed at holistic approaches to the management of natural resources ideas management of land, soil and water in unified context and this is example of these projects Georgia resilient agriculture of irrigation and land market and climate smart agriculture which are co-financed by World Bank and Asia Development Bank. The project focuses on irrigation infrastructure development decentralization of irrigation infrastructure of local level information of water user organizations awareness rising, training trainings on farmers incentives, creation of drainage strategy and so on. In conclusion Georgia recognized the principles of sustainable land water management, fully share and fulfill European guidelines and try to become a part of Europe. Fundamental values of Georgia are coincided with European also in on this responsible and important part support of Europe is vital for us because it's directly linked with our existence as well as future. Thank you very much for attention. Thank you Georgia next on my list is Kazakhstan Kazakhstan please you have the floor Good morning. Good morning distinguished participants, distinguished colleagues I immediately apologize because it's the first time I've taken part in such an event. May I congratulate you and greet you on behalf of our ministry in the Republic of Kazakhstan and thank you for giving me the floor. I am the chair of the committee on land resource management in Kazakhstan and the main inspector for land inspections and also the national coordinator for the UNCCD and the representative on the soil partnership for Kazakhstan. As regards this water issue I'd like to point out that literally in September this year in the Republic we established a ministry for water resources in irrigation and I say that just for information. Kazakhstan as you know is in Europe and in Asia and it has huge natural resources and a surface area which is 270 million hectares and of course we are one of the leading countries in the world in land resources and 43% of the territory is taken out by agriculture and the threat of degradation now may affect some 90 million hectares and 29 million hectares have already been ruled out for agricultural use because of drought and we think this is one of the key factors in the desertification of Kazakhstan non-rational use of land overuse of pasture land and agricultural and technological use have all led to deterioration of the quality and fertility of the soils. Kazakhstan has ratified the UN Convention on combating desertification and from the end of 2021 the coordinating organ for this convention is the body I had and Kazakhstan takes active part in the work of an inter-regional group on the UNCCD and the degradation processes are particularly important in terms of public awareness regarding the reasons of such desertification and it's only with up-to-date data on soil fertility that we can assess the problem and redress it in accordance with the state program we have planned to research the issue and between 2023 and 2026 we are planning to cover some 25 million hectares with this research and we are preparing electronic inspection equipment to cover other areas so that we can assess the parameters of the soil affecting the land quality and productive capacity and we have digitalized large numbers of hectares of the service over the country from the 1st of January of 2025 the coverage of digitalization of maps according to our plan should reach 100% with the exception of the desert areas in 2017 we adopted a special law on pasture which provides for the adoption of rules for rational use of pasture land and also to deal with flooding of pasture land and combating desertification of pasture land and the president of the country has now signed a law on digitalization of all aspects of land use and in the first phase we are planning as of the 1st of September a signature of various aspects of research in a specialized committee so we have created a state enterprise which will carry out soil and hydro botanical research in all the 20 regions of our huge country and this will make it possible to have a single coordinated policy on guaranteeing rational and effective management of land resources furthermore we have adopted a number of legislative measures on concentration of land of agricultural significance on certain hands and the introduction of state control on monitoring and a number of other measures with the FEO and its team in the regional project we've developed the portal for Kazakhstan with the map of salinity of soils and mapping productivity of soils as well as carbon capture of soils Kazakhstan has an obligation now to chair the Staring Committee of the Eurasian Soil Partnership and we thank colleagues for their trust the Eurasian Soil Partnership was established in November of 2013 and we feel that it will help us to resolve issues of degradation of land in our country and in the context of initiatives to recarbonise soils the next stage will be a plenary meeting to be held in Kazakhstan in 2025 all of these measures play an important role in the sustainable management and use of land resources we continue work to develop an institutional project the speaker is speaking far too fast we are counting on international cooperation which gives us irreplaceable possibilities for scientific, technical, financial cooperation and assistance thus giving a new boost to developing processes of combating a desertification and soil degradation again the interpreters are able to speak especially if we don't have the text thank you Kazakhstan for your intervention so Russian Federation asks for the floor I'm going to wait until the representative takes her place behind the flag thank you Russian Federation the floor is yours thank you very much chair we would like to begin our statement surprise at the way in which the work has started and the politicisation of the session I'm talking about Spain's statement on behalf of the EU dissociating them from Russia's candidacy for the rapporteur of this session secondly we are also compelled to draw your attention and the attention of distinguished colleagues is an unpleasant fact and that is the failure of the issuance of visas to representatives coming from Moscow who are supposed to take part in the session moreover the document for the visas was suitably put forward in a timely manner and we see this as an attempt to hamper the participation of our country in an official event of the FAO and the Russian Federation as the equal member of the FAO for the behavior to be unacceptable using visa instruments for artificially fringing our rights as the Russian Federation to take part in FAO events we call on the secretariat and the member states to pay due attention to this issue because it's not the first time it's happened as regards to the agenda item and the discussion our country shares the concerns about creating state of land and water resources in the region of Europe and Central Asia they are necessary for food production and guaranteeing healthy nutrition of the population conservation of biodiversity and preventing climate change the sustainable development of agriculture and agri-food systems is not possible without proper management of water and land resources it's important to point out economic and social conditions in the countries of the region may substantially vary and correspondingly the possibilities for developing universal approaches and or decisions for water use and land management are extremely limited in this context we welcome the exchange of experience and best practice and transfer of appropriate technology among countries of the region of particular importance of collection and analysis of sectoral statistical data we feel the FAO in these areas has significant possibilities for strengthening multilateral cooperation so that states in the region may attain the sustainable goals by 2030 on the whole we agree with the FAO experts recommendations about the need for closer cooperation and coordination of action among national and regional structures in the area of land and water management which often split up in the system of state governance and we also share the assessment that countries should improve their national legislation in this field and here we would stress the sovereign right of states independently to determine the legal norms for regulating the areas of water use and land management we also think it's important to guarantee greater access of women to agriculture however the question of the rights of minorities we feel should be left for discussion in other forums and now a few words about the points made by the delegation of Ukraine we categorically reject the accusations against Russia regarding the deterioration of food security in the region and the world and we call for this to be accurately reflected in the report of the meeting this phenomenon is the risen because of a poorly thought through financial, economic and political seps by a number of countries and a significant impact has also been played by the Covid pandemic and the unfavorable conditions for food production we've also seen unprecedented hounding of Russia which has had catastrophic consequences for the world food sector commercial measures against our country have led to an imbalanced food production market particularly giving rise to huge increases in prices and lastly as a result of the destruction of the Kachovka NPP hydroelectric power plant dam there has been a huge amount of pollution and it's had a serious effect on the coastal ecology and particularly in the Crimean peninsula and in other areas and the responsibility for this wholeheartedly lies on the armed forces of Ukraine we have submitted relevant data to the UN Security Council and we view the destruction of the dam rather as a terrorist act against the civilian infrastructure which requires an appropriate reaction from the global community thank you for your attention thank you Russian Federation and while waiting we're about to take a seat here at the podium seeking any other interventions if this is not the case I would like to thank you all for your interventions if there are no further requests for the floor I would like to close the discussion on item number 4 of our agenda is the commission in agreement with the recommendations as outlined in the document slash 43 23 slash 4 Rev 1 including the amendment suggested by Switzerland if there are no objections the recommendations from the document slash 43 slash 23 slash 4 Rev 1 will form part of the report from this session thank you all our next item which is agenda item 5 land governance and land degradation neutrality in Europe and Central Asia this item has two connected background documents namely ECA slash 43 slash 23 slash 5 and ECA slash 43 slash 23 slash 6 I would like to ask Miss Carolina Starr agriculture officer Mr. Morten Harvicksen land tenure officer in the FAO regional office for Europe and Central Asia to introduce this item Mr. Harvicksen you have the floor good morning everyone thank you for being here it's a very good pleasure I joined some colleagues that it's very good to start seeing people face to face again and not just through our team we became our reality in the past years let's hope this is in the past I will start introducing so as mentioned by our chairperson we have two background documents under this topic and why I will try to give a few lines so land degradation and land degradation neutrality and land tenure goes hand in hand because it's very difficult for farmers to assure the quality of the land if they don't have the ownership and the right to use their land so that's why we cannot see these topics as different agenda I think a FAO especially in our regional office we are making a very strong effort to bring the attention on why we need to connect a bit more these topics not only land tenure and land degradation but the whole topic of this is around land and water and access so shifting this idea from just one topic and looking then at individual land, water, biodiversity social impact we want to bring and invite you all to start seeing these as connected topics so we cannot achieve land degradation neutrality but we want to focus also on the biodiverse impact that's come together but also the climate change aspects that can either be aggravated by land degradation but also support be supported through mitigations also if you do proper land management and together with all these we need also to keep in mind the economic impact of looking at these topics as individual topics if you don't see them as a group as together we cannot achieve the STDs we cannot achieve all the international commitments you have at the global agenda so my invite you have the document so I'm not going to present what is in the document but I want to really invite you all to the importance of moving forward towards more integrated policies and more integrated approach when you think about land degradation and try to focus on holistic aspect this is what the field is really working we are really focused on trying to bring new innovations towards these topics and really see how we can provide new tools for the countries to monitor how this is happening monitoring is a very important aspect because if you don't know what is happening we cannot know what needs to be done we are working a lot on innovation and we really invite countries to check the recommendations we have the recommendations enjoined between land degradation and land tannery and we are more than happy to have a fruitful discussion on the topics and this background document and that's all from my side I will hand over to Morton, thank you so much thank you very much Kaulina and good morning colleagues also from my side I'm introducing the second of the two background papers for this session which focuses on governance of tenure including the importance of secure tenure rights and the potential of land policy instruments land and water are fundamental natural resources for environmental sustainability and culture and rural development tenure systems regulate and define who can use which natural resources for how long time and under what conditions the right to land and other natural resources is rooted in the international human rights instruments and recognized by the United Nations declaration on the right of peasants and other people working in rural areas UNDROP the voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure the VDT were endorsed in 2012 by the Committee on World Food Security and provide comprehensive guidance on the governance of tenure of natural resources the European Central Asia region is diverse when it comes to tenure systems and farm structures in the EU 27 tenure rights are formalized and generally considered secure and medium to large commercial family farms are the dominant farm structure while the EU 27 average farm size is around 17 hectares in most of the countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia the farm structures are dominated by small holders in many of the countries the farm sizes are between 1 and 3 hectares and land fragmentation is excessive one small farm often divided into between 3 and small and 3 and 7 small land parcels land abandonment is widespread in many of the countries with between 20 and 40 of the total arable and cultural land unutilized these structural problems can be a major constraint for cultural growth and increased income generation and also for the sustainable use and management of a cultural land compared to other regions in the world tenure rights to land in most of the countries in Europe and Central Asia are perceived to be secure by those who are holding the rights however there are some countries particular in Central Asia where tenure rights to land are often perceived as less secure and not well protected secure tenure rights are often a precondition for investment in development of farms and a precondition for access to credit and financial services well functioning agricultural land markets are vital importance for agricultural rural development a common problem in many countries is that informal land transactions and unresolved inheritance are common which undermines the efficient functioning of agricultural land markets and the land markets remain weak we also see in many countries that women have less secure tenure rights than men and that women and youth have problems with having access to land we are in there is a strong linkage between land tenure and land degradation as we already heard the background paper recommends to integrate the governance of tenure into natural resource management efforts this includes LDN but the need to have an integrated approach goes way beyond in relation to LDN FAO and UNCCD the UN convention to combat the certification and drought secretariat in 2022 jointly published the technical guide on the integration of governance of tenure and LDN objectives the guide intends to support policy and decision makers by making them aware of how secure tenure rights can contribute to LDN and provide possible solution to land tenure challenges the new guide and its recommendations are already being applied in several of the countries in the region including in Georgia in the Republic of Moldova and in Uzbekistan and let me here highlight once again that the integration of governance of tenure is not only important related to LDN but throughout the whole land and water nexus many countries in western Europe have a long tradition of implementing land consolidation projects the objective of land consolidation has traditionally been a cultural development by reducing land fragmentation and facilitating the structural development in agriculture towards larger and more competitive farms in most western European countries land consolidation has in recent decades developed into a multi-purpose instrument multi-purpose land consolidation means that one land consolidation project has more diverse objectives to pursue agricultural development often remains the purpose in some parts of the project area while in other parts of the area the aims are often related to nature restoration, improved environment climate change adaptation and mitigation land consolidation instruments particularly when applied in a multi-purpose approach have a high potential throughout the region FAO has so far supported 12 member countries in the region with the introduction of land consolidation and the development of national land consolidation programs and has published normative work to guide the process countries in the east can learn from good practices in the west supporting at the end of land consolidation is one of the suggested pathways in the mentioned technical guide