UNGA 73: Sustainable Development

 

 

 

73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly
Second Committee
Agenda Item 20. Sustainable Development

Lucas Tavares, Senior Liaison Officer, FAO Liaison Office with the UNited Nations in New York

 

Thank you for giving me the floor, Chair.

 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Climate Change gave a stark warning last week. The window to curb global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is closing and success depends on a concerted and scaled-up effort. Sustainable agriculture has a critical role to play. It can no longer be seen in opposition to efforts to curb climate change. In this regard, FAO welcomes the Koronivia Decision of the Twenty-Third Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that recognizes agriculture as part of the solution to climate change.

We must address trade-offs that exist and also identify, create and invest in synergies. This means adopting a range of actions, including recovering degraded land, tackling deforestation, promoting reforestation, embracing low carbon agricultural and food production approaches such as agroforestry, agroecology and climate smart agriculture, and changing consumption patterns. The goals of adapting agriculture to climate change and mitigating its greenhouse gas emissions will go hand in hand as we shift to more resilient, sustainable, and inclusive food systems.

I want to stress the importance of these efforts for poor rural communities, considering that about 75 per cent of the world’s poor reside in rural areas, and that they are particularly hard hit by disasters and extreme events, especially droughts but also floods, sand and dust storms, hurricanes and cyclones, among others.

The recorded number of natural disasters in developing countries has almost doubled compared to 40 years ago. Their impacts on rural livelihoods and agriculture are staggering. Between 2005 and 2015, approximately 96 billion US dollars were lost due to declines in crop and livestock production following disasters and crises in developing countries.

Effective disaster risk reduction is essential, and evidence shows that it works. Preliminary impact assessment of the response to droughts in 2017 reveal that acting early helped save lives and livelihoods and reduced the costs of humanitarian response and the dependency on food assistance. In Kenya, every US dollar invested in early animal feed distribution had a return of 3.5 US dollars for vulnerable herders, resulting from lower animal mortality and increased milk production. In Somalia, 3 million families benefited from an FAO program to treat 22 million animals against diseases and keep them productive during the drought. At a cost of 40 cents per animal, the treatment was 100 times more cost-effective than replacing a dead animal.

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

I want to recall that Small Island Developing States are particularly threatened by natural disasters and climate change. Recognizing this and as called for by the SAMOA Pathway, in 2017, FAO, UN DESA and OHRLLS, launched the Global Action Programme on Food Security and Nutrition for SIDS, in the context of climate change. Through an inter-regional initiative, FAO and partners have now elaborated Programming Frameworks to implement the Global Action Program in Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Ocean SIDS. I call on partners to support these efforts.

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

Many of the issues I addressed will be reviewed in next year’s High-Level Political Forums to be held under the auspices of ECOSOC and of the General Assembly. In this regard, I would like to reaffirm FAO’s commitment to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to support the preparation and realization of the HLPFs.

Thank you for your attention.