Deputy State Secretary Katalin Tóth opened the preparatory meeting of a large-scale United Nations regional development project at the Ministry of Agriculture on 30 September 2015.

Leaders and experts from the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) met in Budapest and Gödöllő on 29-30 September to discuss preparations for a large-scale conference to be held in October. Hungary was the only developed country to have been invited by the two UN organisations to participate in the IFAD-funded regional development programme as professional supporter. The professional background for the conference will be provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Agricultural Research and Innovation Centre and the Szent István University.

The UN delegation was welcomed by Deputy State Secretary for International Relations Katalin Tóth, in representation of the Ministry of Agriculture. Ms. Tóth has held previous discussions with the leaders of the two organisations within the framework of the South-South Strategy Forum in Macao in late August 2015. The Hungarian Ministry is providing effective assistance to Morocco, Algeria, Turkey and Uzbekistan in the area of agricultural biotechnology within the framework of the project. As such, Hungary is contributing to the development of the agriculture sectors of the abovementioned countries, to reducing rural poverty and to the realisation of food security, the Deputy State Secretary said.

Hungarian involvement in the project provides further opportunities for the transfer of Hungarian agricultural knowledge and accordingly for the foundation of new cooperation and partnerships that generate mutual economic advantages, she stressed.

(Ministry of Agriculture)