This week, between 22 and 25 July, the World Food Programme (WFP), represented by a delegation led by Executive Director Cindy McCain, took part in meetings within the G20 Development Working Group, under the Brazilian Presidency, in Rio de Janeiro. In the midst of the event, the WFP, together with four other UN agencies (FAO, IFAD, WHO and UNICEF) launched the ‘State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’ Report (SOFI).
During the event, the fight against inequality, hunger and extreme poverty was at the centre of discussions with the approval of the Task Force for the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty. The WFP congratulated the Brazilian G20 presidency for this effort. ‘This crucial initiative highlights global poverty, hunger and malnutrition, and the intrinsic connections between them. It is a clear sign of Brazil’s leadership in mobilising efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. In a world that produces enough food to feed everyone on the planet, hunger should be a thing of the past,’ said Cindy McCain at the initiative’s launch meeting.
In his speech at the launch event for the Task Force, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva emphasised the role of international organisations in this struggle. ‘The Alliance represents a strategy for achieving citizenship. The best way to implement it is to promote the articulation of all the relevant actors. The role of the United Nations and particularly the FAO, IFAD and the World Food Programme will be decisive,’ said the president.
The Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty will coordinate international actions and partnerships to implement effective programmes to combat hunger and poverty in the world. The initiative unites the two traditional tracks of Sherpas and Finance in the same direction.
The WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger in Brazil was also present at the events. For the Centre’s Director, Daniel Balaban, without the collaboration of governments and countries to reduce inequalities, it won’t be possible to tackle hunger. ‘We had several ministers here, several international organisations discussing joint actions to make the world a fairer, more equitable place. I’m sure that with the union of countries, not just the G20, but with the union of all the international organisations of the United Nations, we’ll still be able to save the planet,’ he said.
Bilateral events
As well as attending the main G20 meetings this week, WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain also attended bilateral meetings and events, such as the panel ‘Public Policies to Fight Hunger and Poverty: Empowering Women and Girls for Sustainable Development’, hosted by Brazilian First Lady Janja Lula da Silva.
The First Lady mentioned that women and girls are the most impacted by poverty and highlighted the success of the Bolsa Família programme, noting that the main beneficiaries are female heads of household, who demonstrate a great commitment to supporting their children. She also emphasised that Brazil guarantees the universal right to school meals, a public policy considered essential by the WFP in the fight against hunger. For more than 13 years, the WFP Centre of Excellence has been dedicated to promoting the exchange of knowledge between Brazil and other countries in the global South on school feeding, based on the Brazilian experience.
During the panel, Cindy McCain stressed that Brazil does a formidable job of feeding more than 40 million children every day, contributing to reducing hunger, especially among school-age girls, as well as highlighting the work of the WFP Centre of Excellence in Brazil. ‘Our goal at the WFP Centre of Excellence in Brazil is to ensure that we can not only fight hunger, but also find different ways to feed, distribute and deal with the political issues related to that,’ said McCain.
On Thursday 25 July, the Director took part in a chat at the conference ‘Shaping the Global Economy: From Food Security to Digital Transformation’, which aimed to develop a plan for the G20 to address the challenges faced by its member states, from global economic governance and digital transformation to food security and hunger.