NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 9 – As chair of the UN Group of Friends on Food Security and Nutrition, Italy convened a meeting today attended by more than 70 countries.
The event, which opened with a message from UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, featured speeches from the three UN agri-food agencies (FAO, WFP and IFAD, which are based in Rome), the Committee on Food Security (CFS) and the UN Coordinating Center for the Food Systems Summit. Among the panelist, Maximo Torero, Chief Economist at FAO: he stressed that “the food security situation we face is exacerbated, not only because of the war in Ukraine. There are other additional drivers: Covid-19, conflicts, economic slowdowns and downturns and climate variability”. 
The purpose of the meeting, at which Poland joined the Group of Friends as its newest member, was to take stock, a week before the opening of the UN General Assembly’s high-level week, of the current global food emergency worsened by the effects of the Ukrainian war, with devastating consequences for supply chains and with food prices driven by unprecedented inflation. Of particular concern are fragile areas such as the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, where millions are now reduced to hunger. These issues will be among the most urgent priorities on the agenda of world leaders meeting in New York starting September 19.
“Thanks to multilateral diplomacy and the good offices of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, we have achieved the crucial Istanbul agreement on wheat, and new initiatives such as the G7 Global Alliance, EU solidarity corridors, and the ‘Call to Action for Global Food Security,'” commented Ambassador Maurizio Massari, Permanent Representative of Italy to the UN.
The major challenges to be addressed are to maintain open food supply chains and promote resilience in value chains and food systems, to stimulate investments for sustainable transition by putting rural people at the center, and to accelerate on the implementation of the lines of action of the UN Food Systems Summit and Pre-Summit held in Rome in 2021. (@OnuItalia)