published jointly by FAO and the UNCCD thank you very much thank you Mr. and Mr. Hatwiksen I am now opening the discussion on this item would any member or observer representatives like to take the floor I give the floor to Spain please thank you sir I'm honoured to speak on behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states in addition we'd like to state that Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland Moldavia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Ukraine align themselves with this statement I'll start sir we welcome the FAO background documents which make policy recommendations for effectively addressing the multi-dimensional issues related to land governance and reducing land degradation and for integrating them in sustainable land management the EU and its member states concur on the significance of land as an essential natural resource in the context of pressing challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss we'd like to underscore the need to implement a new wave of comprehensive policies centered on regions with the aim of ensuring environmental sustainability and the development of rural areas the land degradation neutrality framework the LDN framework provides a valuable approach when it comes to pursuing multi-dimensional solutions in the design and delivery of strategies decision making processes and resource allocation to land and water resources also enhancing rural livelihoods among the priorities in fostering more integrated policy approaches we should also include improvement of women's access to land and the role of gender as an indispensable element in order to achieve the LDN land degradation neutrality we emphasize the relevance of the policy products of the CFS including the voluntary guidelines on tenure of land which contribute with concrete recommendations to the achievement of the aforementioned objectives we encourage FAO to strengthen evidence-based decision making tools and further support the development of policies and programs building on existing ones where possible which could enhance integrated and territorial approaches to achieve land degradation neutrality and improved land governance ensuring sustainable development and cooperation in the region a well functioning market for land is absolutely essential and in that regard we encourage FAO to increase its efforts to strengthen the monitoring as well as the policy tools to ensure the security of tenure of land and water for farmers particularly small holders in our region indeed a well functioning market for land is a prerequisite when it comes to preserving the European model of farming finally the European Union and its member states support the policy recommendations on a land water nexus approach and strongly encourage countries to apply territorial approaches for the successful transition towards sustainable and productive food systems taking into account their specific strengths and weaknesses ensuring inclusivity and evidence informed decision making thank you very much sir I thank Spain on behalf of the EU and its 27 member states and I give the floor to the civil society organizations Mr. Chair thanks for giving me the floor here to represent European coordination via Campesina which is the only organization in the EU representing the voice of peasant farmers with 31 member organizations unions of farmers and agricultural workers although key issues of resource access degradation and pollution are recognized in the provided background documents and although land tenure rights of food producer are acknowledged we believe that clear link should be built between climate change and the model of industrial farming if we continue supporting industrial agriculture we must be aware that we will continue worsening climate change and its destructive impacts on food production any technological solution still relying on fossil fuels and the marginalization of farmers pastoralists, fisher folks and indigenous people will further lock us into the food crisis that we are facing despite the worrying rate of land degradation in Europe and Central Asia land issue remain highly unregulated at both the national and the regional level making land subject to market speculation and land grabbing and putting food production in competition with other sectors such as energy and carbon farming this is worsening the already dramatic difficulty faced by small scale food producer and local and indigenous communities to keep or access land contributing to the loss of family farmers worldwide but we must ensure that the vocation of land is safeguarded food production for feeding people within ecological boundaries and in the respect of food sovereignty producer rights and social justice for all to achieve land degradation neutrality the FAO must provide strong and clear recommendation and related support on land regulation and land tenure these should be based on key documents which were already mentioned and that are the results of much struggle by peasant movement and civil society organizations as well as much dialogue between them and institutions among them is the United Nations declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas and the voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests as the European coordination via Campesina we have recently published a proposal for a land directive in Europe based on these two frameworks we are making efforts to dialogue with European institutions towards recognition and implementation although we welcome the soil health law recently proposed by the European Commission without ambition policies on land tenure we will not achieve land degradation neutrality it is only by guaranteeing long-term access to and right to land that peasants and indigenous people will be able to invest in the long-term health of their soils combating land degradation through a fairer distribution of land is a prerequisite for restoring soil health and encourage healthy farming practices and very important land redistribution policies must prioritize youth access to land which is currently the main obstacle for young people who want to live and work as farmers thus at the roots of the current generational renewal crisis in farming finally we believe that the importance of agroecology towards land degradation neutrality is not sufficiently reflected in the current recommendation and that FAO should provide guidance and technical support on pathways to enable the transition to an agroecological production model which centers small scale producer traditional land use based on customer sustainable practices of indigenous people and small scale farmers including pastoralists and small scale fisher folks are in fact excellent solution to respond to climate change because they are diverse, decentralized adapted to the local context and thus more resilient to external shocks as such they must be supporting in existing land policies and orient the creation of more ambitious one the work by FAO on agroecology need to be visibilized FAO recognizes that agroecological practices sequester carbon and enhance the capacity of farms to hold water regenerate degraded soil and clean polluted waters agroecology supports rural communities in economically efficient easy to implement and climate friendly ways and puts people rights in the center thank you very much thank you civil society organizations and I now give the floor to Switzerland thank you very much again I will speak in French ladies and gentlemen dear colleagues I'd like to take the floor again to present the statement by Switzerland on the two documents mentioned reading document ECA 43-23-5 Switzerland can only confirm the importance of inclusive governance of land and water there's a clear need for political dialogue and joint management of water resources the water catchment organizations particularly cross border organizations are essential particularly when it comes to defining and managing the use of water for food and agriculture we'd like to underscore the use of land planning as a means of managing tension when it comes to the various resources and their use and in this regards Switzerland encourages FAO to implement the voluntary guidelines of the Committee on World Food Security on the responsible governance of tenure of land fisheries and forests in the context of national food security as well as the legal and regulatory aspects we need to take into account other essential elements such as human rights Switzerland would like to underscore the fact that respecting human rights and the rights of legitimate property are crucial particularly when it comes to women in addition water is interconnected and can't be considered as a distinct entity customary rights and the spiritual and religious value of water differ often considerably to the rules established for water management in this regard it's essential that future work and debate on the matter be systemic particularly when it comes to taking into account the water cycle as a whole with regard to instruments on land consolidation they shouldn't only focus on potential advantages but should also mitigate potential negative trade-offs for example the loss of biodiversity Switzerland welcomes FAO's recommendations on strengthening monitoring capacities for changes of use of soil use Switzerland recognizes the importance of sustainable soil management and in 2019 Switzerland set up a centre of expertise on soil with agroscope the federal agency of agro research also the global soil partnership represents a huge opportunity when it comes to cooperating on soil health the importance of sustainable management of land and governance is clear Switzerland therefore welcomes in-depth study of land tenure and governance and supports the work of FAO in that regard Switzerland would also like to encourage FAO seeking to strengthen gender equality and strengthen the access of women and young people to land and for that the voluntary guidelines on gender equality and women's and girls empowerment of the CFS are relevant tools to develop here also regarding youth Switzerland would like to make a comment on the matter of generational renewal within the agricultural sector the transformation of food systems is not going to be possible without the full and active participation of young people once again Switzerland would like to underscore the fact that we have to work with them as essential agents for change as well as the rural youth action plan of FAO the new political CFS recommendations on promoting youth engagement and employment in agriculture and food systems need to be actively used by FAO when it comes to the document ECA 43236 Switzerland supports the work of the FAO regarding LDN in the framework of its strategy for sustainable development 2030 Switzerland commits to ensure that the goals or the attacks on the land are reduced and that the soil is preserved and also used sparingly and carefully in a sustainable manner and Switzerland wants no net loss of soil as of 2050 Finally, agroecology Switzerland believes that agroecology is one of the main means of moving towards sustainable food systems and agroecological principles allow for new approaches when it comes to preserving soil and managing water including for example soil moisture retention the development of use and use of species and varieties that are adapted to saline conditions drought and other conditions we encourage FAO to take into account these agroecological elements when it comes to drawing up and promoting solutions in the various activities that are anticipated Thank you very much for listening to me Thank you Switzerland I have no other request so if there are no further requests from the floor I would like to close the discussion on item 5 of our agenda Is there a commission in agreement with the... Okay Before going to this part I would like to give a thought to the Russian Federation in a bit, thank you The Russian Federation, you have the floor Thank you The total land area of the Russian Federation including the Republic of Crimea not taking into account land covered by inland seas and the territorial sea amounts to 12.5% of global territory In Russia, 55% of the churnism soils of the world are concentrated as well as a fifth of the forestry resources of the planet This guarantees rapid and sustainable growth in agricultural output and food protection in our country It makes Russia a significant participant in global food and agricultural raw material markets In our country we are actively improving our land legislation as well as practical mechanisms to ensure effective use and protection of land resources equally on water resources Active cooperation is underway in the Eurasian Economic Union The Russian Federation is open to cooperation with all interested states in Europe and Central Asia is ready to share its experience and developments and in turn is also interested in receiving best practice from partners We devote special attention to multilateral channels of cooperation including the organizations of the UN system and the EFAO in particular For our part, our country conducts joint programs with EFAO through which in particular for already for eight years we've been funding activities on sustainable use of soil resources for the development of agriculture in the Eurasian region Thank you, Russian Federation If there are no further requests from the floor, I would... Thank you Ukraine, you have the floor Thank you very much, Mr. Chair Regarding the statement of the Russian Federation I would like to note that Crimea is occupied by the Russian Federation and considers this statement by the Russian Federation is unacceptable Thank you, Ukraine I have a response from the Russian Federation Thank you very much, Chair As regards this remark from the representative of Ukraine Ukraine The fact Ukraine belongs to the Russian Federation is without debate Part of the Russian Federation thanks to the democratic expression and free expression of the will of the people of the Crimean Peninsula in a referendum. Thank you Thank you, Russian Federation I would like to close this discussion now So If there are no further requests for the floor I would like to close the discussion on item number five of our agenda Is the Commission in agreement with the recommendations as outlined in the documents eka-slash-43-slash-23-slash-5 and eka-slash-43-slash-23-slash-6 If there are no objections the recommendations from the documents eka-slash-43-slash-23-slash-5 and eka-slash-43-slash-23-slash-6 will form part of the report From this session I give the floor to Turke I would like to give an intervention for item six For item six Are you talking about item six? Yes, we took both items but if you want to make an intervention I can take your intervention and then take your decision Thank you Wait, maybe I didn't understand well about eka-slash-43-slash-23-slash-6 or item six of the agenda Item six, importance of water governance for enhancing water security You'll have to wait until we take this item It will be the next item and I will have you first on my list Sorry, I got it wrong So with this the recommendations from the documents mentioned will form part of the report from this session Thank you all for your participation We also thank Mr. Harvicksen for their presentations Ladies and gentlemen at this point we have arrived at the end of the morning session and we should have a break until 2pm However, if you see your watches we still have 50 minutes so I would suggest that the commission takes item number six which is on today's agenda after lunch So if you agree with my suggestion we could take item number six and lighten the program after lunch Are we in agreement? Yes Thank you Thank you so much So our next item is agenda item six Importance of water governance for enhancing water security in Europe and Central Asia The background document number for the item is eka-slash-43-slash-23-slash-7 I would like to ask Ms. Sarah Zadez-Land in the FAO sub-regional office for Central Asia to introduce this item Ms. Marjani Zadez, you have the floor Thank you very much Mr. Chair and once again, thank you dear participants, ladies and gentlemen I'm going to go very briefly also through this item in our agenda I'm sorry that apparently the documents were not sure in time but I hope maybe you get the chance to read them so I'm not going to go into a lot of detail but just to start introducing the topic when we talk about water governance often it can be a little bit misleading even if we are talking about only the management of water resources or it goes beyond that so just to mention that when we talk about water governance at least within the context of the article and what we want to discuss today it's actually beyond only the management of water resources so you can see in the chart that there are different levels of governance we have the meso level, micro level and micro level in different levels so the importance when we talk about a successful water governance let's say scheme is when there is the interconnection between different levels so from the field level when we talk about the farmers at the farm into the meso level when there is the coordination at regional or national level and subnational level and then the micro level that often is about for instance the transponder water issues or the coordination and cooperation between the country so it's just to set the scene it's important when we speak about the water governance to keep in mind different levels of the governance and not only talking about the quantity or the water management so it goes beyond that it's a broader concept basically as written in the article it goes the issue of water governance is quite an ancient topic even during the Roman time and even Byzantines etc they dealt with the resources and the governance of water resources and the current state of multilevel water governance basically we have I mean as we already mentioned in the previous presentation as well it's very important the cooperation and the capacity building the data especially for the monitoring of proper monitoring and planning we need to have very good databases and monitoring systems in place which is often lacking and this also needs a lot of coordination and cooperation between the countries so basically the modern water governance extends beyond national borders necessitating cooperation at the regional international level examples from the Europe and Central Asia such as the EU's effort highlighted the emphasis on the basin level management is very important or stakeholder environments and legal framework that support multilevel governance so the cases studies I already mentioned in the previous one about the