World leaders call for greater international cooperation to fight hunger and poverty

Economic news for Thursday, February 18, 2021

Source: Reuben Quainoo, Contributor

02/18/2021

The plight of the world’s poorest and richest nations is interconnected, and the eradication of poverty and hunger will be impossible without urgent and focused international cooperation efforts focused on long-term development, the leaders said. from the world at the opening of the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) annual Governing Council meeting today.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis should send the message to everyone – rich and poor, weak and powerful – that their destinies are intertwined. Together we will perish or survive, ”Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, told representatives of IFAD’s 177 Member States. “We need a common plan and strategy for global recovery and the survival and prosperity of all mankind,” he added.

Highlighting the deep and long-term economic damage that the pandemic is currently suffering in low-income countries where poverty and hunger are on the rise, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, President of Angola, compared the challenges for recovery of his country after the civil war.

“International cooperation, both bilateral and with development organizations, has been crucial to our struggle for post-war reconstruction and continues to be necessary so that together we can cope with the effects of the crises facing us. we are facing, ”he said.

The two leaders said the fight against global hunger and poverty must be tackled through global partnerships and greater long-term investments in the rural people who grow much of the world’s food, but who are often the poorest and most hungry.

The Board of Governors took the opportunity to reappoint the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Gilbert F. Houngbo for a second four-year term due to his successful efforts to achieve long-term rural development despite global challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and the impacts of climate change.

The renewal took place at the 44th session of the Governing Council of IFAD, under the name “Rural development: a prerequisite for global resilience”.

His second term would continue to focus on technological solutions, innovative financing models and new partnerships with the private sector, in addition to tackling hunger and poverty and tackling the devastating effects of climate change, unemployment. youth and, more recently, COVID-19.

His strategy for the second term would also pay more attention to the importance of helping indigenous peoples to “ensure that no one is left behind”.

“IFAD must grow. We have to transform IFAD to transform rural areas, ”Houngbo said in a speech he gave on the first day of the two-day conference.

“With the pandemic still ravaging rural areas and projections of increasing poverty and hunger, the need for IFAD to grow is more urgent than ever. Today it’s COVID, yesterday it was a tsunami, and we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. The threat of climate change and extreme weather will not diminish and we must prepare. No rural woman or man should ever be able to have to sell their meager assets – or be forced to migrate – to survive, ”he added.

In terms of eradicating poverty and hunger for millions of people under his leadership, IFAD will double its efforts to ensure that 40 million people a year increase their income by at least 20 percent by 2030, double what IFAD is currently achieving.

To achieve this goal, Dr Houngbo called on donors to contribute meaningfully to IFAD, which will help them deliver a global program of at least US $ 11 billion from 2022 to 2024, for better capable economies. to face the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. and climate change.

Faced with the devastating effects of climate change and reversing the decline in biodiversity, IFAD last month launched the Adaptation Enhancement Program for Smallholder Agriculture (ASAP +), which could mobilize $ 500 million and help more than 10 million people adapt to an unpredictable climate, he added.

Despite their disproportionate vulnerability to climate change, smallholder farmers currently receive only 1.7% of global climate finance, he continued.

Another of Houngbo’s goals is to address the major challenges that rural youth face in finding decent work, which has a huge impact on instability and migration.

In Africa, 60 percent of young people live in rural areas and between 10 and 12 million young people enter the labor market each year; with increased investments in agro-entrepreneurs and rural small and medium-sized enterprises.

Mr. Gilbert F. Houngbo, who has been re-elected today as IFAD’s President for a second term, said in his opening statement that international organizations and government partners need to rethink the nature of food systems that often lead to degradation. greater inequalities, poverty and hunger.

“My conviction remains intact. We can achieve a more just and equitable world, a world without abject poverty, a world without hunger, ”he said.
“But the pandemic and the effects of climate change are forcing us to radically rethink the way we produce and eat.”

Announcing a significantly increased financial commitment to IFAD of € 84 million for its work over the next three years, Luigi Di Maio, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said: “Guarantee the right to food is a moral imperative ”.

“We need adequate and sufficient resources to intervene on the ground, invest in rural economies, food security, access to food and sustainable production cycles,” he added.

Reducing food imports and securing a sustainable, locally produced food supply for an oil-dependent country like Angola is essential, President Lourenço said, and this can only be done by revitalizing and expanding local agricultural production.

The 44th session of the Governing Council is a two-day meeting on the theme: Rural development – a prerequisite for global resilience.