Presidency Statement: Roadmap to Global Food Security – Call to Action – World

MEDIA NOTICE
SPEAKER’S OFFICE
MAY 19, 2022

*The following statement is issued by the United States as Chair of a Ministerial Meeting on Global Food Security held at United Nations Headquarters and Albania, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Guyana, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Mauritania, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, Ukraine and Yemen: *

Initial text:

We are issuing this Roadmap to Global Food Security – Call to Action to reaffirm our commitment to act quickly, comprehensively and collectively to respond to the urgent food security and nutrition needs of millions of people in vulnerable situations. We commit to providing emergency humanitarian assistance, strengthening the resilience of people in vulnerable situations, supporting social protection and safety nets, and sustainable, resilient and inclusive food systems, in line with the goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its sustainable development to strengthen development goals and the goals of the UN Food Systems Summit 2021.

We note with great concern that the newly released Global Report on Food Crises 2022 indicates that the number of people affected by acute food insecurity in the 53 countries most in need of aid has fallen from 135 million in 2019 to 193 million in 2021, and that nearly 40 million people in 36 countries experienced emergencies of acute food insecurity, one step away from starvation. Driven by conflict, extreme climate-related events such as historic multi-year droughts and floods; economic shocks, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on livelihoods, incomes and food prices; and a host of other threats to human, animal and plant health, the outlook for food security in 2022 and beyond is bleak. Added to this is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is further exacerbating this already dire situation. We call on all United Nations Member States, international organizations, the private sector, as well as civil society and academia, to urgently support emergency response efforts to meet humanitarian needs and also to focus on building resilient and sustainable food systems, particularly for those those most affected by food insecurity and malnutrition.

We reaffirm the critical role of the United Nations system, its implementing partners and non-governmental organizations in responding to the global food security crisis, particularly through the work of the World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, International Fund for Agricultural Development , United Nations Children’s Fund and the Global Network against Food Crisis. We strongly support the UN Secretary-General’s swift initiative to ensure a coordinated and comprehensive response through the UN Secretariat’s Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance (GCRG). We thank the UN Secretary-General for his consistent leadership in raising collective awareness and action for food security and food systems transformation.

We welcome the efforts of the G7, led by the German Presidency, to prioritize and respond to the escalating global food crisis, in particular the formation of a Global Food Security Alliance. Recalling the G7 Compact on Famine Prevention agreed during the UK Presidency, we look forward to addressing food security as a core component of social, economic and environmental development under the Indonesian G20 Presidency, also recalling the G20 Matera Declaration on food security, nutrition and nutrition remember food systems promoted under the Italian G20 Presidency. We welcome the various initiatives of the African Union (AU) to end hunger and food insecurity in Africa, led by the Senegalese Presidency. In this regard, we recall the AU Theme of 2022: Building resilience in nutrition and food security on the African continent: strengthening agro-food, health and social protection systems to accelerate human, social and economic capital development .” We take note of various other international initiatives such as the Food and Agriculture Resilience Mission (FARM).

We welcome the commitment of the multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to pool their expertise and funding to rapidly scale up political and financial support to countries and households affected by the food security crisis and to improve agricultural production and supplies to the affected countries, consistent with a transition to sustainable food systems. We are pleased that these commitments have been included in the IFI Action Plan to Combat Food Insecurity.

Recognizing that the impacts and the ability to respond are unevenly distributed across countries, and that conflict, climate change and macroeconomic shocks are both immediate and future threats to global food security, we call on all UN Member States to do so to commit to addressing immediate humanitarian needs and disruptions, including ensuring full, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to vulnerable populations. We call on UN member states to make swift additional contributions to urgent humanitarian relief operations in the areas hardest hit by acute hunger, experiencing the convoluted effects of multiple historic shocks and where most lives are directly related to food insecurity and malnutrition are threatened .

We also call on all UN member states to work together to mitigate the medium- and long-term impact of the recent shocks on global agricultural and food systems. We must collectively mitigate fertilizer shortages and the resulting threats to food production, increase investment in agricultural capacity and resilience, protect people in vulnerable situations from impacts on their food security, nutrition and well-being, and maintain high-level global political engagement on critical issues.

As part of the Roadmap for Global Food Security – Call to Action, we call for the following measures:

1. UN Member States with available resources to make new, additional financial donations to key humanitarian organizations that provide immediate life-saving humanitarian assistance, including cash, food and nutritional supplies, health and nutrition programs, water and sanitation, and at most humanitarian protection for those Populations at severe risk, while strengthening their resilience to multiple shocks wherever possible.

2. UN Member States with available resources, including those with large emergency food stocks, to provide in-kind donations and necessary related costs for the transportation and delivery of food to key humanitarian organizations, based on needs identified by affected country governments or humanitarian organizations.

3. All UN member states keep their food and agricultural markets open and avoid unjustified restrictive measures such as food or fertilizer export bans, which increase market volatility and threaten food security and nutrition on a global scale, especially among those already in precarious situations under increasing Poverty, hunger and malnutrition suffer and call on all members to ensure safe sea transport in the Black Sea.

4. UN Member States with available resources to temporarily increase fertilizer production to alleviate shortages, support fertilizer innovation and promote methods to maximize fertilizer efficiency, invest in diversification of sustainable fertilizer production and increase the use of residues as fertilizer to achieve a longer-term supply to create chain resilience for this key input.

5. UN Member States with available resources to increase efforts to support the sustainable transformation of agriculture and food systems to make them more resilient and available to small farmers, and to strengthen the infrastructure, logistical support and innovation needed for cultivation, storage and food distribution are required.

6. All UN member states should increase investment in research to develop and implement science-based and climate-resilient agricultural innovations, including seeds, that help build sustainable and resilient agricultural sectors and food systems.

7. All UN Member States and regional organizations must closely monitor markets affecting food systems, including futures markets, to ensure full transparency and share reliable and timely data and information on global food market developments, in particular through the relevant international organizations .

We note the many commitments made today in response to this Roadmap for Global Food Security – Call to Action and urge the urgent mobilization of additional resources to implement this roadmap.

We will regularly review the actions outlined in this Roadmap for Global Food Security – Call to Action and coordinate the commitments and their implementation with UN system organizations, the G7, G20, multilateral development banks and international financial institutions and other partners as appropriate.

Enhanced coordination at country level is essential, also to support the work of the GCRG in partner countries. We will step up our efforts in this regard, including increased reporting on actions and impacts on the ground, to avert further socio-economic shocks and risks.