Russia’s TASS, UN food agency to cooperate in fighting hunger and poverty

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Russia’s TASS news agency are teaming up to help promote greater awareness about hunger and food-related issues. A memorandum of understanding was signed at Russia’s oldest news agency on Tuesday by FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva and TASS Director-General Sergey Mikhailov. "TASS is the key news agency in Russia in terms of covering international problems," Mikhailov said at the signing ceremony, noting that the agency had an extensive network of correspondents and was represented in 68 countries of the world. Mikhailov pointed to TASS’s close ties with the United Nations. "We have much in common with the UN. We closely monitor the organisation’s work," he said. "We highly appreciate signing of the memorandum," Mikhailov said, adding that the problem of food security addressed by FAO was "one of the most important humanitarian aspects". Da Silva also stressed the importance of the accord signed with TASS, saying "It is an honour for us to join our efforts." "The Russian language is one of the six official languages of the UN system. And we are trying to promote it in our organisation," he said, noting certain difficulties in finding "an institution that can help us disseminate the information". "This opportunity is important for us," da Silva said. "We want TASS to help us in our effort to push for hunger eradication," he said, adding that that the food agency was close to achieving the target of halving the number of people suffering from hunger by 2015, set as one of the Millennium Development Goals, and was moving towards "a more ambitious goal" of eradicating hunger globally. Da Silva invited TASS staff to visit Rome, where FAO has its headquarters. "I hope that we will have the opportunity to exchange and have a visit from your team as we wanted to see our team here," he told Mikhailov, who expressed his agreement. The new memorandum aims "to provide a mechanism for partnership relations between FAO and TASS to ensure mutual institutional recognition and help eradicate hunger by enhancing dissemination of information on hunger, nutrition and food systems and facilitating exchange of knowledge between experts and journalists related to the fight against hunger, food security, nutrition, fishery, forestry and sustainable development alongside other issues," the document said. The sides are committing to cooperation and implementation of joint projects to raise people’s awareness about the importance of fighting global poverty and hunger and improving living conditions by increasing productivity in agriculture, forestry and fishery sectors while protecting environment and biodiversity. The agreement also foresees cooperation between FAO and TASS in organising and holding joint events, including international conferences, seminars, workshops and sessions. In 2006, Russia became a full member of FAO, one of the oldest international organisations, this year celebrating its 70th anniversary. Since its establishment in October 1945, the former Soviet Union had observer status at the agency and Russian is one of FAO's official languages. To strengthen cooperation with Russia, FAO decided to open a liaison office in Moscow this year. Already the agency maintains liaison offices at locations where many UN organisations and other international organisations are working, among them Brussels, Geneva and New York. FAO liaison offices have been established in Tokyo and in Washington DC. These offices monitor developments affecting nutrition, food and agriculture, and represent the organisation at meetings on matters that fall within the agency mandate. Read more