United Against Hunger: Realigning Global Action for Food Crises in Times of Disruption

Good afternoon, Excellencies, distinguished guests, Your Majesty, Ministers, Ambassadors. Good afternoon and welcome. Thank you for joining us at this high-level event, Realigning Global Action for Food Crisis in Times of Disruption, convened during UNGA High-Level Week. My name is Aldo da Costa. a sector general of the Group of Seven plus an intergovernmental organization of countries, most of which bear the brunt of this disruption. Our discussion today is guided by a simple but urgent proposition that acute food crisis have become an increasingly structural phenomenon caused by convergence of conflict, climate and economic crisis. are deepening crises and expose the limits of current response systems. It's also increasingly clear that preventing food crisis is no longer only a humanitarian imperative. It is a national, regional and global security priority. At a time of conflict, climate shocks, economic volatility, disrupted supply chains, and constrained financing, the question before us is how to realign global action so that we act earlier, more coherently, and with greater collective impact to prevent and respond to future food crises. It's an opportunity to ask with urgency and honesty what more must now be done by member states and the international community to address the persistence and severity of acute food insecurity being seen worldwide. Clear reform priorities for international system, a stronger evidence agenda, and renewed support for coordinated collective action. Today's event will feature opening remarks from Ms. Reem Al-Awali Radovan, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany, and Her Majesty, the Queen of the Belgians. Some scene-setting remarks from WTO, IFAD, and WFP. I'll moderate the roundtable discussion, and closing remarks from Mr. Neil Richman, Minister of State for Development of Ireland. We'd also like to acknowledge the exceptional level of interest in participating in this event. Given the number of requests for intervention and the limited time available, we will do our best to accommodate as many speakers as possible, while also ensuring that the discussion reflects as diverse a range of voices and perspectives as possible. This will be challenging given the strong interest the event has generated, and we apologize in advance. if time constraints prevent us from giving the floor to everyone who has requested to intervene. With that, it is my honor to invite Ms. Reem Al-Abadieh Al-Dowan, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany, for her opening remarks. Excellency Minister, you have the floor. Thank you.

Thank you, Your Majesty, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. Germany is very proud to co-host this event as a new member of the Global Network against Food Crises. Severe food insecurity is no longer a temporary problem, and it is now no longer a regional problem. In an increasingly interconnected world, food insecurity has become a deeply rooted structural global phenomenon. The latest global report on food crisis shows a devastating picture with 266 million people facing severe food insecurity in 2025. This is nearly twice as many as 10 years ago, and the situation is not getting any better. Persistent armed conflicts, recurring climate shocks, ongoing disruption to critical trade routes like the Strait of Hormuz, and the looming effects of El Nino are threatening global food system. These challenges need an answer now, and the answer needs to be given by the global community. This joint answer must be about ensuring resilient trade systems. Global food security depends on them. Trade routes are increasingly being affected by geopolitical conflicts, and this weaponization of trade puts open and rules-based trade at risk. And we are seeing this, for example, in Ukraine, which has harvested an unexpectedly strong corp, but is unable to export sufficient quantities of wheat and oil seeds due to Russian attacks on Ukrainian deep sea ports and storage facilities. This is contributing to rising prices for stable foods in Africa. Germany calls on all actors to uphold the freedom of navigation and to protect open and rules-based trade, not only in order to ensure food security, but also the common basis for global In times of increasing fragmentation and shrinking humanitarian aid, international cooperation is now more important than ever, and the global network brings countries and partners together to tackle food insecurity. I want to highlight, without going into a deep dive, just shortly, I want to highlight three key levers for the global network. First, improving water security. Second, putting the knowledge, perspectives, and priorities of of affected countries at the heart of global efforts, and third, ensuring reliable data collection. This is our focus in the German government. To fight food security, we need strong collective action. We need a shared response by as many partners as possible. That is why Germany has joined the Global Network against Food Crises. And I would like to encourage you all to support the Global Network in these difficult times as a central actor for coordinated global action as much as you can. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister, for the remarks. I'll now turn to Her Majesty Queen Mathilde of Belgium for her addition to the opening segment. Your Majesty, the floor is yours.

Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, as SDG advocate, I have met families and communities across the world facing food insecurity. The number of affected children, women, and men continues to rise. Last year, 266 million people faced acute food insecurity. For the first time in history, two famines were confirmed in a single year. These alarming figures are unacceptable. Yet beyond the numbers lies an even more troubling reality. Hunger is not merely a humanitarian challenge. It is a profound test of our collective humanity, our solidarity, and our willingness to uphold our shared responsibilities. Behind every statistic is a person, a family struggling to feed their children, a child whose health, dignity, and future are at risk. The persistence of hunger in a world with the resources and knowledge to prevent it should concern us all. Today's food crisis are not isolated humanitarian emergencies. They are symptoms of deeper fractures in a global order. They reflect the consequences of conflict, climate change, inequality, economic instability, and too often, the inability of the international community to rally around effective collective action that protects the dignity, agency, and rights of affected communities. Conflict remains the primary driver of acute hunger. Violence forces families from their homes and land, disrupts agricultural production, destroys livelihoods, and limits humanitarian access. Where conflict persists, hunger often follows. At the same time, armed conflicts generate shocks that reverberate far beyond the conflict zones. Rising food prices, disrupted supply chains, and economic instability disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations, especially women, children, rural communities, and countries already facing severe pressures. Peace, therefore, remains one of the strongest safeguards against hunger. Investing in peace is not only a security imperative, It is also an investment in food security, human dignity, and global stability. Climate change is placing additional and growing pressure on food systems. Droughts, floods, and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe, undermining production, livelihoods, and resilience. Faced with these interconnected challenges, we must move from reaction to prevention and adaptation. We cannot wait until famine is imminent before acting. Early warning must lead to early action, and prevention should be more than avoiding catastrophe and reducing vulnerability. It should also be about strengthening resilience, building sustainable local food systems, and enabling communities to shape their own future. In this effort, local communities are at the heart of the solution. They are not merely recipients of assistance. They are the principal actors in developing solutions and strengthening resilience. Their knowledge and experience are indispensable to lasting and effective progress. Your Excellencies, development cooperation and humanitarian aid are central to addressing food insecurity. But humanitarian and development organizations must also work hand in hand with economic actors and institutions to address both immediate needs and the structural drivers of hunger. We have to confront the underlying causes of food insecurity, including conflict, inequality, climate-related vulnerabilities, and economic fragility. And we have to renew our commitment to multilateral cooperation and collective action. Hunger cannot be addressed through fragmented responses. It demands a shared sense of responsibility and common purpose. Our responsibility is therefore clear. We must remain committed to the vision embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 2, We must integrate food security across broader policy frameworks and ensure that our actions match the scale of the challenge. Food security is a human right and a cornerstone of peace and stability. The question is not whether we have the means to end hunger. The question is whether we have the collective determination to do so and the willingness to uphold our responsibilities. Thank you.

Thank you, Your Majesty, for the scene setting. Now, it's my honor to introduce our distinguished colleagues from WTO, IFAD, and WFP for scene setting remarks. So first of all, may I introduce Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, DG of WTO, World Trade Organization, and Dr. Alvaro Lario, President of International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, and Mr. Karl Skau, Acting Executive Director of World Food Program, WFP. I'll turn first to Dr. Okonjo-Iweala for her opening remarks. Dr. Okonjo, will enlighten us on how intensifying geopolitical shocks and disruptions to critical trade routes are impacting on the free movement of key agricultural inputs and on how strategic partnerships can reinforce the resilience of input-dependent countries in times of acute economic fragility. The floor is yours, Madam. Three minutes, please.

Well, thank you very much for this. And I want to thank Your Excellency, Minister Rim, and Your Majesty, all the colleagues here. And I thank the German government in particular for their leadership, the continued leadership on the food security agenda. I also want to commend the important work of my colleagues in the UN system. and we know we are here today because we are painfully behind on the pursuit of the SDGs and zero hunger by 2030. Trade and trade policy are essential parts of the food security equation. Food security remains a top priority on the WTO agenda. One in every four calories consumed worldwide crosses an international border. Open and predictable trade in agricultural products supports affordability, nutritional diversity, and resilience to shocks. Trade has also contributed to food security by fostering growth and raising incomes, enabling more people to afford healthier diets. Let me share some good news, bad news, and then some ideas on the way forward. On the positive side, the agricultural market information system, AMIS, which I call a very global public good. It's a great multilaterally developed database, tells us that global food supplies are broadly adequate and stocks are comfortable. The number of hungry people fell again last year. But war and recent geopolitics gives us great cause for concern. As food, energy, and fertilizer prices rise, markets are disrupted, with the effects compounded by climate change. 645 million hungry people is far too many, and as the new food crisis report shows, the number facing catastrophic conditions is increasing, mainly due to conflict. Looking ahead, I suggest three areas for action. First, support for the multilateral trading system to maintain open and free trade to help food get to where it needs to get to feed the hungry. Second, development of trade rules that would further support impacted countries in cases of emergency or natural disasters. Pakistan went from a net food exporter to a net food importer due to floods and climate change effects in 2022. Third, plan forward on how to manage choke points that might arise from conflicts like we've seen, or from climate change. This means developing alternative routes and more diversified supply networks so that global food supplies cannot be disrupted by any single bottleneck. Let us not be reactive in the way we act. Let's think now because we know now what about choke points, even choke assets can do. Let's plan forward now. And in the long term, we need to reform agricultural trade policy so that markets work better for producers and consumers alike. Agricultural negotiations at the WTO have been stuck for far too long, unacceptably so, and we need to make a breakthrough. So I would urge you all to support us and support your respective governments and organizations, we need to devote political capital to ensuring that the reforms that could unlock even further agricultural progress delivers for food security and delivers for the poor who need it. Thank you.

