Rio de Janeiro - QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), today commended the President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, for bringing food security to the center of the G20 agenda and mobilizing global support to fight hunger through the unveiling of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty. Qu accompanied President Lula in the G20 Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty Task Force Ministerial Meeting, in Rio de Janeiro, which officially announced the new global initiative.
"The Alliance will enable large-scale country-owned and country-led implementation of evidence-based policy instruments to eradicate hunger and poverty through its national, knowledge and financial pillars," the Director-General said, adding that FAO is committed to supporting its effective implementation and to hosting the support mechanism at its headquarters in Rome.
"It will be key to bringing knowledge, expertise and success stories to the parts of the world where it is needed the most," he added.
Getting the world back on track
The Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty aims to harness political drive and galvanize collective action, enable resource mobilization and improve alignment of domestic and international support to programs and policies aimed at combating hunger and poverty.
Participation in the Alliance is open to all countries, and the plan is for the mechanism, hosted at FAO, to serve as a logistics and coordinating base for a decentralized and innovative approach to development that aspires to offer reduced transaction costs, mitigate risks to maximise yields on donor investments, achieve economies of scale and scope and flexibility and collaboration to foster a co-financing, blended and other finance modalities from a wider range of donors.
The Alliance is envisioned to focus on supporting national public policies, be they school meals, cash transfers or water storage schemes, which is a distinguishing approach compared to many current development assistance models. The political agreements achieved today pave the way for the alliance to be launched in November.
Learning from South America
Innovative initiatives such as the Global Alliance, or FAO's own Hand-in-Hand Initiative, are needed given that global levels of hunger and food security have remained at broadly the same high levels for the past three years, as highlighted by FAO's annual State of Food Insecurity and Nutrition the Word 2024 (SOFI), released here earlier today. More than 730 million people worldwide faced hunger in 2023, and more than 2.3 billion were moderately or severely food insecure.
While the global trends indicate the need for immediate and transformative changes, there is encouraging progress in some areas, notably South America and some subregions of Southern Asia, both of which reduced the number of people facing hunger.
South America is in fact on track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 - Zero Hunger - by 2030, FAO's Director-General said. "We need to build on the progress achieved in this region, and share this experience with other regions, especially Africa," Qu said.
Achieving sustainable food security at the global level will require transforming agrifood systems in multiple ways, he noted. Given the scale of the effort, it is urgent that attention prioritize the most vulnerable populations, and that donors and international partners become more risk tolerant, Qu added.
