The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published its report of food security in countries with conflict situations classifying eight countries – five of them in Africa – suffering from emergency food shortages, affecting over 50 million people. The successful policies employed in Brazil in the past few years can serve as a model for strengthening other countries facing that reality.
The Brazilian Zero Hunger program has been exported to other nations around the world, especially in Africa, Latin America, and Asia and it has already achieved enthusiastic results. The success of José Graziano Silva, who is the director-general of FAO, was honored at the 32nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union, that took place on February 10th-11th in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Graziano emphasized in his speech that although there have been positive results, it is necessary to continue working hard to eradicate hunger on the continent. “This recognition is a collective encouragement to keep the Zero Hunger vision at the top of African minds and hearts”, he stated.
The director furthermore pointed out that there is no way to solve the current situation of hunger for future generations in Africa if there are no incentives for young people to stay, work, and live in rural regions.
According to the report, the following African nations are in this situation: the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Somalia, and Chad, and the list goes on beyond to Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan. The majority of these countries have been facing conflicts for many years.
For this purpose, the Centre of Excellence against Hunger was created in 2011 by the World Food Program partnering with the Brazilian government, playing an active role. The purpose of the Centre is to share the national (Brazilian) experience on fighting hunger in other developing nations, playing this role in 30 of these countries.
“The Brazilian fighting hunger policies are recognized throughout the world based on their excellence and how they can help in strengthening policies in various other countries and, thus, decrease the impact of conflicts and other emergency situations, like natural disasters”, explains Daniel Balaban, director of the Centre that, in 2018 benefited thousands of small farmers and 4 million children by fostering school lunch programs.
ATLANTICO online recently published an article on the main details from the latest FAO report that can be accessed by this link: The new hunger map, according to FAO
Global Efforts
The theme of Food Security was broadly discussed at the first International Conference on Food Security that took place this week in Addis Ababa. Foods contaminated by bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins, or chemical products were among the subjects discussed at the event. That problematic is responsible for making over 600 million people sick and causing 420 thousand deaths annually.
The impact of food insecurity costs low and middle-income economies around US$ 95 billion dollars in lost productivity each year. “Food must be a source of nutrition and pleasure and not a cause for disease or death”, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, CEO of the World Health Organization. “Guaranteeing access to people to safe foods demands sustained investments in regulations, laboratories, surveillance, and stricter monitoring. In our globalized world, food security is a problem shared by everyone”, he added.
Delegations from 130 participating countries in a conference organized by the African Union (AU), The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). A second event on this theme will be held on April 23rd-24th in Geneva. The International Forum on Food Safety and Trade will be organized by FAO, WHO, and the World Trade Organization to discuss joint initiatives between food safety and trade.
Food Security as a primordial factor for assuring sustainable development will also be a key theme at the 2019 Brazil Africa Forum, an event promoted by the Brazil Africa Institute taking place in November and it will reunite diverse leaders concerning that subject. Get further information on this event by accessing the following site www.forumbrazilafrica.com