Stressing More than Enough Food to Go Around, Secretary-General Says Committee’s Work Crucial in Transforming Access to Healthy, Nutritious Diet Worldwide

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message to the fifty-first session of the Committee on World Food Security, in Rome today:

Your session arrives at a moment of crisis for global food security.  Last year, 735 million people went hungry.  More than 3 billion cannot afford a healthy diet.  And we are going backwards on our goal of zero hunger by 2030.

Hunger and malnutrition are a human rights violation on an epic scale.  When nutritious food is out of reach because of cost or geography… when bodies are eaten away by hunger… when parents watch helplessly as their children suffer and even die from a lack of food… this is a human tragedy — a moral catastrophe — and a global outrage.

There is more than enough food to go around.  And more than enough resources to ensure that every person on the planet has enough to eat.  Governments have a responsibility to ensure that every person has access to nutritious food.

But many Governments lack the resources to do so, and so, effective international solidarity is also essential to transform food systems for all people:  through massive investment; through innovation, science and technology; through building sustainable food systems in harmony with nature and addressing the climate crisis; and by heeding the calls emerging from last year’s UN Food Systems Summit and this year’s SDG Summit to transform food systems so all people can access a healthy, nutritious diet.

Your Committee’s work is critical to this process.  From reimagining agrifood systems, to boosting the collection and use of data, to ensuring that the needs of women and girls are at the heart of all that we do.  Let’s give the fundamental human right to food the investment and urgent action it deserves.