Pescara, Italy – QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), called today for an increased focus on Africa amid rising hunger there. Addressing the Meeting of Development Ministers from G7 countries, Qu underlined FAO’s commitment to a key initiative put forward under Italy’s G7 presidency to boost food security on the continent and beyond.
The FAO Director-General stressed the fact that one in 11 people globally, or 733 million people, were facing hunger in 2023, with the numbers rising in Africa. “For this reason, we need to increase our focus on this continent and work closely with the African Union and the African leaders to increase and better target our investment where it is needed the most, and where we can have impact at scale,” Qu said.
For this reason, the Director-General highlighted that the G7 coffee initiative proposed by the Italian Presidency was a good example of a sector with one of the most widely traded products, with up to 25 million farming households accounting for 80 percent of world output in many countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The Director-General reiterated FAO’s commitment to the G7 Apulia Food Systems Initiative, focused on low-income countries and supporting projects in Africa, which was put forward under the Italian Presidency of the grouping in June. He described it as an important tool focused on addressing the structural barriers to food security and nutrition, and to building efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems.
The initiative also aligns with FAO’s focus on addressing the inter-linkage between climate change and agrifood systems, Qu said.
The FAO Director-General said the policies, investments and legislation needed to transform agrifood systems and achieve food security were known, as well as the innovative, inclusive and equitable solutions to financing them. He noted, however, that the funding gap for such solutions may well reach several trillion US Dollars, calling for a scaling-up of financing in countries where hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition are most alarming.
Anticipating risks
In addition to financing, Qu stressed that, in order to transform global agrifood systems, it was vitally important to anticipate risks, shocks and crises, and prepare to address them.
To this end, FAO has proposed to the G7 a financing facility for shock-driven food crisis, working closely on the design together with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The facility is a global effort aimed at providing anticipatory action and rapid-response financing in anticipation of high levels of acute food insecurity. It is designed with the explicit goal of preventing escalation, to save lives and donor resources. At its core is the use of advances in science and the application of hazards and exposure of risks, enabling efficient and effective parametric insurance for 12 distinct hazards. It also leverages donor, private sector and investment funds to cover more hazards and geographies using insurance instruments and methodologies for catastrophes.
Qu said there was clear evidence of the benefit-to-cost ratio of anticipatory action, ranging from 3:1 to 10:1 depending on context and types of intervention. Even a small amount of cash delivered just one day beforehand can drive change and improvements in welfare, the Director-General said.
Instead of relying on public funding, he added that innovative and blended financing mechanisms were needed to attract private financing through re-insurance companies, along with optimizing the use of donor funds for efficiency and to ensure sustainability.