Thank you, DG of WTO, Dr. Conjo.

Did I keep the time?

Yes, you broke the record. Thank you. Thank you. I'm delighted now to turn to our second scene setter, Dr. Lario of the IFAD, who is invited to remark on how shocks to global food systems, whether trade related or climate related, can tip vulnerable communities into acute food insecurity, and how sustained financing for rural development, climate adaptation, inclusive value chains, rural financing services, and community-led resilience can strengthen local production, protect livelihoods, and mitigate the impacts. Please, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much. Yes, Your Majesty, Honorable Minister Rim, colleagues, Honorable Ministers, friends, let me start thanking the government of Germany for the leadership on food security and bringing us together for this conversation. There were already a number of figures quoted of the 2026 global report on food crises, but I think one that is very important is that actually the trend is going very wrongly. Acute hunger has roughly doubled over the past decades, and that's obviously a collective failure. The same countries and often the same communities are being hit again and again by conflict, climate shocks, and economic disruption. And that also tell us that responding to the emergency is essential, but it's not enough. We have to invest before the next shock in stronger rural economies, local food production, and also the resilience of the communities who produce that food. Because small-scale farmers are at the front line. Investing in water infrastructure, climate-resilient agriculture, rural finance, market access can prevent shocks from turning into emergencies, because the shocks will continue, but the goal is to not to turn them into emergencies. We have been working with Germany, especially on that connection between immediate response and long-term resilience, where through the crisis response initiative, but also other investments to ensuring that small-scale farmers can earn income from protecting ecosystems, but also managing land sustainably. And I wanna talk also as a development leader about the importance of fragmentation. I think for us, it's extremely important to work with others because many governments, especially least developed countries, do not have the capacity to have 25 different organizations coming with them. That's why, especially with our sister agencies and the RBAs, the Rome-based agencies, we have been working together on something called the RBA Blueprint, where we're working in fragile settings, one of fragile affected countries, one of them is Somalia, where we're coming together with our best, I would say, competitive advantage, whether it's from Well, food program connecting the emergency resilience, the logistical capability, world class. You have FAO normative standard traceability, making sure that the farmers are ready and for IFA to connect them to markets and making sure that they can earn a living. And then obviously next steps with how can we create employment on local agribusinesses. That comes also our partnership with the World Bank on AgriConnect, for example, where we have committed to increase the income of 70 million small scale scale farmers by 2030. And I think these partnerships are with the EU and connecting global value chains to local value chains are fundamental. We cannot just go one by one, we need to come together. Because resilience depends on partnership, on trust, and also state investment to make sure that those rural communities who stand at the front line of food crises can also make sure that the shock does not turn into an emergency. And that's the challenge before us today and the opportunity for this discussion. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Dr. Lariu. For a final scene setter, I'll turn now to Mr. Carl Skow, Acting Executive Director of the World Food Program, who will put into context for us the impact of emerging megatrends on acute hunger and on the importance of addressing hunger as a matter of security. Mr. Skow, the floor is yours, please.

