Committee on World Food Security, 52nd Plenary Session

Excellencies,

Colleagues,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It’s a privilege to be here at CFS 52, to represent the UN Secretary General and IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Last month in his address to the Summit of the Future, the Secretary General warned, “our world is heading off the rails – and we need tough decisions to get back on track.”

One of the gravest signs of this crisis is our failure to deliver healthy, affordable diets for all.

But we are gathered here today because we have a choice.

That choice lies in those tough decisions the Secretary-General warned must be made, to end the constant cycle of hunger, poverty, conflict, climate change, and inequality.

This year’s SOFI report shows that while we are very far from where we want to be in our efforts to achieve SDG2, we ARE making some progress.

That progress, for example in Latin America and in shrinking the gender gap in food insecurity, is the result of smart and tailored investments – and shows the power of making the right choices.

The Pact for the Future, adopted by Member States at the Summit of the Future, reinforces the need for greater coordinated support to countries and communities affected by food insecurity.

It promotes equitable access to safe, affordable, sufficient, and nutritious food.

And in its ambition, it makes clear that if we didn’t already have the CFS, we would have to invent it, as a participatory, global and unified forum to co-create the best path to a world without hunger.

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One of the world’s greatest injustices is that the rural people who suffer the highest levels of hunger and malnutrition, often live in areas with the potential to produce enough food.

That means they are also the people that will benefit the most from our concerted efforts and investments.

Resilient, inclusive and prosperous rural economies are not only necessary – they will themselves be accelerators for further development.

IFAD aims to invest more than US$10 billion in the exactly these rural areas in the next three years.

In alignment with both the Pact for the Future and the CFS itself, our investments will support rural people’s efforts to improve their agricultural productivity, feed themselves and their communities, and strengthen their resilience to shocks, including to climate change.

As we deliver on this ambitious programme, the CFS remains an invaluable platform for IFAD.

Operationally, we’ve integrated CFS initiatives at the country level. For example, our GeoTech4Tenure program with FAO, uses cutting-edge geospatial technology to help small-scale farmers secure land rights.

And the policy work of the CFS has been groundbreaking. The Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Adequate Food, endorsed 20 years ago, laid the foundation for sustainable, inclusive food systems. Others, including guidelines for responsible agricultural investment, have been instrumental in our work driving fair and equitable practices.

I am proud that under my Presidency, IFAD has significantly increased its contributions to help move this work forward.

 

Friends,

I know I speak for everybody, including the Secretary-General, when I congratulate the CFS on the milestone of its fiftieth year.

The CFS is one of our major platforms available to support our shared mission—building consensus, forging stronger alliances, and driving a unified path toward global food security and nutrition.

IFAD's commitment – and my personal commitment – is to work alongside CFS to make hunger a thing of the past and to achieve food security for all women and men in all nations.

 

Thank you for your attention.