Second UN Food Systems Summit

 

Participants at UN Food Systems Summit call for urgent investment in agriculture

The UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) wrapped up on Tuesday, after three-day summit, co-hosted by Italy and Ethiopia in its capital Addis Ababa. As hunger and food insecurity deepen worldwide, all participants called for increased effort to support agriculture, especially in the most vulnerable countries, plagues by war and climate disruption.

The summit took place against the backdrop of aid cuts by the United States and other Western nations that are badly affecting much of the developing world.

Co-hosted by Ethiopia and Italy in Addis Ababa, the meeting took place four years after its first edition, which was held in Rome in July 2021.

For all participants, it was an opportunity to take stock of global food security and review the ambitious goal they set for themselves in 2021: to eradicate hunger on Earth by 2030.

But by 2024, the world will have reached a record high of 295 million people affected by acute food insecurity and child malnutrition.

“Are we doing enough? The answer is no," said Amina Jane Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, who is herself from Nigeria. "Food systems are still under pressure, there is an urgent need for transformation, and investments in food are still falling short of expectations."

She added she was particularly concerned about the situation in Gaza and Sudan.

"The UN has already spoken out several times on access to food for residents. For Gaza and Sudan, this is a matter of international humanitarian law, it's as basic as that," Mohammed added. "The only thing we can do is continue to raise our voices and, in Sudan, to speak to leaders, with the commitment of the African Union (AU). Famine must not be the reason that pushes us towards peace."

Millions going hungry

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Monday said food must not be used as a weapon of war as world leaders gathered for a food summit in Africa, where 280 million people face hunger and starvation.

"Hunger fuels instability and undermines peace. We must never accept hunger as a weapon of war," Antonio Guterres told the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa via video link.

"Climate change is disrupting harvests, supply chains and humanitarian aid," he said.

Sudan is "the largest humanitarian catastrophe facing our world and also the least remembered", Othman Belbeisi, the regional director of the UN's migration agency, IOM, told reporters last week.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The fighting has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than seven million people.

"At this crucial moment, how many children and mothers on the continent are sleeping on an empty stomach? Millions, certainly. The urgency of the situation is beyond doubt," said Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, the chairperson of the AU Commission, who was more generally concerned about the urgency of the situation throughout Africa.

"Conflict continues to spread hunger from Gaza to Sudan and beyond," Guterres warned amid a severely deteriorating crisis in Gaza, whose population of more than two million is facing famine and malnutrition.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned malnutrition in the occupied Palestinian territory has reached "alarming levels" since Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March.

In late May, it began allowing a small trickle of aid to resume but more than 100 NGOs have warned that "mass starvation" was spreading in the besieged territory.

In this rather bleak picture, the UN Deputy Secretary-General nevertheless wished to acknowledge the limited progress made in recent years in terms of food security. "One hundred and thirty countries now have their own programmes aimed at transforming their food systems," Amina Jane Mohammed said.

Need for investments

As a call for responses, the African Union urged donors to provide greater support for the world's poorest continent, which is struggling with poverty, unrest and the effects of climate change.

Youssouf said food insecurity was on the rise across Africa, blaming "climate shocks, conflicts and economic disruptions".

"At this crucial moment, how many children and mothers on the continent are sleeping hungry?" he asked. "Millions, certainly. The urgency of the situation is beyond doubt."

Youssouf said that more than 280 million Africans were malnourished, with "nearly 3.4 million... on the brink of famine".

Roughly 10 million people had been displaced due to drought, floods and cyclones, he added.

Youssouf urged AU member states to devote 10 percent of their gross domestic product to agriculture to help foster "nutritional resilience".

"But we cannot do this alone. We call on our partners to honour their commitments to finance and support African solutions," he said.

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Read also my pieces on food and hunger for RFI:

Food prices rise worldwide due to climate extremes, according to new report

More than 110 aid and human rights groups denounce Gaza 'mass starvation'

Over 600 malnourished children die in six months in Nigeria: MSF