FAO is Fully Committed To Promoting The Inclusion Of People With Disabilities In All Its Work And Policies, Leaving No One Behind, Director-general Says
13 March 2026, Rome: Promoting the inclusion of disabled people is vital for building efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems that are productive and equitable, QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said Wednesday.
“FAO is fully committed to advancing the inclusion of persons with disabilities in all our work,” the Director-General said at an event hosted by FAO in its Rome headquarters.
A seminar on “Sharing Development Rights: China’s Practices in Poverty Reduction for Disabled Persons’’ was organized by the China Disabled Persons’ Federation and the China International Communications. The former, established in 1988, is a national umbrella organization for persons with diverse disabilities, while the latter, created in 1949, is an international media organization that publishes more than 3,000 books a year as well as around 50 journals in more than 10 languages.
Around 15 percent of people live around the world with some form of disability, and they often struggle to access resources, services and decent employment opportunities, especially in rural areas, the Director-General noted. He further noted that in China alone the number of disabled persons is more than 85 million.
FAO endeavours to implement the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy and is currently developing a new FAO policy on the issue, while also working to better integrate disability inclusion into field projects, Qu said. FAO also endorsed the Amman-Berlin Declaration on Global Disability Inclusion, which aims for at least 15 percent of international development programmes to pursue disability inclusion as an objective. The World Food Forum 2025 included a side event focused on young persons with disabilities in agrifood systems.
“FAO recognizes that true inclusion means transforming the challenges facing persons with disabilities into real opportunities so they can contribute their skills and experiences, and participate in decisions that affect their lives and communities,” he said. “Reducing poverty for persons with disabilities is central to this effort,” he added in his speech, which emphasized the need to focus on the most vulnerable and to do so from a development perspective rather than just a humanitarian one.
A project in Kharga Oasis, Egypt, is closely focused on transforming the lives of local data palm farmers with hearing and speech impairments. Two projects in Syria target women with disabilities as well as parents of children with disabilities.
FAO is pursuing partnerships with relevant stakeholders and organizations and is eager to explore opportunities for exchange and collaboration with partners in China, the Director-General said.
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