LARC38 High level Special Event “Foresight Drivers and Triggers relevant for Latin America and the Caribbean” Opening Remarks

Excellences,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to this High-Level Special Event on Foresight Drivers and Triggers – a timely event as we come to terms with the staggering number of 735 million people currently suffering from hunger globally.

What is even more staggering is that there are 150 million more than in 2015 when we started on our path towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

And we only have 6 years left to fulfil the commitments we set out to achieve.

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) in 2023 projected that 600 million people will be still suffering from hunger in 2030.

We need to take urgent action!

Globally, we have been facing multiple and simultaneous crises, starting with the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by protracted conflicts and war, economic slowdown, and extreme weather conditions due to the impacts of the climate crisis.

Crisis has become our normality.

Our urgent need to transform global agrifood systems to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient, and more sustainable cannot be realized if we do not effectively anticipate risks, shocks and crises and prepare to address them efficiently.

We must be proactive and not reactive.

As a professional and specialized Organization, FAO does not only analyze the current drivers of hunger, malnutrition, and poverty, but with strategic foresight exercise we identify emerging trends, and bring to the discussion different scenarios that could shape our future.

We are living in a world of uncertainties and a world that is extremely interconnected, a crisis in one part of the world affects many people on another part.

We are living on one small planet.

Transforming agrifood systems to achieve a world without hunger, malnutrition and poverty requires a holistic and long-term perspective.

To govern is to foresee. Foresight exercise allows us to support policy makers to adopt a long-term approach to problems and identify potential challenges, while encouraging anticipated actions to build resilience and to ensure sustainability of agrifood systems.

It allows us to anticipate potential risks, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities, anticipate and reinforce our adaptive capacity, diversify our risk management, and better understand shocks to be better prepared and respond better.

Dear Colleagues,

For all these reasons, I cannot stress enough the importance of strategic foresight exercise as an essential tool for all of us.

Strategic foresight exercise would help us to better understand the possibilities of different future scenarios.

Investigating in-depth possible future outcomes empowers us to build the future we want.

Essentially, it helps us make better policy choices now to shape a better future.

Our work at FAO on analyzing future trends, challenges, and scenarios has been intensifying in the last few years.

The FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31, as well as our Medium-Term Plan all relevant programmes, initiatives, and strategies benefit from strategic foresight work.

Concerted efforts are undertaken by FAO globally to collect reliable data, information, and intelligence through corporate strategic foresight exercises at the global and regional levels.

FAO is committed to further strengthen the strategic simulation exercise to support all Members to achieve the Four Betters: better production, a better environment, better nutrition, and a better life – leaving no one behind.

Thank you.