Daniel Brewer and the European WaterCode directive but we want to talk about also another case in Tajikistan for instance in the water code that they have developed and I believe I think they are now also revising the current water code that they have but as you can see in this water code in Tajikistan embodies the essence of basing approaches and inclusive governance so you can see that they are different countries here mentioned and Tajikistan basically has the highest number because it includes river basin agencies, hydrologic boundaries basin management approaches so basically in the water code they included different levels of governance and I believe now they are also in the stage of reforming it so this is an example of a multi-level water governance which can be an example for our approaches and in general if you want to basically come up with some conclusions and implications there are institutional requirements for effective multi-level water governance for instance we need legal and policy frameworks that guide these reforms we also need enforcement bodies because often we do have the registrations in place but the enforcement is lacking in different levels of governance as I mentioned but there is a real level or at the national level and often they don't even match so what we have at the national level is not necessarily what the council or the water user associations at the field are applying so it's very important to have a set of policies and guidelines which is applicable for all levels and is beneficial and also easy to implement so effective institutional mechanism fostering coordination and collaboration which is important, sustainable financial resource supporting governance initiatives, robust monitoring and data collection system as I mentioned because this is also something which is often lacking and FAO can have a say in this respect what type of easy to use monitoring systems financially and also easy to implement let's say monitoring systems for data collection we have from modeling to data collection to primary data collection so the challenges as I mentioned even in the mainly in the Central Asian countries are from decentralizing traditionally centralized system sorry from the centralized traditional system we are now moving through the decentralized modern system so this is a challenge that we are facing or limited availability historical and operational data which is again about the monitoring and then financial and technical constraints we often talk about the investment and importance of proper investment in whether it's private sector, international donors or governments because a proper financing mechanism is something which is often missing and that's why even if we have the instruments in place where we don't have the finance to implement it that's where we are facing challenges so some recommendations that you can see for Europe, Caucasus, Central Asian Balkans are strengthening institutional collaborations as I mentioned and we can learn a lot from each other from Europe from Central Asia, Balkans and the other way around and pursue integrated land and water management strategies because it is also interlinked with the water governance they are not really separate from each other secure sustainable financing and prioritized climate resilience and water efficiency because these two factors are quite important and affecting negatively our water sector both in the Central Asian Balkans and also in Europe so these are very important factors in particular water efficiency improving water efficiency in Central Asia and then implement transparent governance mechanism it's also quite important as I mentioned transparent and feasible to apply and let's say with the proper execution power in place and FAE's involvement is important because FAE can foster collaboration and dialogue platforms in a neutral way we can bring the expertise also from other regions investing capacity building programs exploring innovative sorry financing models and assist countries in understanding climate change impacts because this is also a global challenge and we can help in bringing the good experiences from other parts of the world and then ensure as I mentioned enforcement and compliance with water related guidelines and the basically the picture I put there is just to emphasize that the water land and all these things ultimately affecting human health and planet health so when we talk about proper water governance proper land management integrated the land and water resource management and food security of course the ultimate goal is basically securing planet and human health so we are talking about a bigger picture planetary health which is somehow quite interlinked as you can see about the water use of the pollution in our water resources so it's quite important when we are talking about this policy implications or the management practices or innovations or technical interventions at the field level we have to take into consideration the ultimate picture which is our planet health which of course colleagues mentioned includes biodiversity ecosystem services and of course human environment health thank you very much for your attention thank you thank you Miss Marjani Zadesh and also for the structured presentation I am opening the discussion on this item would any member or observer representatives like to take the floor now I have Turkey first please Dear Chair, distinguished delegates ladies and gentlemen the Mediterranean basin where we live is one of the regions that is most affected by climate change our country is facing the risk of droughts and floods therefore sustainable and efficient water management is essential to combat with the long lasting consequences of these effects in this regard the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry takes decisive steps to increase water efficiency in all sector especially in agriculture we have launched the national efficiency campaign with the approach of zero loss in water to ensure sustainability of our resources to transfer them to future generations and to raise public awareness the water efficiency strategy document and action plan 2023-2033 within the framework of adaptation to changing climate in which we include all sectors and all seasons has been entered into force the document is composed of 9 national targets 49 national strategies and 114 actions based on the principle of water adapted agriculture we aim to preserve water resources to ensure fair and balanced water allocation among water use sectors within sectoral water allocation plans esteemed participants having said that my delegation would like to refer to the Transpondery Water Management we believe that dialogue exchange of experiences as well as technical cooperation among repairing states are essential however it should not be forgotten that Transpondery river basins have their own characteristics and peculiarities and each case of Transpondery water reflects specific regional economic, social, cultural and historic aspects therefore Transpondery water issues should be addressed only among Transpondery countries without interventions by the third parties to conclude it is our firm belief that this commission will continue to serve as a practical platform for enhancing cooperation among the members to achieve the water related targets in line with the global agenda thank you for your attention thank you to Kiev I have Spain followed by the civil society organizations Spain you have the floor Gracias de nuevo President Thank you again it's an honor again for me to speak on behalf of the European Union and it's 27 member states plus the other states endorsing our statement Albania Montenegro Moldova, Ukraine Georgia and I begin chair we thank the echo secretariat for the comprehensive background document the key role of inclusive water governance in achieving food and water security in Europe and Central Asia and analyzes the water sector reforms inspired and driven by the principles of good governance, integrated water resources management and nexus based approaches we stress the importance of inclusive and good governance at all levels which relies heavily on robust institutional prerequisites such as legal frameworks financial schemes and monitoring data management and control systems we recognize the vital need for coordinated efforts involving governments the economic sectors and civil society to manage water resources sustainably also at the trans boundary level we emphasize the essential role of technology, innovation and capacity building can play in ensuring more sustainable water management by improving water use efficiency in agriculture and water demand management schemes we welcome the FAO's reference to the European Water Framework Directive and the progress that has been made in the you to align water management systems and we are willing to share experiences during this process whenever required by members of this regional group we acknowledge that further efforts are needed to address challenges such as climate change impacts including water scarcity droughts and floods and the need for efficient monitoring data and early warning systems recognizing the nexus between water energy and food and ecosystems we call on the FAO to address these challenges by supporting countries in the region with data collection and analysis we stress the importance of sustaining the political momentum generated by the 2022 Dushanbe Water Action Decade Conference the UN Water Conference of 2023 and the 18th World Water Congress we welcome the choice of water resources management as the 2024-25 by annual theme of the FAO in order to implement concrete and urgent actions which will advance water security and water governance and accelerate progress towards achieving the SDGs in particular SDG 6 we look forward to World Food Day on 16th October under the theme of water is life, water is food leave no one behind we call on the FAO in collaboration with other relevant UN agencies and within its own mandate to support governments in the region when requested and to take effective measures supporting them to implement river basin and water governance reforms as laid out in the recommended actions for the FAO namely by enhancing collaboration investing in capacity building championing climate resilience and promoting governance transparency community involvement and gender and minorities inclusion in all these matters the role of the FAO in providing science and evidence based on technical information to support countries is paramount and lastly we welcome and support the recommended actions for the countries of the region we call on all member countries to improve trans-boundary cooperation across water basins including aquifers and to make water a key driver for sustainable development green transition and peace thank you chair thank you Spain on behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states I will now give the floor to the civil society organizations followed by Italy and Switzerland civil society organizations you have a floor thank you Mr. Chair for giving us the floor for this agenda item each year drafts are more intense and their impacts increase affecting first and foremost food producers and it is shocking to read that 60% of rivers, lakes wetlands in Europe are in bad ecological status and that we are still allowing the use of chemicals in food production and the over exploitation of water resources agriculture consumes a very large part of available water resources which is justifiable because of the need to produce food however a significant part of the current agricultural water use should be questioned and this is linked to industrial farming the distribution of water use in Europe and Central Asia remains unfair with large companies taking too much of the resource while small scale farmers fisher folks, indigenous people and local communities are deprived of it small scale fisheries are particularly affected by the water scarcity and pollution with detrimental effects on the fisher folk communities which fully rely on them for their livelihoods so far there has been little encouragement towards water efficient practices while massive public subsidies allow a few large companies to build infrastructure to store huge amounts of water in times of scarcity although in Europe we have targets to limit the use of nitrates and pesticides in food production these targets together with their implementation monitoring measures are not sufficiently ambitious and are in contrast with continuous subsidies to industrial farming private corporate interests are thus prioritized over a transboundary cooperation and people's rights to water yet alternative solution exist just to name a few there are less water intensive crops farmers are working to select seeds to make them more resilient to draft mulching soil prevents evapotranspiration hedges and agroforestry promote more protective micro climates as we wish to see discussions focused on promoting an agricultural model that will safeguard water supplies and treat them as common good rather than private commodity at the disposal of the agribusiness we must set up an assessment of best practice in water management in Europe as soon as possible followed by a democratic definition of priorities for water use and allocation and stop the emergency construction of mega water basins which are destructive for the environments small scale food producer and local and indigenous communities water system should be managed locally and serve the local population producers communities and movements which struggle for safeguarding the universal right to water so that they can be condemned and oppressed the FAO must support the shift to crops and agricultural practices that require less water and those that are essential for a healthy diet such as fruits and vegetable water policies must limit the modification to rivers as much as possible and wetlands need to be restored and protected finally the FAO voluntary guidelines on small scale fisheries international legislations to give back rights and dignity to fishing communities all over the world thank you very much thank you representative from the civil society organizations and I now give the floor to Italy thank you chair first of all we would like to thank the Hungarian government for hosting us we would like to thank the Secretary of the FAO for the organization of this important event distinguished delegates their colleagues we align our position with the statement delivered by Spain on behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states in recent years agriculture also in Europe and Central Asia has been affected by threats such as water stresses and extreme weather events that have jeopardized the production and contributed to deteriorating global food security and increasing poverty especially in the most vulnerable countries several floods like the one that has hit an Italian region Emilia Romagna a few months ago just for an example I highlighted the need to intervene not only at the domestic level but also with international cooperation actions to support targeted investments research and innovation there is a need to act together at global level to develop short, medium and long-term plants aimed at modernizing infrastructure dedicated to water management and supporting more responsible resource management we refer in particular to the need to foster the use of advanced irrigation system to reduce water and losses water waste and losses encouraging the development of crops that are less weather demanding and able to adapt in a better way to climate conditions at the same time we believe that exchange of knowledge and best practice can play an essential role in developing global expertise and unsustainable water use Italy is highly committed to research innovative solution for more efficient and rational water management recently we have reached a very important milestone in the field Professor Andrea Rinaldo was awarded by the prestigious Stockholm water prize considered the Nobel prize for water resource studies in addition several local initiatives also co-financed by the European Union have been developed in Italy to facilitate the transfer of innovation to farms in this sense the development of public-private partnership could be an effective strategy for the implementation of actions aimed at addressing part of the current challenges in conclusion we take this opportunity to invite FAO to pursue its commitment and pragmatic initiatives for a more sustainable integrated management of soil and water by mobilizing the necessary resources through the involvement of international finances institutions partners and members countries thank you thank you Italy Switzerland you have the floor thank you very much again I will speak in French ladies and gentlemen the national determination of provisions regarding water ownership inter-regional cooperation are indeed important Switzerland would like to underscore the fact that coherent water governance needs to take into account the entire water cycle which is a shared resource for agriculture, energy, food and the environment as I said previously nevertheless let's not forget that 153 countries share rivers, lakes and aquifers one of the challenges when it comes to water is managing it it's a common management including cross-border management it's a common good it's not private Switzerland welcomes and supports the FAO recommendations seeking to promote an integrated approach with coherent strategies for water and land management and there Switzerland has identified as a priority integrated planning and water management Switzerland welcomes and supports for effective use of water and sustainable agriculture to face up to the impacts of climate change sustainable agriculture implies efficient water use but also using natural resources with natural methods of production such as organic farming indeed water pollution is a reality Switzerland underscores that 80% of sewage in the world is not treated whether it's human waste agricultural waste or highly toxic industrial waste agriculture is clearly affected by the use of polluted water with harmful effects on crops such as microbiological and chemical buildup the question of water pollution because of industrial waste as well as mining activities is a central problem that needs further that should be dealt with further finally Switzerland would like to encourage the FAO in its active participation within UNWater and implementing commitments taken as well as supporting the scientific work when it comes to sustainable management we'd like to underscore the importance of the work of the convention on the protection and use