2018 World Food Day

 

 

 

2018 World Food Day

 

Your Excellency Ambassador Inga Rhonda King, Permanent Representative of Saint Vincent and Grenadines and President of ECOSOC,

Distinguished Permanent Representatives and delegates,

Distinguished panelists Ms. Sarah Campbell, owner of New Roots Farm,

Ms. Amy Bruins, Director of Global Impact of Rise Against Hunger,

Ms. Kadijatou Ba, Youth volunteer of Harlem Grown

Mr Pierre Thiam, chef, activist and writer,

Colleagues from the Rome-based Agencies FAO, IFAD and WFP and from the UN System,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of the Rome-based Agencies FAO, IFAD and WFP, I would like to thank you for joining the 2018 celebration of the World Food Day.

This celebration is an important occasion for the international community to recall its fundamental political commitment to humanity – the eradication of hunger and all forms of malnutrition – and to raise awareness that achieving a Zero Hunger world by 2030 is possible. But time is running out.

World Food Day happens at a critical juncture. After a long period of decline, hunger has reared its ugly head again. Over 820 million people were undernourished in 2017 according to the latest figures of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, SOFI, launched last September by the RBAs, UNICEF and WHO. The main causes behind the recent increase are extreme climatic events, conflicts, poverty, and economic crises.

Alongside hunger, we are also seeing the rise of obesity, including in developing countries. In fact, SOFI reveals that between 2012 and 2016 obesity grew in every region. Hunger and obesity may be present under the same roof and even affect the same person over the course of a lifetime.

The multifaceted nature of food insecurity and malnutrition poses challenges that we should collectively address, but apart from the challenges we also have successful stories at the local, national and global scales, and opportunities to capitalize on good practices and innovative approaches to confront those challenges.

The theme of this year’s World Food Day is “Our actions are our future: a Zero Hunger World by 2030 is possible”. Now is the time to act and shape the future we want.

Future generations will judge us not by the commitments we made, but by how we worked to transform them into reality. We committed to end hunger and malnutrition by 2030, it is now our responsibility to act and reverse the trend of increasing hunger and malnutrition that haunts us today.

World Food Day is a call for action. We saw today how individual actions can have positive impacts, and how collective efforts can be even more powerful. I hope that this event has inspired and recommitted you to act for a Zero Hunger world by 2030.

Thank you for your attention.