Transcript of Director-General’s Interventions at the ECOSOC Informal Briefing

Transcript of Director-General’s Interventions at the ECOSOC Informal Briefing

Joining Forces: Effective Policy Solutions for Covid-19 Response

11 May 2020

 

First Intervention

AB ALBRECTSEN

How have personally been affected by the crisis […] how has it impacted you, QU Dongyu?

DIRECTOR-GENERAL

Dear colleagues, Ambassador Mona Juul and Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, and also, Madame Albrectsen.

I have stayed in Rome, after travelling to Davos, so that was in the last week of January, and then I was preparing, in early February, how to protect my staff in Rome.

You know, it was the epicentre and we have more than 3 171 employees. That includes staff, consultants and also interns, JPOs, APOs and so on. Including the family members of those employees, it is more than 10 000.

As you can see, every day, in February, I was really considerate, you know. I was very worried, actually. However, thanks to my Crisis Management Team, that we established in the middle of February, and also we had the COP15 expert meeting that month, with more than 1 000 participants from all over the world. It also created pressure on me.

Being the FAO Director-General, you can imagine. Luckily now I can tell you, all of us, all of us, including family members are safe. Only one, and I am sorry for that, one senior, he travelled back to Albania in the last week of February and then he was sick and passed away. We lost one senior.

Now the Italian situation is back to the new normal, as we say, yesterday all the data indicated numbers like the first week of March. Now it is even better, because in the first week of March we didn’t know who is infected or suspect case, but now, there is also a little bit of a clear picture.

Second, all the FAO staff are working very hard through teleworking, because when I came to the office last August, I started preparing a Digital FAO. At FAO we offered several important, big meetings with the African Union, all the ministers, with interpretation in all of the UN languages – virtually. We also fully engaged with G20, WEF, and others. I think it is a way in which we are now used to the digital, virtual life, and it is also efficiency.

AB ALBRECTSEN

Thank you, thank you for sharing. It’s a real challenge to be a leader at this time.

 

Second Intervention

AB ALBRECTSEN

Yet you have also suggested that the pandemic may still affect food demand and supply, and cause real issues in malnutrition and even hunger. Can you unpack those two realities of solid global food stocks and then still a crisis that may occur?

 

DIRECTOR-GENERAL

It is a very good question and important.

I think, you know, from the earlier this year, we already faced another crisis, the desert locust crisis, since last December in the eastern Horn of Africa. There we considered how to deal with that, that there may be partial, small locations in the global issues.

When the pandemic came, that is a crisis unlike any other experience. A truly global pandemic with massive worldwide economic shock, it is a shock-down, I do not say it is lockdown it is a shock-down. Nobody believed that it was a global shock-down. We saw two direct effects on food systems. First the food economy has been disrupted by the pandemic and also by necessary measures that have been taken to suppress it.

So in many locations I spoke at, like the G20 Summit, WEF and G20 Agriculture Ministers Meeting and with others, the private sectors, so in many different types of hotspots – wholesale food markets, the slaughter houses, fish markets, you name it, urban, especially the urban markets – people do not go to work or they go to work and accept the high risk of infection.

So as long as the crisis continues, the risks of food system disruption could increase. That is why I did not say my personal experience, as you asked. I roast my coffee, you know, I bought several kilos of raw beans of coffee and I have been roasting my coffee at home in the last two months. That is even more important in high value commodities of food, vegetables, meat and fish, because these commodities are labour intensive and also perishable to logistical problems.

Secondly, we are only now beginning to appreciate the true scale and scope of the deep economic downturn brought on by COVID-19. So I think as you said and mentioned there are three key areas. First is the supply side, second is the demand side and third is the price, but it is not a simple way from Asia to Europe to America to Africa, no.