of trans boundary water causes and international legs on sustainable management of water and land and climate change thank you Switzerland would like to give the floor now to the Russian Federation Russian Federation you have the floor thank you chair Russia holds first place for freshwater reserves in the region of Europe Central Asia and second in the world since 2018 in our country we've been implementing a national project called ecology which inter alia provides for restoration and conservation of water installations and guaranteeing sustainable functioning of economic water systems in 2025 we will be launching a single federal project for the water facilities in the country which provides for modernization of existing and construction of new purification installations reduction of influx of agrochemicals and nutrients and dismantling of facilities in which damage to water resources is accumulated we pay great attention to cooperation with partners in the Eurasian Economic Union in the area of management of trans boundary water resource management we pursue a two prong goal here in showing conditions for comprehensive environmental protection and stimulating economic development on a mutually beneficial basis now we've managed to take important steps to improve the mechanism for settling disputes arising in connection with the use of trans boundary resources and supporting member states of the Eurasian Economic Union to create sustainable models of land and water resource management one cannot underestimate the significance of multilateral projects for development in countries that need it we feel that this instrument of assistance is making a substantial contribution to attaining SDG2, SDG6 and the 2030 agenda as a whole we call for active involvement of donor countries in funding relevant projects of UN system organizations the projects through the Russian UNDP trust fund on water issues in Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have proven their worth we also have solid experience in implementing projects of the UN ECE and ESCAP on water resource management and combating drought in the countries of Europe and Central Asia we agree with the recommendation of the secretariat regarding the need to continue work to strengthen the regional capacity needed to conduct dialogue and exchange experience and knowledge in the field of water policy development and implementation thank you thank you Russian Federation if there are no further interventions and this is the case I would like to close the discussion on item number 6 of our agenda is a commission in agreement with the recommendations as outlined in the document eka-slash-43-23-7 if there are no objections the recommendations from the document eka-slash-43-23-7 will form part of the report from this station thank you all and I think also I see Georgia please I would like to make some comments related to the eka-slash-7 there are two two tables here in the text and the information is missing related to Georgia for example in the table one in case of Georgia the column for the years 2005 and 2023 is free and there is nothing mentioned about policy documents developed in relation to water such as second national environmental election program of Georgia irrigation strategy third national environmental election program of Georgia fourth national environmental election program of Georgia where are the significant of the water law, basin management concept as well as action plan is outlined in our country step by step and on the basis of irrigation strategy a rise concept of decentralization on farm irrigation systems in Georgia was prepared and adopted the law of Georgia on water user organizations since 2012 Georgia has been actively involved in the preparation approval of various types of political documents related to water and it's inevitable to fill the column for the years 2005 and 2023 with above mentioned information thank you very much thank you Georgia for your comments I would like to ask miss Marjani Zadez if she would like to respond thank you very much and apologies for any oversight these are mainly from the published article so you know of course there was a limit in the words and there were general recommendations so we wanted to highlight the most let's say prominent issues already published out but if there is no objection I can also make some revisions but there are not information but we still did it and we have the strategic and political documents in country so that's why I made some remarks in order to take into account of course just to make sure sorry just to emphasize that for sure these documents because of the limits in the words in particular and we had to just set the scene in particular of the priorities for sure is missing a lot of different also information as well because it was just not possible to mention everything but I am very happy to make a small revision by end of the day if that's okay let me come back to you in a minute thank you for your patience the key point for the time being are the recommendations so one point is if we agree to the recommendations from the document and the other point is comments made by Georgia which will be noted as I am informed by the secretariat and a future document will be updated with the data the updated data from Georgia so again now we are speaking about the recommendations if we are in agreement and if Georgia agrees to take note of their comments please Georgia you have the floor yes we certainly agree all of this information were existed in the papers in order to take into account and don't miss information in this case I tried to give you information about this okay thank you well well noted and also their intervention of Georgia is of course going to be reflected in the report if there is no other comment from Miss Marjani Zadesh no no the information the intervention is going to be noted in the report so no need for it won't be revised during the session because it's already out so with this I thank you all for your constructive participation and I would like to close this item now ladies and gentlemen we have arrived at the end of the morning session we will now break until 2pm however before we start the break I have some important updates first I would like to remind participants about the side event on support to local rural development in Europe and Central Asia that will start in this room after lunch that is 1pm simultaneous interpretation will be provided into English and Russian the lunch will be served in the restaurant on the ground floor from now all participants are requested to be back in this plenary room at 2pm for the afternoon session I would also like to remind you that the government of Hungary will be hosting a dinner at the Dunapark Cafe and Restaurant today at 7pm the restaurant can be reached with 10 minutes walk full details are available at the registration desk I wish you all a pleasant lunch and a constructive side event session session agenda dear ladies and gentlemen welcome back I hope that you are re-energized and ready for action before moving to the next items on the agenda I would like to inform you that we got information that Spain and namely Lalo Eris has been nominated to be the second Roboter are there any objections to this nomination are there any more nominations Russian Federation please thank you very much the Russian Federation once again would like to stress that we are disappointed with the politicization which has entered into this session and we would like it recorded in the report that we dissociate ourselves from Spain's candidacy as a reporter of the meeting, thank you thank you Russian Federation the dissociation is noted and it will be reflected in the report I consider Mr. Gonzalo Eris appointed as the second Roboter for this session and I will call one of the two Roboters to join us here on the podium we will now continue with agenda items 7 8 and 9 and if we are efficient we might take item 10 as well we hope to finish today's session at 5pm however please note that although constructive discussion is very important the working hours of the interpreters finish at 5pm so discussions after 5pm will not be interpreted now item 7 as I told you our next item is agenda item 7 FAO's response to the multiple crisis in Europe and Central Asia the background document number for the item is ECA slash 43 slash 23 slash 8 REF 1 at this point I would like to ask Ms. Tamara Nadisha Svili senior policy officer in the FAO office for Europe and Central Asia to introduce this item Ms. Nadisha Svili you have the floor thank you very much for introduction and for inviting me to present this and I'm delighted to be here as a presenter and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen so I will proceed with the presentation if I could have the do I work with this okay it's just five to seven minutes presentation let me go through quickly so this is the first slide about food security and nutrition situation in our region Europe and Central Asia as already mentioned in one of the previous presentations we don't have very high I mean we have actually low prevalence of undernourishment like which is an indicator for hunger as well as for civil and moderate food insecurity we also do not have and this is mostly contributed by to large extent by Europe European continent in terms of under nutrition there is quite significant reduction in starting and wasting in the region and levels are low also there are of course variations within the subgroups within the sub region and especially in Central Asia we have high prevalence however in the whole region we have increasing rates of obesity and overweight among children under five and the rates are above the global averages the macronutrient deficiencies as anemia among women over between 15 to 49 is below the global average but the rates are not changing their static for the past two decades so when we are talking about multiple crisis this is a result of the several shocks in the region and globally they were felt this includes COVID-19 pandemic and this was followed by this was started in 19 but accelerated in 2020 and then this was followed by the war in Ukraine in the background of the climate change which affects the whole the whole earth including our region so what happened in our region I will quickly mention just a few indicators and without too much going into details it's inflation rate and prices have increased sharply in the region particularly in the first beginning in 2021 but also especially in 2022 and the prices are still higher the global average historical trends although they went down significantly in the beginning in the second half of 2022 and also in 2023 we have many imported countries in the region especially in Caucasus in Central Asia which are dependent on Russia and Ukraine to less extent in terms of imports of wheat flour and we see how it has changed basically if you look at the graph you see that 90% of wheat is exported is imported from Russia to Georgia but also we have high imports in other regions in other countries but we see that there was some decline in Albania especially and in other I don't recall which country but there was some quite substantial increase in agriculture as you see on the graph in 2022 despite the ongoing war quickly about the impact on fertilizers and energy the energy prices increased globally and this contributed to also increase in the fertilizer prices as you see on the graph which shows how sharp the prices of fertilizers increased and of course fertilizers are very important for agriculture production and cultivation and this of course had impact on agriculture productivity and also ability of farmers to apply inputs as needed in terms of serial exports I included this graph because it's important to know how if exports were affected and we FAO monitors the situation with agriculture production and including this region of course and we see that there is high production in Russia but less production in Ukraine although they are one of the major producers in the globally along with EU we have Kazakhstan is also one of the big producers in Turkey we see that some in Russia it increased in European Union it decreased in Ukraine it decreased but in for 2023 FAO projects actually very good production of cereals and even higher than in 2022 so what were the FAO's responses which is a major topic of this presentation it's FAO has four regional program priorities which represent umbrella for our regional program and this includes the focus is on small holders the first priority, second priority is food systems transformation then third priority is promotion of sustainable natural resource management and then of course addressing food insecurity and reducing all forms of malnutrition we carry out monitoring, assessment reporting in the region and for example in response to the Ukraine crisis we established a working group on to monitor the situation in the region and produced several reports like about over 20 reports we have done assessments in many countries affected by disasters this includes Turkey Ukraine of course and even Moldova it was affected by the drought and we do regular reporting on the situation we've done emergency carried out emergency and humanitarian response including in Ukraine which then was followed by the activities to build the agriculture and support farmers and of course we do policy responses which are reflected also in just as an example we have regional projects which works exactly on these issues of the current crisis multiple crisis so what are the recommendations in this situation we produce a number of recommendations which are included in the papers it was presented for this audience and I will just quickly mention them without going into details because you have it in your folders it's first of all to refrain from isolating domestic food markets from world food markets which is very important is not to focus just too much on self-sufficiency because this does not support neither the country so much nor it's not good for the global landscape provides humanitarian and social protection response to vulnerable groups of the population which is highly important especially for those from Ukraine and Turkey we know that there was large population large movement of people due to this crisis in these two countries then promote affordability of healthy diets because as we know serial prices are the most one of the important products consumed in this region so promotion of affordability of healthy diets and with sustainable consideration and is one of the priorities and we know that in the region the price is the cost of food of healthy diet increased refrain from imposing ad hoc export restrictions because this also undermines the capacity and also affect the prices and disrupt trade relationships in the region and this is the same applies to everywhere globally and diversify sources of imported foods which especially in this region is limited when we talk about cereals investing trade infrastructure and logistics which is important in order to harmonize export and increase like we recommend specifically to use more of digital technologies to increase investment in digital technologies in order to reduce administrative burdens and minimize physical inspections and different aspects related to trade and logistics which was very much affected by the current crisis and increase responsible investment in agriculture which is to enhance resilience and productivity of the agriculture and food sectors and it is to improve this can raise production productivity improve the food security of rural people invest in promote digital technologies in the agriculture sector which is this is particularly important to mitigate the adverse effects of war on the agriculture sector and food security and provide real time and location specific data to farmers and also to help them with marketing their products and access information on the prices of essential agricultural inputs establish and strengthen veterinary services and livestock disease surveillance systems and because there is a lack of capacity to respond to animal health threats in the region strengthen food security and nutrition information assessment and analysis is especially important when you are monitoring the situation and will try to propose policy actions and to respond to the crisis quickly so information is vital in this scenario but also the important for different scenarios to have up to date information develop new or improve existing national food security strategies in some countries of the region there is no food security strategy which also affects the response capacity of the countries in the cases of disaster and of course promote regional cooperation in science and innovation these calls for the promotion of regional cooperation to enhance the resilience of agricultural systems in the region and collaboration of research institution across the region universities and the private sector should be to share the knowledge and to develop innovative solutions to respond to common challenges thank you very much thank you Ms. Naysha Spili Naysha Spili sorry for the mispronunciation I am opening now the discussion on this item with any member or observer representatives like to take the floor I recognize Spain followed by Turkey and Switzerland Spain you have the floor thank you thank you again sir I am honored to speak on behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states furthermore I'd like to note that Albania Bolsia, Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Montenegro North Macedonia and Ukraine fully align themselves with this statement we would like to thank FAO for the comprehensive and insightful overview presented for this item we particularly appreciate that it describes both overarching as well as more specific challenges as well as their solutions the trends are worrying and we are highly concerned that more people in our region are suffering from food insecurity and malnutrition today than only a few years ago obesity is on the rise and anemia among women between the ages of 15 and 49 years remains unchanged despite efforts made the prevalence of climate change induced weather events such as droughts and floods are at an all time high with the outbreaks of African swine fever in the EU and the western Balkan countries we are again reminded of the risks of trans boundary animal diseases although African swine fever as a non zoonotic disease does not pose a threat to humans the economic impact and loss of food can be significant the EU and its member states would therefore like to highlight their strong support for the latest initiative in the field the global