COVID-19: Director-General calls for “coordinated, coherent response” in European Parliament address
2 December 2020, Rome/Brussels – The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, today told the European Parliament’s Development Committee that the current public health crisis must not be allowed to trigger a food crisis. It was the first such address, following the Parliament’s invitation for Qu to speak about hunger and malnutrition in the context of the pandemic.
Even before the pandemic, with almost 690 million people undernourished and 3 billion unable to afford a healthy diet in 2019, the situation was critical, Qu told the Committee following an introduction by its Chair,Tomas Tobé, who thanked the Director-General for his presence and underscored FAO’s important mandate and activities.
Pandemic exposes fragility of agri-food systems
Frail supply chains; a precarious agricultural labour force; and the thin line separating many families from poverty – all have been further eroded by the pandemic, Qu told MEPs. He painted a picture of mobility restrictions leading to market closures early on and slashing access to nutritious food; squeezing the livelihoods of the poorest farmers; and causing millions of children to miss out on school meals, often the only source of nutritious food they have.
COVID-19 has exacerbated existing challenges, Qu added, citing insecurity in the Sahel and the Desert Locust upsurge in the Horn of Africa. Four out of five individuals caught in protracted crises live in the countryside, reliant on some form of agricultural production for their livelihoods. Among the rural self-employed, the same proportion – some 80 percent – work under informal arrangements, which means the vast majority of rural workers are excluded from employment-related social protection.
Partnering to pull through
The situation was dire but not desperate, Qu implied – assuming all parties did their bit. He spoke of FAO’s comprehensive COVID-19 Response and Recovery Program: launched in the early weeks of the pandemic, this holistic program is designed not only to help countries for recovery but also to build back better and stronger. Its seven priority areas of work include a “One Health” approach, data for decision making, social protection programs, rural women empowerment, inter-regional cooperation, trade facilitation and market transparency.
He noted that the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Program benefited from FAO’s flagship Hand in Hand Initiative (HiHi) that aims to accelerate agricultural transformation and sustainable rural development based on data and information.
The Director-General also cited FAO’s new Hand in Hand Geospatial Platform, which aggregates and overlays data from multiple sources for targeted food-security interventions, the Data Laboratory for Statistical Innovation, which combines unconventional data sources, big data, artificial intelligence, and data science for decision-making and impact evaluation, and Earth Map, a Big Data Tool FAO had developed in the framework of its collaboration with Google.
At a broader level, Qu pointed out that agri-food systems underpin the lives of more than half the world’s population, stressing that agri-food systems transformation is essential if the world is to build back better and pull humanity, durably and sustainably, out of poverty and hunger. In the process, special attention needs to be given to social protection measures, which can help the most vulnerable through some of the harshest times seen in decades.
Qu then paid tribute to the close collaboration of FAO and the EU to actively build alliances and partnerships that aim to support countries in addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation in the food and agriculture sectors, citing the Sustainable Wildlife Management Programme, that is largely financed by the EU, as an excellent example for this approach.
He also argued for stepped-up innovation and digitalization. The latter, he suggested, was not “a mere question of information technology,” but of systemic remodelling of outlook and processes.
Among other examples of specifically European partnerships involving FAO, Qu quoted the largely EU-funded Global Network against Food Crises, a disaster-response umbrella group which includes FAO, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the European Commission. FAO’s host nation, Italy, was commended for championing the Food Coalition, a multi-stakeholder global alliance, a network of networks for a unified global action in response to COVID-19.
Qu concluded, the European Union’s Green Deal and Biodiversity strategy were further entry points for FAO’s scientific and policy expertise.
Subsequent exchanges with MEPs saw further interventions on the need for investment in systemic policies such as rural women’s empowerment, or training of youth for value-added agricultural jobs.
Leonard Mizzi, Head of Unit at the European Commission’s DG International Cooperation and Development, echoed Qu’s call for an agri-food system transformation. “Business as usual won’t work anymore,” he said, citing COVID-19 but also factors such as country indebtedness. The official restated the EU’s decision to commit billions, in its 2021-27 budget, to soil, water and agroforestry projects, alongside a determination to combat deforestation and child labour.
Qu, who had previously engaged with parliamentarians in Italy and Japan as well as Members of the Parliamentary Front against Hunger (PFH) in Latin America and the Caribbean, thanked his Brussels hosts and the Members of the European Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition for their continued efforts to ensure that the issues of food and nutrition remain high on the political agenda. He concluded by emphasizing the extent to which he sees parliaments as crucial partners in the noble mission of eradicating hunger, eliminating poverty and creating a world of harmony and solidarity.