hunger Archives - Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA) 2021

Decades of development efforts undermined by pandemic – FAO report

Food Security, Food Systems, News, Sustainable Development Goals COVID-19, food security, hunger, pandemic, sustainable development goals

**A farmer harvests potatoes in Manchaybamba**, **Peru** (Photo via IFAD)

(United Nations News) COVID-19 has set back progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), undermining decades of development efforts, according to a new report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“It’s an alarming picture, in which progress on many SDG targets has been reversed, with a significant impact on all aspects of sustainable development and making the achievement of the 2030 Agenda even more challenging,” said FAO Chief Statistician, Pietro Gennari.

The analysis, Tracking progress on food and agriculture SDG-related indicators, focuses on eight of the SDGs, which were adopted at a UN Summit in New York in 2015.

According to the report, the COVID-19 pandemic might have pushed an additional 83 to 132 million people into chronic hunger in 2020, making the target of ending hunger even more distant.

Around 14 percent of all food is lost along the supply chain, before it even reaches the consumer, which FAO considers “an unacceptably high proportion”. Progress has also faltered towards maintaining plant and animal genetic diversity for food and agriculture.

World faces historic task to turn tide on ending hunger, poverty, achieving other SDGs- FAO DG

Food Security, Food Systems, News agriculture, food security, food systems, hunger, poverty, SDGs, sustainable development goals

FAO Director-General QU Dongyu addressing the Pre-Summit opening ceremony. Seated in the front row (l-r) Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed,International Fund for Agricultural Development President Gilbert Houngbo,World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley. (Photo via FAO)

The FAO Director-General stressed how at this “critical moment in time” the world faces “the historic task” to transform the agri-food systems and put back on track the achievement of the SDGs.

(Food and Agriculture Organisation Press Release 26 July 2021, Rome) – A holistic and coordinated approach is urgently needed to transform agri-food systems and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. This was the call made by the QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to world leaders participating in the opening today of the Pre-Summit of the UN Food Systems Summit.

“Our agri-food systems are not delivering properly, and in many parts of the world these systems were not efficient, inclusive and sustainable,” Qu said, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the situation.

According to a report issued this month by FAO and its partners, around a tenth of the global population – up to 811 million people – were undernourished last year. The number suggests it will take a tremendous effort for the world to honour its pledge to end hunger by 2030.

The FAO Director-General stressed how at this “critical moment in time” the world faces “the historic task” to transform the agri-food systems and put back on track the achievement of the SDGs.

“To achieve this ambitious transformation; we need to change policies, mind-sets, and business models,” he told participants at the Pre-Summit opening ceremony that saw the participation of dozens of heads of state and government, ministers and other high-level representatives, some present in person while others connected by video.

Speakers included Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, – the UN and the Government of Italy are the Pre-Summit co-hosts – the President of Rwanda and Chair of the African Union Development Agency Paul Kagame and, representing Pope Francis, Archbishop Paul Gallagher the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States.

Pope to UN forum: Hunger is ‘crime’ violating basic rights

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**At the Farmers’ Market held during the Pre-Summit on Monday, 26 July 2021** (Photo via UN)

The summit idea was launched in 2019 months before the coronavirus emerged, but Italian Premier Mario Draghi said the pandemic made existing threats to food security more urgent.

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis on Monday decried as criminal the existence of hunger in a world which can produce enough food for all, building on a warning from the chief of the United Nations that climate change and conflict are both a consequence and a driver of poverty and income inequality.

Earlier in the day, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a meeting in Rome via video message that the world’s food system generates a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. That same system is responsible for as much as 80% of biodiversity loss, he lamented in a video message.

The gathering was called to help prepare for a U.N. food systems summit to be held in September in New York.

In a written message that was read to meeting participants, Francis said the coronavirus pandemic has “confronted us with the systemic injustices that undermine our unity as a human family.”