coordination committee for ASF which was developed jointly by FAO and the WHO H in 2020 at the same time zoonotic diseases that are endemic to many countries such as rabies, anthraxombrosilosis contribute to persistent disease and economic burden through impacts on health as well as livelihoods it's clear that the region is dealing with a variety of issues some such as the devastating earthquake in Turkey and natural disasters they can be mitigated through research and innovation preparedness and solidarity at times of need but it's not in our power to prevent them others on the other hand such as the Russian aggression against Ukraine are fully man made as such we'd like to note that we fully support Ukraine and its people the report for item 7 shows how this war has caused or exacerbated most of the negative trends in the region is destructive effects in the region as well as globally continue to present the main obstacle to progress market disruptions soaring food, energy and fertilizer prices inflation, increased inequality particularly affecting women and additional pressures due to the high number of refugees fleeing Russia's war are only a few examples not prolonging the Black Sea grain initiative will once again lead to increased food insecurity and malnutrition in the most vulnerable parts of the world some of the consequences of the war will have long term consequences such as the destruction of the Kachchovka Dam which has caused irreparable environmental damage we're deeply concerned by the recent Russian attacks in transport and storage infrastructures in Ukraine the loss of lives unfortunately continues we commend FAO for its efforts in Ukraine and surrounding countries and appreciate that attention is also being paid to Ukraine's reconstruction and recovery unlike natural disasters which are unpredictable and difficult to address the war in Ukraine could be ended immediately we therefore continue to urge the Russian Federation to immediately end its hostilities in Ukraine we recall the decisions on the Russian aggression against Ukraine adopted by the FAO Council at its 169th, 171st 172nd and 173rd sessions by the 43rd FAO conference and by the 33rd FAO regional conference of Europe and stress the need to continue their full implementation we would like to express our support for FAO's work in the region which is both normative and practical we particularly underline the importance of FAO's efforts to increase gender equality in the region but also its outreach work such as its collaborations with the World Bank and the European Bank for reconstruction and development which we believe could be fruitful we look forward to hearing more about the urban environment food system and the sense assessment mentioned in the document it would also be interesting to hear more about the uptake of the advice given in the FAO police policy briefs for the region a question which might also be worth looking into further is the situation of credit credits for investments in the agricultural sector these questions could be reviewed at the next European Commission on Agriculture Session finally we also support the policy recommendations which we find highly relevant particularly regarding trade I would like to conclude this thank you very much thank you Spain on behalf of the EU and its 27 member states I now invite to Kier please you're watching I'm not you are you are you are you are you are you are you are you are you are The Minister of Agriculture and Forestry has coordinated quickly with our international stakeholders for joint activities to recover the post-arquake damage and help rapid meetings with UN organizations and consulted on the efforts and potential collaborations for damage assessment and post-arquake recovery. We appreciate for all the support during this period. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in partnership with the government of Turkey developed a three-year earthquake response and recovery plan and also started a TCB project in the earthquake affected region. In this context, we appreciate FAO's works and efforts in the earthquake region. Through Fall Turkey, collaboration we aim to restore the supply and value chains of agri-food systems, revitalize the agricultural labor and empower rural communities for sustainable development. As it has indicated in the background document FAO, IFAD and World Food Program in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry have conducted, supply chain analyzes for the Turkish wheat sector, building a resilient food system project under the UN joint SDG funds development emergency modality in order to strengthen the resilience of the Turkish wheat sector in the face of internal market volatilities and external challenges such as COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. Project identified the actors and their functions and interactions in the sector mapping out the capacities and as well as the challenges and limitations of the existing supply chain. Esteemed participants, as Turkey, we have conducted an important diplomatic initiative to sign and implement the Black Sea Initiative in cooperation with the UN. This initiative is a concrete step forward to ensure the global food security. As a result of this effort, millions of tons of grain and food products were delivered to world markets from Ukrainian ports. Our efforts for reviving the initiative are continuing. Dear guests, in conclusion, being able to resist this crisis and creating resilient food systems is our priority. We believe that we can achieve this goal through close cooperation. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Turkey. Switzerland, you have the floor. Sorry. Again, I was speaking French. Thank you. Switzerland would like to thank FAO for the document and encourages it to continue dealing with these crises via immediate measures as well as medium and long-term interventions, which without forgetting about short-term responses, taking into account the link between development and humanitarian aid, we'd like to note that measures should include young people, women, and the most vulnerable people. The added value of FAO when it comes to responding to crises is to construct and strengthen long-term resilience by developing the adaptation capacity of populations. Collaboration as well with other organizations that are active in the response to crises is essential, in particular when it comes to activities such as social protection programs managed by other organizations, including those of the United Nations. Switzerland commits to more transparency and stricter rules when it comes to export restrictions and encourages FAO to act in this regard. Finally, the short and medium-term response should not mask the work of FAO when it comes to the climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity, and soil degradation. Promotion and development of agroecology in the region is important to strengthen the resilience of food systems in the long term. Thank you very much. Thank you, Switzerland. Next on my list, I have the civil society organizations and followed by the Russian Federation representative from the civil society organizations. You have the floor. Thank you, Chair. I speak on behalf of New Lennie, Europe, and Central Asia. First of all, we thanks for the background document, and we definitely welcome the work of FAO in Ukraine, and we ask for more involvement of civil society, and especially small-holder organization in this work. Coming to the recommendation, indeed we have a short and long-term recommendation to address, and short-term measures are needed to immediately address the crisis, but they must be coherent with the much-needed long-term measures to transform our food system. Short-term measures include the provision of humanitarian aid while strengthening sustainable local food system, and we underline that, supporting existing community and solidarity initiatives, while regulating the corporate distribution of ultra-processed food, ensuring access to small-scale food producers to inputs for production, privileging domestically available inputs over important ones. Halting food speculation, restructuring and canceling private and public debts, introducing a moratorium on the use and processing of agriculture commodities for non-food purpose, and taxing excess profit and extreme wealth. As long-term measures, we definitely want to break this food import dependence and support domestic food provisioning. These need to ensure and promote the strengthening of peasant economies and family farming. With a particular focus on youth and women, instead of deepening the dependence on the global market, public procurement must be used to ensure access to market at a remunerative price for small-scale food producers. The local government's level is key to promoting articulation between rural and urban areas. We need to transform food system through agroecology, as was well-spent by Switzerland before us. Comprehensive and popular agrarian reform must be prioritized. People's rights to access and control over land and productive resources must be ensured, and traditional and ancestral models of production guaranteed. We have an incredible agriculture knowledge in our area. We need to give them a lot more space, such as the protection of peasant seeds and knowledge, particularly women's knowledge. And we underline that, that we often, we talk about women, but we don't value their knowledge, never. When secure fishing sites for fisher folks, participation of youth in this process should be promoted. Policies must progressively ban highly hazardous pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Implement food sovereignty, limit corporate power, transform trade rules, because international trade needs new trade rules. We cannot accept what are the trade rules now. Trade and investments must be reformed to serve people and societies, not corporations, halting free trade agreements and dismantling existing World Trade Organization's agreement that are not ensuring food security at all. Food sovereignty policies must be promoted to reverse the control of corporations in food system, reminding that the price of the cereals in this moment is due to incredible speculation on the market. Food sovereignty policy must be promoted to reverse the control of corporation food system. Likewise, measure based on a social and solidarity economy must be adopted. And we have resolution of the United Nations to support us. And must regulate price and the market power of firms, thereby limiting opportunity for corporation to dominate the global food markets. And the incredible inflation that we are experimenting is for this absence of total control of the market. We need to remember that, and we need to do more and more on that, finally. Ensure human rights and democratic multilateralism. This is essential for us. This justice and equity and equality as the basis for all social life are central to the vision for a transform system which must protect and promote human and community rights. Special attention needs to be paid to the rights of marginalized people, such as peasants, indigenous people, fisher folks, women, non-season, heteronormative person, youth, urban food insecure pastoralists, landless agriculture and food workers and so on. We need to implement UNDRIP. We need to implement UNDRIP. Those are UN declarations that are far to be implemented and we ask that. For that, we really ask that the final recommendation will be integrated also with the very valuable comments that we had in the side event at lunchtime where it is clear the local food system plays an essential role in halting the crisis. And it's a real response to the multiple crisis and we need to give space to those recommendations that we just heard one hour ago. Thank you. Thank you. Civil Society Organizations, Russian Federation, you have the floor. Thank you very much. In recent years, notwithstanding all our efforts, the environmental situation in Europe and Central Asia has remained less than ideal because of climate change and the COVID pandemic as well as many other crises. It is catacly unacceptable to make accusations against Russia for provoking hunger and worsening the food security situation in the region and in the world. In the course of the current season, the World Grain Council has raised its prediction for Russian production up to 58.6 million tons for all grains. And for the following year, it's 120 million tons and for wheat, 87 million. That's not counting Crimea. The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin at the second Russia-African summit, declared openly that our country will provide the necessary food volumes to needy countries. The accusations against us by the European Union intended to overshadow their own attempts and responsibility for the food disruption, especially unilateral sanctions against Russia as an independent participant in world trade. The explanations of the European Commission about the absence of consequences on Russia as a global – in terms of global food security are just the nonsense. EU sanctions affect not only the whole world, including the countries in need, but also their own agricultural and production sectors and reduce the quality and quantity of fertilizers and other materials. Russia has fulfilled its obligations in good faith under the Black Sea Grain Initiative. However, instead of providing assistance to the countries in need in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the initiative has been turned into a major – Philippe, just a Ukrainian contribution to those countries. At the same time, we've seen disruption of Russian grain and fertilized supplies with an expanding war against Russia, and the various ways of overcoming these problems have not been implemented. As regards the decisions of the previous sessions of the AFU Council and the 33rd session of the Regional Conference of Europe, those decisions were taken without unanimity and with a vote. We hope that the Secretary will reflect the debate in a balanced way and will distinguish the responsibility of countries for the food crisis in Europe and the world. Thank you. Thank you, Russian Federation. Is there anyone in a delegation wanting to take the floor? In addition to the previous speakers, I recognize Ukraine. Ukraine, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to make a small intervention regarding this point of agenda. Firstly, once again, we are thankful AFU for conducting a rapid assessment of damage and losses in the agriculture sector after the destruction of Kahovka Dam in close coordination with national authorities, which helps us to define the recovery strategy. Regarding the destruction of Kahovka Dam, it should be mentioned that Ukraine has not faced such huge problems and damages before the large-scale invasion of Russian Federation to Ukraine. Also back to AFU response, AFU presented response program for 2023 and survey regarding impact of the war on agriculture enterprises, assessing the impact of the war on agri-food value chains and crop and livestock producers, as well as estimating rehabilitation and recovery needs. Ukraine welcomes the continued concrete efforts of AFU to optimize technical and humanitarian assistance of our farmers. And finally, Ukraine asks, do not take into account data about the Crimea as a data of the Russian Federation. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Ukraine. If there are no further requests for the floor, I would like to close the discussion on item number seven of our agenda. It is a commission in agreement with the recommendations as outlined in the document ECHA, slash 43, slash 23, slash 8, REV 1. At this point, I would like to remind you about the suggestion of the civil society organizations to integrate the comments made during the second side event, namely the second side event on support to local rural development in Europe and Central Asia. So we will need the support of a member to integrate these comments in the report. So if you wish to integrate the comments made during the second side event, a member would ideally support the request of the CSO. With that, I give the floor to Spain. Spain, you have the floor. Thank you, sir. I'm sorry to interrupt with some delay. I just wanted to make a brief comment on what the Russian delegates said. I'd like it to be clear once again that none of the sanctions imposed by the European Union, not one of the sanctions, is focused on food production and all that that entails. Contrary to what Russia said about the EU sanctions, stating that we've blocked exports of fertilizer from the Russian Federation, UN data clearly show that such exports of Russian fertilizer to developing countries in 2022 were maintained and they were practically stable. So we just wanted to make those two points. Thank you very much. And I'm sorry. I took my time to intervene. And also, sorry, once again, there was a vote in the councils mentioned and the region as conference for Europe. There was no consensus, but there was a vote and there was a clear result. Thank you. Thank you, Spain. On behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states, returning back to the recommendations and the agreement on the recommendations, I mentioned the suggestion of the civil society organizations and I'm waiting to see if any member would support the request. It seems that this is not the case, so we won't be able to include these comments in the report, in the recommendations from this session. If there are no objections, the recommendations from the document ECHAS-43-23-8-REV-1 will form part of the report from this session. Thank you very much for your cooperation and active participation. Now the next item is agenda item 8, advancing gender equality in the region. Update on the progress made. The background document number for the item is ECHAS-43-23-9. I would like to ask Ms. Dono Abdurazakova, senior gender and social protection advisor in the FAO regional office for Europe and Central Asia to introduce this item. Ms. Abdurazakova, you have the floor. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairperson, distinguished delegates, good afternoon. It's a privilege to be part of this meeting today and update you on how we are progressing in gender work in the region. The background document summarizing key activities supported by FAO in the region of Europe and Central Asia. Also outlining priorities and challenges of our work is available online for your consideration and comments. And now I will try to be brief without going into too many details. I will be still keen to have your feedback. In May 2023, FAO regional office for Europe and Central Asia adopted its new regional gender equality action plan for 2023-26, which assigns concrete actions for implementation, aligning itself with FAO strategic framework that emphasizes gender use and inclusion as cross-cutting themes and identifies gender equality and rural women's empowerment as a standalone program priority area. FAO gender work at regional, sub-regional and country levels apply a twin-track approach. It's targeted interventions that address and meets the priorities of rural women based on analysis that we conduct. But it is also mainstreaming gender concerns into everything else that we are doing. And this work builds on analysis of the trends and priorities identified through country gender assessments of agriculture and rural development that we conduct in the region, in the countries in recent years. This analysis helps us to look beyond merely improving rural women's access to sustainable livelihoods, but also highlight and challenge the very norms that perpetuate inequalities. In our work, we also built on progress, achievements and lessons learned from the regional gender equality strategy that we've been implementing, taking into account persistent and new challenges emerging in the region in recent years. And we are also guided by the recommendations of the 33rd session of the FAO regional conference for Europe to improve the social sustainability and inclusivity of agri-food systems by empowering women as agents of change. While the overarching objective of FAO corporate gender equality policy is achieving equality between women and men in sustainable agriculture and rural development for the elimination of hunger and poverty, we translate these high goals into the context of our work in the region focusing on policies for agri-food systems to support the inclusion of women and men through knowledge building, awareness raising and experience sharing, focusing on capacities to formulate, implement and monitor gender responsive and transformative agri-food policies and programs, and on improved access for rural women to markets, knowledge and innovation to empower them to enjoy sufficient control over natural and productive resources. In building knowledge and evidence on gender in agriculture, we undertake country gender analysis, as I said, as a minimum standard of our program work. Last year we produced these assessments for Azerbaijan and Moldova, and in progress is our work in Belarus, Kazakhstan, also in Albania and Tajikistan. Additionally, we support region-specific knowledge in Sematic products, which includes recently published regional overview of how FAO can assist in improving social protection for rural communities in Europe and Central Asia, together with a shortened policy brief. Two of regional trends and challenges in gender agriculture and rural development in Europe and Central Asia, based on analysis of the 12-country gender assessments that I mentioned before. A resource guide on gender mainstreaming in climate finance investment in agriculture, forestry and other land use sector in Europe and Central Asia, based on FAO experiences. This resource guide is a result of extensive collaboration and experience sharing between FAO and national counterparts and highlights six region-specific promising practices from global environmental facility experiences. And in progress, we work on the overview of extension and rural advisory services in the region from our gender perspective. We produced a review of the situation in fisheries and aquaculture from gender perspective in five member countries of Central Asia and Caucasus Regional Fisheries and Aquaculture Commission, CACFISH. Finalizing regional study and policy brief on gender, socioeconomic and health dimensions of the impact of pesticide use. And recently we started exploring a new dimension, gender dimension of trade in the region, which will examine the role of women in specific expert-oriented agri-food value chains. It's at early stage of development. This work is also accompanied by interventions on the ground at country level that are targeting women's economic empowerment there in progress in several countries of the region in Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Georgia, in Kyrgyzstan, in Tajikstan, in Turkey, in Uzbekistan. We have these initiatives that target women directly. A government-supported project on rural women's economic empowerment was accomplished in Azerbaijan a year ago. And after an under FAO-Turkey partnership program, FAO is implementing a project that targets both policy and grassroots levels in Turkey and Central Asian countries, striving for agri-food systems that leave no one behind. And through these interventions, often implemented in partnership with UN women and other United Nations agencies, diverse groups of rural women, they get access to viable income generation opportunities to decent jobs, to participation and entrepreneurship. Within these initiatives, FAO has been providing technical assistance to the ministries of agriculture to enhance capacities to formulate and implement evidence-based policies that are responsive to the needs of the disadvantaged groups and contribute to increased access to diverse nutritious foods. Last but not least, I would like to highlight also FAO's work in facilitating the progress on SDG5 monitoring and reporting, particularly on reporting on indicators 5A1 and 5A2 on equal Latino rights for women. Despite the signs of positive developments, significant gaps remain to accelerate progress in empowerment of rural women and girls. More systematic and concerted actions are required from multiple actors. In that respect, I would like, again, to refer to a brief overview of the regional trends and challenges in agriculture and rural development in Europe and Central Asia from gender quality perspective that point to different forms of instability in Europe and Central Asian region that are endangering hard-won gains towards gender equality. And this includes the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, climate change and environmental degradation, which all have profound gender-differentiated impacts. The report brings to our attention that, in practice, gender equality commitments remain poorly reflected in national agriculture, forestry and fishery policies that usually refer to farmers or rural population rendering women's contributions invisible. And in many instances, national development strategies may refer to gender equality as a high-level goal, but rural development plans may generally lack gender-sensitive targets and indicators, seldom specify concrete actions, responsible institutions and allocate budgets for specific measures. Gender perspective is often absent in mainstream policies, and while there are several positive examples in program countries of the region, the misconception persists that agriculture is a gender-neutral topic, and this failure to recognize gender as a cross-cutting theme may result in women's further isolation from key resources and increase risks that women and girls as well as those in minority groups will not fully benefit from the development of agri-food systems and will be left behind. Considering the above, I would like to request members as our important allies to help us to more consistently translate our commitments in gender equality to day-to-day practice and mobilize efforts to formulate, implement and monitor agri-food policies that do not marginalize but empower women and girls as a socioeconomic group that faces persistent structural disadvantages. I thank you for your attention. Thank you, Ms. Artura Zakova. I am opening the discussion on this item. Would any member or observer representatives like to take the floor? Spain, you have the floor. Yes, thank you again, Chair. I'm honored to speak on behalf of the European Union, and it's 27 member states on this gender item with total endorsement for this statement from Bosnia, Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Ukraine and Turkey. Chair, we would like to commend the work carried out by the echo secretary in cooperation with the FAO regional office for Europe and Central Asia to review the progress made in addressing gender equality concerns in FAO's work in the region and to maintain, through regular updates, members' attention, support and commitment to this critical topic and the persistent challenges remaining. We note with concern that in recent years, various factors have had a serious impact on food security, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts, especially Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, as we discussed under item 7 and climate change. These exacerbate the impact on gender inequality as manifested in the multiple forms of discrimination faced by girls and by women. We would like to stress once again that making progress on the empowerment of women and gender equality is fundamental for the implementation of human rights, including the right to adequate food, thus contributing significantly to the achievement of the SDGs, especially SDG2. We therefore welcome all initiatives aimed at combating all forms of discrimination against women and domestic abuse and sexual violence, as these undermine efforts to achieve food security. Initiatives aimed at improving nutrition and tackling economic gender-based discrimination at all levels in our region, especially in rural settings, more focused on agricultural or fisheries, are also welcome. Likewise, food insecurity leads to the perpetuation of destitution and cycles of domestic violence and gender-based violence, affecting especially girls and women, which in turn undermines community's ability to tackle food insecurity. We appreciate the efforts made by many countries in the implementation of policies aimed at achieving gender equality in the region, but it is necessary to give greater impetus to these policies through concrete actions to broaden their support, especially in the agricultural and or fisheries sphere. In this sense, FAO, as an organisation with extensive technical expertise in this field, must continue to provide technical support to governments to strengthen their actions and the scope of their policies in favour of girls and women, leaving no one behind. Even so, we consider that there are areas where there is room for improvement and where greater political efforts are needed to advance gender equality in rural areas. Women's access to land, to agricultural means of production, and to financial services, as well as investment in girls' education and professional opportunities for women, must be improved. These policies must be accompanied by investments to improve infrastructure in rural areas and social protection measures, including childhood protection mechanisms that, in addition to favouring the empowerment of rural women, will also result in the right to food and contribute to strengthening community resilience. We would like to recall the need to pay special attention to gender equality and women's empowerment in the context of humanitarian emergencies, climate crises, and conflicts, also considering children who may constitute up to half of the affected population during crises and emergencies, and whose care continues to fall primarily on the shoulders of women. We should continue to deepen cross-sectoral dialogue among ministries and other stakeholders on gender issues regarding food and agricultural systems. Finally, we recall and emphasise that gender equality and women's empowerment is a core objective of the EU's external action and the UN's 2030 agenda. We therefore also welcome the efforts of the Committee on World Food Security regarding the establishment of voluntary guidelines for gender equality and women and girls' empowerment in the context of food security and nutrition. With these comments, Chair, the EU and its 27 member states support the adoption of the report. Thank you. Thank you, Spain. On behalf of the European Union, and its 27 member states, I now pass the floor to the civil society organisations. Please. Thank you very much, Chair. And thank you, Donald, for the excellent introduction. And thank you, Spain, for the really positive input. Traditionally and historically, women have not had access to the same support, recognition or empowerment as men in the farming community. In many countries, including some in Western Europe, they still struggle for official recognition for their often unpaid work for pensions and social security coverage. Women are the first to suffer at all levels from the conflicts in our region and elsewhere in our world. As women, we stand for peace and deplore all armed conflicts. Women in most cases also carry the double burden that of work on the farm, care for the home and the family. This is still the case right across our vast region. Yet there is a new trend that is often overlooked. Young women, small-scale farmers, one of whom is sitting to my left, who choose to care for the land and the soil as they care for their fellow human beings. This is particularly the case in growing fruit and vegetables and medicinal herbs, all of which are accessible with innovative peasant designed tools. These young women, in all their diversity, often work collectively and are generally involved in sustainable agroecological direct territorial markets of various kinds, from community-supported agriculture and other forms of local solidarity partnerships between producers and consumers, such as the cow on a balcony project in rural Kazakhstan, the asset network in Romania, and new networks in Serbia and Croatia, as well as the existing ones in Turkey and Kyrgyzstan. These women are all aware that feeding local people, healthy, nutritious food, is essential for their future. That synthetic pesticides and weed killers will harm them as farmers, as well as those that they feed. They are nurturing the land and they are nurturing their families and the communities. In many cases, they are using ancestral skills learned from their grandparents. This is where the states and FAO need to allocate their subsidies and to officially recognize and support the rights to social protection and decent pay linked to the role of women as carers within the home. Today we are dealing right across our region and indeed in the whole world with an aging population, not just of food producers but of the population as a whole. Senior citizens and elderly rural women require and should be entitled to the care they deserve, including nutritious food and institutions such as hospitals and care homes, as well as that given to children in local school canteens. This requires specific public procurement policies that can be linked to groups of sustainable local agroecological small-scale food producers. The younger women and men in the household cannot always bear the burden alone. And there are needs to have full recognition for all the unpaid work carried out by women in rural areas and on farms, from childcare to accounting, from the kitchen to the cleaning as well as working in the fields. The question of the care economy will be the theme of next year's international labour organizations conference in June. Today the burden remains very largely on the shoulders of women, even if a new generation of young men in many countries are taking an equal share in this work. In the present situation of extreme cost of living increase, women are again suffering. They give what food there is to their children and they're more often undernourished than the rest of their families. Frequently they sacrifice their own healthcare when there are insufficient resources. The SOFA report is damning in terms of the statistics of increased hunger and malnutrition. In a very recent article in Le Figaro, it stated that 30% of the French population are now food insecure. This is shocking in any country, let alone in a so-called developed nation. Women in all their diversity make up half the population but do not have access to an equal hand. States together with FAO must provide increased equality in terms of educational opportunities, healthcare and support at all levels. Women and men, migrant workers must be treated with dignity and their human rights must be respected, especially the right to food. Our recommendations are to ensure gender equality in all new regional programs and decisions under the agro issues where women have equal opportunities in capacity training, including by recognizing their diversity, their equal rights and access to land and governance of natural resources. Continue to provide a full, equitable and meaningful participation and leadership of the women at all levels of action, engagement, policy and decision making. States should be reminded of their commitments to achieving the SDGs. In particular, SDG 5 and indicators 5A1 and 5A2 on women's land rights. For information, SDG 5 is achieved gender equality and empower all women and girls. Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. Indicator 5A1 implies undertaking reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources in accordance with national laws. And indicator 5A2 assesses the extent to which the national legal frameworks, including customary law, guarantee women's equal rights to land ownership or control. We have already made some great progress but it's just the start. We need to continue collectively and do more. Thank you very much. Thank you, civil society organizations. I see Switzerland. Please, you have the floor. Thank you again, Chair, for this possibility to speak. And I thank each and everyone for their interventions. Switzerland commends document ECHO Strait 43.3 Strait 9. And in particular, supports the fact that progress made in mainstreaming gender equality in the FEO's work in the region is now a standing item on the ECHO agenda. Switzerland also supports the FEO's efforts to adopt transformative approaches on gender. It commends the new regional action plan for gender equality for 2023-26 and calls on the FEO to step up its endeavors on gender equality. We support the need to gather and highlight statistics demonstrating the inequalities which exist in the in the agricultural world. Here we would like to stress the importance of gauging non-remunerated workload mostly borne by women. Awareness rating upon the quantity of non-remunerated work must help to underscore the importance of the work carried out by women in the agricultural world and fight their poverty. Switzerland has for more than 20 years been monitoring the social situation of peasant families in which the situation of role of women is particularly important. It's also important to strengthen the position of women as farm managers and protagonists in rural development. To this end, it's necessary to strengthen the access of women to ownership of agricultural land as well as access to quality training. Both farms are still held by men which creates a major structural inequality between men and women in the agricultural sphere. Switzerland supports the transformative social policies which can improve the life of peasant women and their living conditions. Switzerland recently introduced personal social coverage for the spouse or the partner who's been registered for the farmer working regularly and to a considerable extent in the firm. This breakthrough allows for better social security for women in the agricultural world. It's also necessary to establish solutions for instances of divorce in agriculture which often have tragic consequences for women. And to conclude, Switzerland encourages the FAO to take into account the new CFS voluntary guidelines on gender equality and empowerment of women and girls in the context of food security and nutrition. Thank you. Thank you, Switzerland. I see Russian Federation. Please, you have the floor. Thank you, Chair. The issue of achieving gender equality in agriculture is extremely important. In Russia, the ratio of women to men is 33 to 67 percent. And the reasons for such an imbalance are many in the agricultural world. This is the most poorly paid sector today. The average wages of women in agriculture amount to 78 percent of the average wages in general in the economy. Secondly, the wages of women in agriculture are lower than those of men in the field by an average of 17 percent. And thirdly, women in agriculture either operate a joint business, in other words, a farm, or they undertake corporate functions. For example, they may act as proxies, so to speak, for the men. Furthermore, in technological terms, agriculture mostly consists of so-called male professions. At present, we need to be attentive. If we wish to redress this imbalance, women have a number of advantages. If they are tapped and if they are used to the full, the agro-industrial complex can only win from an influx of them. We're talking about flexibility and an ability to find agreement. Women tend to see compromise rather than victory. And this helps in resolving many business problems. Secondly, women are more active and quick in mastering new technologies, and that means they are in demand in the digitalization of agro-industrial production and the use of new technologies, such as agro-engineering. Thirdly, women in principle add stability to the productive managerial cycles, and that is what Russia is now working on, that is to carry out a sensible rebranding of agriculture and make it more attractive to women, while also establishing mechanisms which would help women to make a career for themselves in agriculture. We do not support assigning rights to specific groups, because we feel that this is a forum, not for discussing the rights of specific groups. Debate on this score has been underway for a number of years in the Committee on World Food Security, and the result of those Titanic efforts, so just being thanks to the chair of the Committee, has been the voluntary guidelines on gender equality and empowerment of women and girls in the context of food security and nutrition. Their text was agreed upon at an intergovernmental level, and we hope it will be adopted at the forthcoming session of the CFS in October. Lastly, I would like to respond to the comments from the colleagues from Spain regarding aggression, the decision to conduct a special military operation was taken in accordance with Article 51.7 of the UN Charter and the Treaty on Cooperation, Friendship and Mutual Assistance with the Donetsk People to Republic and the Lugansk People to Republic, and the aim is to protect people who for eight years have been humiliated in the subject of genocide by the Kiev regime, which seized power in 2014 as a result of a non-constitutional coup d'etat, and also pose a threat to the people of our own country. Thank you. Thank you, Russian Federation. If there are no further interventions, I can recognize Ukraine. You have the floor. Thank you, Chair. Regarding the statement of Russian Federation, Ukraine strongly recommend Russian Federation to take into account resolutions of the United Nations regarding the territorial integrity of Ukraine during the statement. Thank you, Ukraine. Now, if there are no further interventions, I would like to close the discussion on item number eight of our agenda. Is the commission in agreement with the recommendations as outlining the document ECA-43-23-9? If there are no objections, the recommendations from the document ECA-43-23-9 will form part of the report from this session. I thank you all for your participation, and also Ms. Abdurazakova for the introduction to this document. Thank you. Our next item is agenda item nine, progress made by the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia on the main recommendations of the 42nd session of the ECA. The background document number for the item is ECA-43-23-10. I would like to ask Ms. Mary Kenny, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Officer in the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia to introduce this item. Ms. Kenny, you have the floor. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Dear ECA participants, it's my real pleasure to be able to introduce the background paper for agenda item nine, ECA-43-23-10. In this paper, we are pleased to be able to update you on the progress made by FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia on the main recommendations of the 42nd session of ECA on the technical theme, transforming food systems to address all forms of malnutrition in Europe and Central Asia. To facilitate the reporting, the many recommendations from the 42nd session are clustered in the paper. In drafting this paper, we saw or we observed or we saw the highlighting of many, many aspects of our work in the region where we are addressing the four agreed regional priorities and how very many aspects of our work do contribute to food systems transformation. Let me start by addressing the recommendation to advocate and promote political will on food systems transformation. In line with FAO's strategic framework 2022-2031 and the principles of the four betters, FAO has promoted sustainable and continues to promote sustainable food systems transformation and holistic approaches, building on the achievements of the UN Food Systems Summit and the UNFSS plus two stock taking moment which took place in July this year. So many activities of regional level but also working with countries at country level to follow up on commitments on new thinkings and indeed on the very detailed national pathways that have been developed by many countries. In addition, we are working and we continue to support with a range of regional mechanisms in the region but including the UN issue-based coalition on sustainable food systems for Europe and Central Asia. Focusing on country level results, an important achievement have been the food systems assessments completed by all of the BSEC countries, by all of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation countries. These were completed and discussed at a regional conference earlier this year in March in Istanbul. Some country examples of work include interaction and workshops with Armenia and Tajikistan where multi-stakeholder workshops looked at aspects of sustainable food systems in those countries including impacts of regional shocks including climate change and discussing aspects of resilience and looking to short-term but also longer-term solutions. We continue to work on core let's say thematic areas including some of which you mentioned at the last session including promoting bioeconomy. This includes a document which is being finalized on promoting bioeconomy through agriculture practice in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, looking at aspects of circular economy, bioeconomy and sustainable economy as complementary concepts. We have a series of food systems talks in the region, one of which focused on circular economy of food and indeed other important thematic focuses include and they've been mentioned many times here today. Further work on the CFS voluntary guidelines, all of them but also including we increased focus and uptake of the food systems, the voluntary guidelines on food systems and nutrition and indeed a focus on true cost accounting of food. We have also began work to look more closely at the urban food context in the region as well including using an assessment tool we have in FAO to look more in more detail at the urban context for better diets and nutritional outcomes. You asked us to also or we all accept the importance of working on food systems transformation to really further more intersectoral and multidisciplinary approaches. Some examples on this very briefly in Albania. There's very much multi-sectoral and cross-ministerial work ongoing to develop the agri-tourism sector. This is through the SFS Med project. Another example in the region in Serbia, many dialogues at sub-national level have been continuing to focus on follow-up to the national pathway and to continue analytical work to understand key aspects of the food systems including further alignment with the EU Green Deal as a priority for example for Serbia. Addressing equality in food systems you saw in the paper that we have published in collaboration with the International Institute for Sustainable Development guidelines on integrating the leave no one behind principle into development planning in Europe and Central Asia. In the intervening time also the last biennium we can say there has been increased focus also on youth and youth related activities and indeed and engaging with youth as agents of change or part of deciding their future. On a core focus on nutrition promoting healthy diets and looking also at the enabling environment for consumers. Much work has been done in this area including for example work on important policy tools working on food systems based dietary guidelines in Montenegro, Kyrgyzstan and Serbia working with Turkey on food literacy strategy and indeed much work has been done to develop but also use education and information materials targeting consumers including on healthy food choices better understanding of food labeling and food waste prevention. School feeding programs in the past quite a bit of work has been done in the region in this area but we also want to there's increased demand from countries and we want to further work through we are undertaking a landscape analysis of the school feeding programs in our program countries to see how school feeding programs can be further developed and make the best use of lessons learned and available materials indeed in this area. On value chain development a lot of work has continued in this area as well including on specific quality foods geographical indications and we will have the fourth regional consultation on geographical indications which we organize every two years in the region. A new initiative more recent which is a global initiative of FAO is the what we call OCOP which is a global action on green development of specific agriculture products one country one priority product and this is looking at a comprehensive way of developing priority value chains in countries and some examples include work that is underway in Uzbekistan to develop the cherry sector Albania while chestnuts and Tajikistan for example on apricots. Then the other areas of focus another key area was to continue in the framework of food systems transformation to work on to continue to support livelihoods and community development through territorial and local approaches. At the side event at lunchtime my colleagues gave a very deep dive into community work in this area. They mentioned to us the regional technical network on community development which is an existence in the region since 2019 and ongoing work indeed supporting small holders and family farms including through the UN decade of family farming. We also in the region have a community of practice on agroecology which is established and promotes knowledge sharing and identification of solutions for common problems. Related to food systems and food systems transformation clearly monitoring and data collection analysis is a key part. Again I think under agenda item seven today there was a deeper understanding of much of the analytical work done in the region. In addition we also have our yearly flagship publication on regional overview of food security and nutrition which continues to be a key in-depth analysis of food security and nutrition in the region. I wanted to also add in terms of using let's say data looking in more detail at data at country level in the last biennium there's been quite a bit of work on monitoring agricultural policy and producer prices so working with countries to improve capacities and knowledge on food prices as well and this included collaboration with YAMO and OECD through carrying out agriculture market information system assessments at country level but then also coming together through regional workshops and discussions to look at this with the participating countries. Important technical reports and reviews on agri-food trade policies including implications of the war and other crises in the region have been completed also by FAO in collaboration with World Bank and at Ten experts. You asked us also to continue to support regional cooperation and partnerships on issues that affect food security and nutrition and are integral to sustainable food systems. There are many different levels of partnerships and collaborations ongoing in the region and in the paper we highlighted some including land net the informal technical network of land professionals established in 2022. We also have a long-standing agricultural trade expert network in Europe and Central Asia at ten and the trade experts had their eight annual meeting in November 2022 so it's in establishment quite some time and more recently in the last few years the Central Asian Animal Health Network has been formed and brings together those working on animal diseases in the region. This is organized by FAO but obviously in collaboration with the World Organization for Animal Health and WHO Euro. Coming to the end Mr Chair I also wanted to highlight the regional technical platform and green agriculture which is also an important platform and a point of promoting best practices and fostering knowledge exchange and partnerships. The last set of recommendations you made to us were to focus on sustainable natural resource management and again I think today we had very detailed updates and discussions on this topic around land, soil, water. In addition FAO is supporting a programme work on fisheries and aquatic systems to promote responsible and sustainable management of fisheries and agriculture resources and finally then the one health approach remains a very core part also and allows holistic and cross-sectoral work in the region and FAO is supporting countries in this area together at regional level working with our Quadripartite partners WHO, Woha, UNEP and FAO through the regional one health coordination mechanism established in 2021. Working with countries and including at regional level through a network of laboratories to prevent the threat of antimicrobial resistance is also a key element. Finally food safety is also a key aspect of our work and in the intervening time work has continued to support countries throughout the region to develop and strengthen national food control systems but also work along value chains to build in preventive approaches for safe and quality food. In closing Mr Chair we'd like to thank all the organisations and countries and technical experts who contribute to all of this. Thanks for listening to me. I'm honoured to speak on behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states and I'd like to note that Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Ukraine fully align themselves with this statement. Sir we'd like to thank FAO for the report on its recent activities in Europe and Central Asia related to the implementation of the recommendations of the 42nd session of the ECA on transforming food systems to address hunger and all forms of malnutrition in the region. We note and welcome the remarkable number of food systems related activities in a number of countries. We also welcome the attention given to the issue of food systems transformation within the European and Central Asian regions by the FAO regional office and we encourage FAO to continue to advocate and maintain the political will to work coherently and holistically on food systems transformation. We stress the importance of reconciling the objectives of sustainable agriculture and food systems, agricultural competitiveness and food security and nutrition with the challenges of climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as biodiversity loss. We note the need to continue efforts to facilitate cooperation and partnerships in particular in the area of land and water management and governance for an effective management of these natural resources as their key to addressing water scarcity and climate change adversities. For these reasons we commend the choice of the main technical theme of this 43rd session of the ECA which is the sustainable use of land and water resources in Europe and Central Asia. We share the view that a holistic approach is needed that addresses inequalities in food systems, promotes human rights-based approaches and especially empowers vulnerable and marginalized groups in the context of social sustainability in order to provide affordable, sustainable and healthy diets for all. We very much welcome taking CFS policy products as a key reference in this transformation process such as the voluntary guidelines on food systems and nutrition and the policy recommendations on agroecological and other innovative approaches for sustainable agriculture and food systems. As part of this we agree that the transformation of food systems also needs to consider urban food systems and the urban context as stated in this year's Sophie report. We welcome the progress made in monitoring data collection and analysis for up-to-date information on food systems that have been facing multiple shocks including the Russian War of Aggression against Ukraine, adverse weather events and the COVID-19 pandemic, issues already expressed in item seven of the agenda. In our view monitoring the situation and implementing interventions are key to mitigating the adverse consequences and bolstering the resilience of food systems. We therefore value the