Eminence. Excellencies. Your Honors. Members of the Diplomatic Corps. Distinguished Academicians. Ladies and Gentlemen.
Thank you for having me here today, and thank you for inviting me to be part of your important conversation about solutions to food insecurity.
This event could not be more timely. We are facing an unparalleled global hunger crisis, fueled by conflict, climate change, Covid-19’s economic aftershocks, and rising inflation.
Most recently, the war in Ukraine has sparked a fresh wave of hunger that has swept across many lower-income countries.
Global food prices are 40 percent higher than before the pandemic, despite falling back from the peaks seen last year. This has driven up food import costs and slashed governments’ purchasing power on international commodity markets.
Declining currencies and rising national debts are deepening the pain in many regions of the world. The cost of food has risen at least 15 percent in over 70 countries in the past year.
As a result, many governments simply do not have the financial firepower to support their most vulnerable citizens.
At the World Food Programme, we are seeing the impact of this global crisis everywhere we work. The number of hungry people is soaring – but the resources we need to feed them are running dangerously low.
Up to 828 million people do not know when – or if – they will eat again. And 43 million people in 51 countries are right on the brink of famine. This is unconscionable in a world that produces enough food to feed everyone on our planet.
Last year, WFP reached nearly 160 million people with life-saving food. But unless we raise new funding, we will have to cut – or even stop - rations for millions of hungry people in the coming months. If we do, the impact will be truly devastating.
Excellencies: now more than ever, we all need to collaborate to overcome this crisis. We must work together on short-term and long-term solutions to hunger – solutions which address the immediate crisis, but also tackle its root causes.
Building long-term resilience against hunger is vital, so vulnerable communities are better able to cope with food security shocks.
In particular, we need to help agricultural communities adapt to climate change. Many regions of the world are seeing more frequent droughts and floods, which often destroy smallholder farmers’ crops and livestock, and leave their families hungry.
In the Sahel region of West Africa, WFP and our partners have been working since 2018 to reduce hunger and build resilience against these threats.
In addition to providing food assistance in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, we are teaching irrigation and land rehabilitation, so communities can grow food despite the changing climate.
We also support smallholder farmers to sell crops to earn a sustainable living, and run school meals programs to encourage the poorest families keep their children in education.
So far, we have reached nearly 3 million people in more than 2,700 villages, and we aim to support 5 million people in the next 5 years.
This has to be the way forward: combining life-saving assistance with longer-term solutions to hunger to achieve lasting impact.
But to succeed, we all need to work more closely together. The UN’s three Rome-Based Agencies – WFP, FAO and IFAD – are all strongly committed to stepping up our collaboration.
And we need everyone else to come on board as well – scientists, academics, donors, NGOs and, critically, the private sector.
There must be more innovation and partnerships across sectors, and more collaboration with companies to develop new technologies which can help end hunger.
Excellencies: the challenges we face are daunting, and none of us can do this alone. The global food crisis is simply too severe. But if we unite, as one, to end hunger and save lives, I believe we can and we will succeed.
Thank you, and I look forward to working with all of you in the coming months and years.