FAO has very carefully reminded everyone that right now food is available and there is no need to panic. Stocks of cereals, especially staple food, are very good. Almost double of what they were in 2007-2008, because in 2008 there was really a shortage, but now, we have current harvests that are very good. In the southern parts of the world and also early spring harvest, we are going to have a harvest soon, next month, of winter wheat. So far we also have very good data for harvests. However, there is the issue of export restrictions at the beginning, especially in March, that is why we started warning and talking with the private sector also, and all the leaders. I asked the Secretary-General to also talk to the leaders in the most vulnerable countries to run their crop calendars, their agriculture calendars, and not to use export restrictions, because they will increase prices and will exacerbate food price volatility. We need to make sure not to repeat the mistakes of the 2007-2008 food crises.

So that was an action we did in March, because if governments start to take trade actions to protect their own stocks of food, everybody will be worse off. Fortunately, we have been able to work with governments across the world and they have been highly responsible. If we look at Asia, East Asia and also Europe, it’s almost over, we maybe need another two weeks or more and then  North America, so you can see that in all of those three parts, it is well done logistically  for food supply chains, and also the private sector, bigger food companies and supermarkets.

Every week I went to the supermarket in Italy to buy food for my family but I also wanted to check the price and the supply in the supermarket in Rome, It is normal.

But, what I worry, that is why we asked and we have had several meetings with ministers of Africa and the Small Islands countries, as Amina mentioned it earlier, and the landlocked countries, and even this morning I had a meeting with the new Secretary-General of the Organization for ACP, African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, it is just newly established, so how to help them. Now only 11 countries still have export restrictions which represent only 2 percent of the global calories, not like in 2007.

 

Third Intervention

AB ALBRECTSEN

EU question on what this crisis is teaching us about prevention and preparedness in terms of food insecurities.

DIRECTOR-GENERAL

Food security is very important, it is a basic human right, as you said. That is also why we are part of the international humanitarian big team.

For food security just on the 21 February we released [a report], FAO together with other 14 organizations, together with the EU, and it indicated that in 2019 we already had 175 million people suffering from acute food insecurity before the pandemic. That was last year’s figure. So now if the economy slows down, we estimate that by five percent or 10 percent, it will create 50 to 80 million more with acute insecurity. That is one. So we have to have a short-term solution to face it, that is why we encourage all the ministers of agriculture and food to plant earlier, produce better and more.

Second, we have to look ahead for the mid-term to consider the environmental issues. We will have a meeting with UNEP, together, to launch the UN Decade of Action on Ecosystem Restoration, next year. Later this year we will have UN meetings on the environment and biodiversity. So we want to transfer from biodiversity to food diversity, because more and more people are living in cities and by 2050, we estimate that 80 percent will be living in the city. But food diversity, so we learn from this pandemic, or other pandemics or natural disasters, we have to put more care on biodiversity.

Third lesson for food insecurity, we have to produce more with innovation. Innovation, as you do at Plan International and I used to be a plant breeder. The only way is to use modern technology to improve productivity with less inputs, chemicals, fertilizers, you name it. And use of genetic potentials. No matter if it is biotechnology or new technologies, so innovation.

Last but not least, I think we also have to change the business model, some of my colleagues have already mentioned that we need to create the new business models for agro food systems, from production chains, value chains and supply chains. It should be based on a digital world. That is a new world, we are already there. So after the pandemic, I think we need to speed up, scale up digitalization. In Europe, when I came to Rome last August, I feel like I came back to 10 years ago in China. We are already used to digital e-commerce, you can order everything from all over the world. So I think in the next five to 10 years, the world will become fully interconnected by digitalization. There I just give some lessons.

Then we need more UN development systems reforms to country level, to offer tailored services and tangible results. That is why , as FAO, we are willing to work with all the UN sister organizations and regions and also at country level.

Thank you.

Fourth Intervention

AB ALBRECTSEN

Do we need new structures or more political will?

DIRECTOR-GENERAL

We need flattened structures and stronger political willingness and commitment to the food systems and the environment. The last thing is, I think the multilateralism and understanding the basic human beings. We are human beings. I am a geneticist so we have to treat everybody with non-discrimination, to any people, to any location, and any culture. That I think is a lesson from this pandemic that we have to share.

The solution is innovation: innovation of the business model, innovation of infrastructure, innovation of the technology itself.

Thank you.