upcoming CFS policy recommendations on strengthening collection and the use of food security and nutrition data and related analysis tools. We stress also the importance of further promoting food systems policies that increase the availability of safe and nutritious foods, make sustainable and healthy diets more affordable and empower consumers to make healthy food choices. Therefore we welcome the fact that improving food consumers food literacy is an FAO priority in the region. We particularly welcome the intention to use policy guidelines and recommendations of the CFS in the framework of a regional technical program such as the CFS voluntary guidelines on food systems and nutrition and true cost accounting and we look forward to the planned further regional exchanges in 2023 and 2024. Finally we invite FAO to strengthen actions for fighting food loss and waste and encourage FAO to follow up on recommendations on supporting sustainable natural resources management, fisheries and aquaculture, promoting the one health approach and emphasizing food safety as part of a healthy diet. I'd like to conclude there. Thank you very much sir. Thank you Spain on behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states and I now give the floor to the European Inconvenient and Social Committee. You have the floor. Thank you very much for giving me the floor and thank you very much FAO for inviting us here today. Thank you for this presentation and I just would like to add and raise your attention to some practical issue we are working on within the European and Social Committee which would be otherwise actually the bridge between the civil structured or organized civil society and the European institutions. So we as European Economic and Social Committee call for the establishment of a so-called European Food Policy Council which could serve as an example for other countries since dialogue between stakeholders for us is crucial. Our purpose is to feed strategically into the commission's work who is working as you may know on a new EU framework for sustainable food systems that will set the basis for systemic changes that necessary to be made by all actors in order to accelerate the transition to a sustainable EU food system. It's not without reason that we call for the creation of a European Food Policy Council. Let's cast our minds back to the food system crisis and to the need for rapid behavioral change as you mentioned. Indeed we are facing a poly crisis with social climate health and environmental challenges which the current commission should address in a timely manner because the delay would risk the success of the strategies, ongoing strategies let's say. Actually through the European Food Policy Council that we are proposing it would be possible to coordinate policies to achieve a more participatory and integrated approach to food policy making to increase the quality and legitimacy of EU food policy. Let me now address the following pressing points. I am sure all you know that here are several foods or there are several foods related platforms at local, regional and national levels but these are not sufficient for an efficient dialogue. Therefore food policy concerns would be very necessary and food democracy needs to be strengthened and embedded in the food policy processes. Our committee, so the European Economic and Social Committee is ready to be a convening place to the European Food Policy Council and as I mentioned before it could serve an example for other countries as well. Thank you very much. Thank you European Economic and Social Committee and I now pass the floor to Switzerland. Thank you very much. Switzerland would like to thank FAO for this report and all of the efforts made when it comes to transformation of food systems to address all forms of malnutrition in Europe and Central Asia. Swiss welcomes the six main action fields identified during the UN FSS plus two stock-taking moment in future actions carried out by FAO in particular regarding incorporating food systems strategies in national policies linked to sustainable development, nutrition and health, economic growth, climate and nature, promoting inclusive forms of governance and participatory forms of governments as well as strengthening the participation of women, young people and Indigenous people. We welcome the fact that you're taking into account urban food systems in an approach for the transformation of food systems. Indeed cities are at the heart of this transformation with consumption as a main lever of action. Switzerland supports healthy and sustainable consumption in cities particularly through the Nutrition in City Ecosystems project which seeks to improve nutrition, health and reduced poverty by increasing supply and demand of diversified foods and products in an agroecological manner. We support the reorientation of agricultural policies to ensure food security, nutrition and better health. This reorientation should also lead to the sustainable use of resources, a reduced environmental impact as well as the preservation of biodiversity. Switzerland encourages FAO to develop the real cost approach and to work on the reform of incentives and public subsidies. Regarding youth, we need to bridge the generational gap in agriculture. I'd like to insist on this, transporting food systems is not possible without the full and active participation of young people as well as the rural youth action plan of the FAO. A new recommendation of general policies by CFS on the promotion of participation and employment of young people in agriculture and food systems should be actively used by the FAO. Once again, Switzerland encourages the FAO to use agroecology as an inclusive and effective approach to transform food systems and hopes that this will feature in the report, Switzerland is a member of the agroecology coalition which was created in September 2021 in the margins of the United Nations Food Systems Summit. Switzerland encourages the members of FAO to join this coalition and to strengthen the collective action in the field of agroecology. Finally, it's important that the work of FAO forms part of international frameworks in a complementary approach. It would be useful therefore that FAO mentions in its documents existing collaborations with other international organizations. Food systems and our region must contribute to the implementation of the new coming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. In effect, the loss of biodiversity is one of the three crises, climate, biodiversity and pollution. And the new global climate for biodiversity is a historic agreement in which food systems and the FAO have a leading role to play. We need to take advantage of this momentum and focus on implementation also bearing in mind the FAO strategy on mainstreaming biodiversity across agricultural sectors. I'd like to thank all those involved in interpreting all of the statements made today because they've enabled me to speak in my own language. Thank you very much. Thank you, Switzerland. Civil Society Organizations, you have the floor. Thank you, Chair. I wanted to make a short contribution and also uptaking from what was just chaired by Switzerland, which because we heard today that the transformation of our food system much depends also the involvement of youth and enhancing especially youth agency therefore not only the capacity of youth to contribute to food production but also to sit there where decisions are made and therefore shape policies which will eventually affect us. And in line with this, I would like to point out two, one process and related document and one important tool that have recently been development and that on which we should really make effort towards implementation. The first one is a modular training program on public policy cycles for family farming which was developed by EFAD together with FAO in the context of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming. It's a tool that us as international planning committee for food sovereignty we have been involved with with the youth working group. We have partnered with the FAO to enable this training which basically aims at empowering youth to be part of the policy making process. And the hope, the request for this session is that resources will be allocated to reproduce such training which we found very useful at the international level to also be reproduced at the ecoregional level in different countries to train youth leaders to become also trainers themselves to reproduce the effect of this knowledge and capacity sharing platforms. The second instruments that I would like to bring the attention which was previously mentioned by Switzerland is the recent CFS policy recommendations on promoting youth engagement and employment in agriculture and food system for food security and nutrition in which process we as civil society organizations and peasants organization we have been involved we were part of a delegation which followed the process and it was really a big struggle because we really tried to bring our perspective and through a long negotiation process we managed to have included important references in this document included all the legislative frameworks UNDROP, UNDRIP, the CFS policy recommendation on gender on agriculture the FAO 10 principles on agriculture these are all tools that we are really important to us to empower young peasants and that we always are very careful to point out when we managed to have them included important policy papers to move towards the really the implementation phase of these processes so I wanted to bring these two instruments to the attention of today's session and I thank you for the floor thank you civil society organization for your intervention okay if further interventions are not requested and I think this is a case I would like to close the discussion on item number nine of our agenda is the commission in agreement with the recommendations as outlined in the document ecca slash 43 slash 23 slash 10 if there are no objections the recommendations from the document ecca slash 43 slash 23 slash 10 will form part of the report from this session thank you all for your participation and I also thank miss Kenny now according to the order of the day we have concluded today's part of the session however if if you have seen the time is still 407 that means we are still in front of schedule and this gives me the opportunity to make another suggestion and take item number 10 from tomorrow's order of the day I'm not punishing you this is a chance for you tomorrow to finish on time I know that most of you have flights to catch so this presents a good opportunity for us to finish with this item and have the elections and the adoption of the report tomorrow so if the commission is in agreement with this suggestion we can take item 10 at this point I can't I don't see any objections to this so yes we can and then I thank you and we can now take item 10 so agenda item 10 amendment of the rules of procedure of the ecca the background document number for the item is ecca slash 43 slash 23 slash 11 I would like to ask Mr. Piotr Volodarsik secretary at interim of the ecca to introduce this item Mr. Volodarsik you have the floor thank you very much Mr. Chair can we have the presentation on the screen please please bear with us there I'm talking to the support team the item was supposed to be presented tomorrow so you will find the presentation in tomorrow's agenda again it's item number 10 and it's item 43 slash 23 slash 11 thank you for your patience we will resume the session in two minutes max thank you thank you very much for the presentation dear colleagues we can resume now the session thank you for your patience Mr. Volodarsik you have the floor thank you thank you very much Mr. Chair I'm sorry for the inconvenience and the technical issues but again we have successfully overcome them so I have the pleasure to introduce briefly the amendment of the rules of procedure of the commission the amended text of the rules of procedure is presented to members in document number ecca slash 43 slash 23 slash 11 the amendments to the rules of procedure were proposed discussed and agreed by the executive committee of the commission they were then consulted with and confirmed by the FAO legal counsel as the final document for the session does not show specifically which parts of the text have been proposed to be changed I would like to explain and show them on the screen the proposed changes are the following can I have the next next slide please the first proposed change is in rule 3.1 the proposal is that the word may be replaced with the word shell as you can see on the screen in order to increase the level of obligation in the situation when the member of the executive committee is prevented from exercising their functions with the proposed change the member country will be obliged to designate a substitute while currently with may this is voluntary the second proposed changed is in rule 1.2 the proposal is to replace the words his with the word there the change is aiming at using proper terminology which respects the gender equality policies of FAO as shown on the screen and exactly the same situation we have in the proposed changed in rule 2.2 as shown on the screen in the rule 3.1 which is shown on the screen at the moment the proposal is to replace the phrase his slash her with the word there because this is the recommended and proper term suggested by the FAO legal counsel the proposed changed in rule 3 is to add a new paragraph the new proposed paragraph provides for quorum for decision-making by the executive committee currently the rules of procedure have a provision on quorum in rule 4 which is dedicated to the ECHA sessions but do not have such provision in rule 3 that is dedicated to the executive committee thus it is not clear whether the provision for the sessions applies equally to the executive committee with the proposed change the situation becomes clear the secret area that has submitted the revised rules of procedure with these amendments to the commission for consideration and adoption as presented in the session document there is one more issue however which I would like to bring to the attention of the commission and it relates to rule 3.1 again as follows the secretariat would like to bring to the attention of the commission that in rule 3.1 we have overlooked and left out a phrase her slash his which should have been proposed to be replaced with a word there and the situation is shown on the screen at the moment we are very sorry for this mistake but nevertheless we kindly request the commission to consider and decide whether for consistency reasons the phrase her slash his in rule 3.1 be replaced with the word there as it is done in other instances throughout the rules of procedure this completes the proposed changes so thank you very much for your attention back to you mr. chair thank you thank you mr. Vodacic I'm opening the discussion on this item with any member or observer representatives like to take the floor Spain you have the floor thank you chair perhaps for the last time and of course it is very intense day it's an honor for me once again to speak on behalf of the UNS 27 member states while also conveying the complete endorsement from the following member states Albania Bosnia-Herzegovina Georgia Iceland Montenegro North Macedonia Ukraine and Turkey the chair we would like to commend the work carried out by the executive committee of ECA in cooperation with the FEO regional office for Europe and Central Asia and supported by the ECA secretariat in presenting these amendments to the ECA rules of procedure we believe that the proposed amendments address areas where improvement could be made and provide ECA with more efficient gender equal and clear rules of procedure accordingly we support the adoption of the amendment to the rules procedure of ECA thank you thank you Spain on behalf of the EU and its 27 member states if no representatives wish to take the floor no more representatives wish to take the floor I would like to close the discussion on item number 10 of our agenda is a commission in agreement with the amended rules of procedure of the ECA as presented in the document ECA slash 43 slash 23 slash 11 I cannot see any objections so the amendment amended rules of procedure as presented in the document ECA slash 43 slash 23 slash 11 are now considered adopted and this also includes the additional item that the secretary at Interim Mr. Biotflotacic has talked about which is not presented in the prepared background document but was presented during his intervention I take it but this is the case so thank you very much I consider also this part adopted thank you all for your participation thank you Mr. Biotflotacic for the introduction of the document and with this I can say that we can we have concluded today's part of the session I would like to thank you all for your participation and interventions you deserve to live earlier now it's almost half an hour prior to the ending of the session I'm looking forward to completing our work tomorrow but before we leave I would like to give you some information on tomorrow's logistics please let me inform you that tomorrow morning the government of Hungary kindly invites the delegates and observers for a field trip visit to two different sites you are kindly invited to register for a visit to the side of your choice if you have not registered yet I strongly encourage you to do so both field trips are relevant to the sessions to the session and our discussions please contact the registration desk as you exit the conference room also those of you joining the key zrt field trip are recommended to wear comfortable shoes because it's a field trip after all buses for the field trip visit with believing from the hotel at 8 a.m yes both both buses for their both locations the time is 8 a.m the buses will return to the hotel at 1 p.m at that time lunch will be provided in the hotel restaurant on the ground floor just as it was today the draft report from the session will be made available to the participants during the lunch break the plenary session will resume at 2 30 p.m to allow sufficient time for delegations to review the draft report at the request of the ECA secretariat I kindly ask the reporters and the report officers to contact the secretariat now to agree on the schedule for the preparation of the report dear colleagues I would like to reiterate that we will be leaving for dinner on foot at 6 45 p.m from the hotel lobby yes this will take place today thank you again for your active and positive participation and I look forward to seeing you all here tomorrow good afternoon meeting adjourned