The meeting, which took place in Geneve, served to assess the progress of the partnership established following the Memorandum of Understanding signed at the COP28 in December 2023. Representatives from both organizations highlighted significant progress, lessons learned, and future plans. Cooperation has been key to implementing the decisions of the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12), held in 2022.
Collaboration with tangible results
The synergy between the WTO and FAO has already produced concrete results. A clear example is FAO's support for the negotiations on the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, where their experience and data have been essential. Both organizations are also collaborating to enable countries to implement this agreement through the WTO Fisheries Financing Mechanism.
Another joint success was the WTO Symposium on Trade and NutritionThe conference, held in 2024, was based on the FAO report "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World" to analyze the impact of global trade on nutrition. The alliance has also been vital in combating the jasside blight in cotton crops in West Africa and to support World Cotton Day.
WTO Deputy Director-General Jean-Marie Paugam expressed his satisfaction with the collaboration. “Our complementarity has already proven its value… this collaboration delivers tangible, high-quality results for our members,” he stated.
For his part, FAO Chief Economist Máximo Torero emphasized the importance of this alliance in a context of global uncertainty. “Open trade in agri-food products and well-functioning commodity markets are not a luxury, they are a lifeline,” Torero noted, referring to current challenges such as climate change, conflict, and inflation.
Looking ahead, the WTO and FAO committed to intensifying their cooperation in agricultural negotiations ongoing and in the implementation of other WTO agreements, such as those related to sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT). FAO will continue to participate as a regular observer in these processes, thus strengthening the synergy between trade, agriculture, and food security.
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