UN, African officials call for tackling food insecurity

United Nations and African officials on Sunday called for urgent action to tackle food insecurity and hunger in Africa. Noting there is a very real possibility that the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 to achieve zero hunger will not be achieved by 2030, Qu Dongyu, director-general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said, "We only have 10 years to run." "Africa is our future . . . with the population and the natural resources, you have much more potentials compared to Asia," said the UN official at the World Youth Forum opened Saturday in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El Sheikh. Meanwhile, Qu said that the increase of hunger in Africa and the Near East is a significant setback and a "serious challenge." "The food situation in Africa and the Near East is worse today than it was at the beginning of the decade," said the FAO chief. Out of the 2 billion people suffering from food insecurity globally, about 676 million are from Africa, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019 report released in July by UN agencies. For his part, David Peasley, executive director of the United Nations Food Program, provided an alarming figure that a child dies every five seconds on this planet from hunger. He pointed out that the main reason behind food insecurity and hunger is man-made conflicts, followed by climate extremes such as droughts, flooding, hurricanes, storms and more. Rosemary Mbabazi, Rwandan minister of youth, said that her country's current "81 percent of food security is not enough . . . we need to be fully food secured." Mbabazi said Rwanda's president "supports young people all the time and empowers them." "We have a program that we run with the Ministry of Agriculture to attract young people back on land," she said, adding "if you want to resolve this issue of food security, let's have the young people." - NAMPA / XINHUA