Countries gathered in İzmir to shape food, water and climate priorities ahead of COP31

İZMİR, Türkiye, 23 September 2026 | The Regional Convergence Workshop: Towards COP31 – Operationalizing the Water-Food-Climate Nexus brought together government representatives, UN agencies and technical experts from across the region in İzmir on 22-23 September.

Over two days, participants compared country experience and worked towards four concrete outcomes – shared regional policy messages; a preliminary pipeline of solutions and investment opportunities; practical examples that could inform COP31 discussions; and a roadmap for continued regional cooperation.

The workshop brought together National Food Systems Convenors and relevant ministerial and technical representatives working across food systems, climate action, water management, agricultural policy, extension and programme implementation from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Türkiye, and Uzbekistan. High-level participants included Heads of Departments and Deputy General Directors from Türkiye’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Heads of Department at  Climate Change Office, as well as senior representatives from across Central Asia and the Caucasus, including the Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Kyrgyz Republic; Heads of Departments from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan; the Deputy Chairperson of the Agro Credit Development Agency under the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan; and the Deputy Director of the Department of Agri-Food Markets and Agricultural Product Processing at the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Discussions focused on where food systems, water management and climate policy intersect, the barriers countries face, and the finance and regional cooperation needed to advance promising approaches. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Türkiye, and Uzbekistan shared practical experiences, challenges and lessons from implementing integrated water, food and climate actions, identifying practical enablers, challenges and approaches that can inform regional priorities and recommendations.  Türkiye and Uzbekistan also contributed lessons from their work through the Convergence Initiative.

COP31 will take place in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026. The current Global Climate Action Agenda includes agriculture and food systems, water and resilience, finance, technology and capacity development among its areas of work, closely matching the workshop’s focus.

Ömer Öztürk, Head of Adaptation to Climate Change and Local Policies Department at the Directorate of Climate Change, focused on what will be needed to carry the workshop’s priorities forward: “Without financing, technology and capacity development, we cannot accelerate implementation. We must turn good ideas into investment-ready projects.”

Mehmet Yener, Deputy Director General for EU and Foreign Relations at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, said the workshop’s results should extend beyond the meeting itself: “We would like the messages emerging from this workshop not to remain merely on its pages, but to translate into projects, investments, partnerships and solutions that can be implemented on the ground.”

Babatunde Ahonsi, UN Resident Coordinator in Türkiye, noted the workshop’s regional dimension: “This workshop gives us an opportunity to bring a Central Asian and Caucasus perspective to the food-agriculture-water-climate nexus, and to identify messages and solutions that can contribute to Türkiye’s COP31 agenda.”

The workshop built on Türkiye’s work under the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub’s Convergence Initiative, which supports countries in aligning food systems priorities with climate plans, including Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans. Türkiye joined the Initiative as a pilot country and developed a Convergence Action Blueprint following its national inception workshop in December 2024.

Ayşegül Selışık, FAO Assistant Representative in Türkiye, pointed to Türkiye’s experience: “Türkiye already demonstrates how convergence delivers results. In the Konya Closed Basin, FAO-supported irrigation programmes achieved up to 30 percent water and energy savings while increasing agricultural productivity.”

“Few issues unite our region more clearly than water, food, and climate. They connect our economies, our communities, and our futures,” said Nabil Gangi, Sub–Regional Coordinator for Central Asia ad interim and FAO Representative a.i. in Türkiye.

The İzmir workshop took the Convergence Initiative’s work to the regional level. Working sessions examined policy coherence, financing and the conditions needed to advance water-food-climate projects, while participants identified short-, medium- and longer-term actions for a regional roadmap.

Khaled Eltaweel, Senior Programme Coordinator of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, highlighted the opportunity presented by COP31: “Türkiye’s COP31 Presidency gives this work particular weight. It is an opportunity to bring country and regional experience on the water-food-climate nexus directly into the COP process building on the experiences from the region in implementing the Hub Convergence Initiative.”

The programme also included a field visit focused on water-efficient and climate-resilient agricultural production to the İzmir Bird Sanctuary and Gediz Delta Ramsar Site.

Note:

The workshop was organized by Türkiye’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MoAF), through the National Food Systems Convenor’s Office (NCO); the Directorate of Climate (DoCC), in the context of Türkiye’s COP31 Presidency; and the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office (UNRCO) in Türkiye. The FAO Subregional Office for Central Asia (FAO SEC) and the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub provided technical support, with contributions from relevant UN agencies and partners.