EL PAÍS and the FAO to promote news and information on sustainable development

Grupo PRISA and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) signed in Rome, on Monday, an agreement to improve information on sustainable development, hunger, food and poverty. The agreement was signed by FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva, and the executive chair of Grupo Prisa and El País, Juan Luis Cebrián.

The first initiative of the agreement sees a journalist from Planeta Futuro join the FAO headquarters in Rome. Planeta Futuro is the EL PAÍS section devoted to issues of sustainable human development developed with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and directed by journalist Lola Huete Machado. The FAO will provide direct access to its publications, papers and reports, and the newspaper will disseminate news and information on crucial issues such as poverty and climate change, as well as global health, education and innovation as drivers of development. There will subsequently be a range of further joint activities with Grupo Prisa, publisher of El País, with the goal of giving greater visibility to problems such as inequality and hunger, suffered by 800 million people worldwide.

Graziano da Silva recognized the role of the media in combating hunger, and recognized the contribution that quality journalism can make in the fight against climate change, food waste and malnutrition. The director general of the international organization said that the EL PAÍS and the FAO have "much in common", including respect for diversity and difference.

The issues tackled by the UN body, such as food, GMOs and biotechnology, are of concern not only to a specialized public but also to a wider audience such as that served by Grupo PRISA, and the director general of the FAO believes that this collaboration is crucial. It also represents  an opportunity, he said, to publicize these issues in the Spanish language and expand the impact of the organization’s work in Latin America, the region that has most most advanced in the fight against hunger over the past ten years.

"Opening the doors to strengthening our relationship with EL PAÍS provides added value to our publications. We want to spread more news and information in Spanish and to make this language our second language, after English," said the head of the UN agency. Graziano da Silva said that he reads EL PAÍS every morning and that it is for him "a great global newspaper that embraces a broad and open set of ideas."

Cebrián stressed the strength of the Spanish language and the links that it forges between readers of El País, of whom about 10 million live in Latin America. "We want to be and indeed we already are a global newspaper, especially for the Latin American region and the entire Spanish-speaking world," he added. In fact, the newspaper is sold in seven capitals in the region and Grupo PRISA is present in all Latin American countries.

The agreement with the FAO forms part of the wider objectives of EL PAÍS to foster the development of democracy, a sustainable economy and peace. Cebrián stressed that the agreement is consistent with the natural vocation of the newspaper to "contribute to development, peace processes and democratic coexistence".

"This agreement is entirely consistent with what EL PAÍS does, with what EL PAÍS stands for and what EL PAÍS wants to do," said the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Antonio Caño. Caño explained that both the paper and the FAO are based on tolerance, respect, the promotion of development and the fight against hunger. They are common issues that concern both the newspaper and this international organization – and issues on which readers of the newspaper will now have improved information.