QU Dongyu urges renewed progress towards world without poverty and hunger
“2030 is close at hand and we haven’t achieved what we had set out to do,” he said, pointing out that the first two Sustainable Development Goals targeted ending poverty and hunger respectively.
Around 8 percent of the world’s population is afflicted by extreme poverty, while one of every 10 people lives with hunger. Moreover, the vast majority of the world’s extreme poor live in rural areas and play a vital role in global agrifood systems.
FAO’s Director-General participated in “Towards the Second World Summit for Social Development: Enhancing global efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda” along with Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN; Alberto van Klaveren, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile; Paula Narváez, President of ECOSOC; and the Director-Generals of DESA, ILO, UNDP, UN Women and WHO, as well as of Juan Somavía, Chair of the Preparatory Committee of the World Summit for Social Development held in 1995. A second Summit is planned for 2025.
The UN General Assembly’s decision to convene the second summit pays tribute to the first one, which innovated by placing people at the center of development and catalyzing the design of more than 40 national poverty eradication strategies.
Today, poverty and hunger are closely tied as most of the world’s poor are small-scale producers and agricultural workers, most of them women, Qu said. Moreover, their wellbeing is closely linked to natural resources and their livelihoods are particularly exposed to environmental extremes and climate stressors.
The Director-General urged the UN actors present to work together to produce value-added insights and guidance that no single agency, expert or country can muster on their own. FAO is particularly willing to cooperate, he added, noting that agriculture ministers around the world are accustomed to working with others.
He also called for innovation, both in establishing a multilateral platform to pursue social development, to recast aid and donations as investments, and to craft new cutting-edge social sciences. “That way we can help countries change on the ground,” he said.
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