Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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116. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if she will report on her recent attendance at the OECD rural conference. [49953/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Ireland was proud to host the 13th OECD Rural Development Conference in Cavan from 28-30 September of this year.

It was the first time this prestigious event has taken place in Ireland, and brought together approximately 400 policymakers, practitioners and rural stakeholders from across the OECD member states.

The Conference featured a series of wide-ranging discussions to identify best practices and policy actions that will make rural regions more resilient to global challenges, and better-positioned to capitalise on emerging opportunities.

It was a fantastic opportunity to share our experiences in the development and implementation of Ireland's national rural development policy, Our Rural Future 2021-2025, and also to learn from our counterparts, who are facing many of the same rural development challenges as we are dealing with here.

I was delighted to welcome the Deputy Secretary General of the OECD and rural development ministers from the United States, Korea, Scotland and other member states to Cavan, and was particularly pleased that An Taoiseach also addressed the conference.

The Conference also agreed the Cavan-OECD Roadmap on Strengthening Rural Resilience for Global Challenges, a policy document which will help guide the OECD's rural development work, as well as policymaking in individual states. This document is available on my Department's website.