Thank you, Chair, Your Highness, Excellencies, colleagues and friends. Really a huge thanks to the government of Germany for co-hosting this important event with us. And thank you also all participants for your presence here today. It's a testament, I think, to the importance of this agenda, and it's great to see so many partners and friends around the room. It's important because we are now seeing record levels of global hunger. Last year, we had two famines confirmed. This year, we have four contexts where famine is at risk. So we are really at a low point when it comes to global hunger. It's driven by three main drivers, the first one and the most significant one being conflict. the conflicts that are ongoing in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, and elsewhere. This is really the main driver of hunger today, the way that it displaces people, it disrupts markets, it brings down the livelihoods of people to survive. And this is also a vicious cycle of conflict and hunger, where hunger also drives conflict. I met with many mothers who are concerned about their sons joining the armed struggle because they have no other hope or no other prospect to turn to. And so, as we've often said, that when families face hunger, they have three choices, to starve, to migrate, or to rebel. And this is what we see in this vicious cycle of hunger and conflict in too many of the contexts around the world. The second driver is this new phenomena, the disruptions to maritime trade. We are now seeing three choke points around the world. the Black Sea and the escalation in the Black Sea, the Strait of Hormuz, and now with the escalation in Yemen, also risk to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. And this is pushing up not only energy prices, which everyone, including in this country, knows when they go to the gas pump, but also food prices. The correlation between energy price and food is very close, especially in the least developed countries. And the most vulnerable in those countries are already spending all their money on food. And so when food prices go up by 20, 30%, well, they eat 20-30% less and that means that tens of millions of people are at risk of being pushed into acute hunger over the next month. The third driver is is extreme weather events. I mean, we saw what happened just a few weeks ago in Nepal, and we are really frightened about what this super El Nino that is coming at us will bring. Drought in some places of the world and heavy rains in other parts of the world that will again be disruptive to agriculture and food production. And we are here again estimating that if we are not stepping in with anticipatory action, prevention, there will be again millions of people who are being pushed into hunger. These three drivers are now also being compounded by the lack of resources to respond, but also about the challenge to the world, the rules-based order, the international humanitarian law, which poses challenges to our workers on the front line, but also is limiting our access to reach those who are most vulnerable. So this, colleagues, is really indeed a perfect storm. But we're here today because we are also determined to fight back. We believe that food crisis is not inevitable. Hunger is really a political failure. But that also means that with political will, a world without hunger is possible. And I think the global network against food crisis is a great example of multilateralist effort when the strength and the potential when we are aligned behind collective actions when there is political will. So I want to join Minister Radovan in really expressing strong support for the global network, where WFP is a founding member, along with the European Union and FAO. We may, colleagues, be in a perfect storm, but there is no better crew than this one in this room for the journey ahead. I thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kalskau, for the short statement. Excellencies, distinguished guests, with the scene set, we'll now move to the roundtable segment of today's discussion. I'm pleased to welcome our distinguished panel. There are nine of them, and I'll introduce them individually when they are due to make their intervention. Excellencies, distinguished guests, this event seeks to facilitate real, frank discussion. As such, I'll come to each speaker in turn and will seek to ensure that each intervention builds on the last so that the conversation builds towards practical shared conclusion rather than a set of parallel statements. Participants are respectfully requested to make intervention for approximately two minutes. Without further ado, let's begin. Our starting point will be to hear firsthand from those who can provide context as to the issue at hand. sharing insights as to the drivers of acute hunger and what this actually means on the ground. With that, I'm pleased to pass the floor to His Excellency, Mahmoud Abdurrahman Sheikh Farah, Minister of Planning, Investment, and Economic Development of Somalia. Somalia is one of the G7+ members. Excellency, like much of Eastern Africa, Somalia is impacted by disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz and is likely to be impacted also by the upcoming El Nino cycle. What can you tell us about how this is impacting food security in the country? And more importantly, what lessons would Somalia share with the international community when thinking of system-wide transformations required to ensure more efficient, coherent, and accountable support in food crisis in line with national-led priorities? The floor is yours, Excellency, please. Two minutes, please.

Thank you very much. I just want to thank the organizers, the German government, the Global Network Against the Food Crisis, WFP and FAO. And I want to also thank other friends, excellencies, distinguished colleagues. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to join this timely an important discussion on food security. So, number one, I just want to briefly say that the early speakers has already concisely expressed what the causes of this food security, whether it is conflict or shocks and And Somalia is one of the countries that are badly hit by this climate shocks. And also lately, the global shocks, especially the trade routes disrupted, has also affected us as a country who is dependent on more on imports. All our food, fuel, everything is being imported from either Middle East countries, China, and so on and so forth. And it has been affected heavily. And that has contributed to the prices of all food, fuel, transport, energy, and it has created a very heavy on the population. And the other point is the El Nino. I just want to say two points on the El Nino. One, 1997, 1998, I mean, this kind of super El Ninos and the one we are now expecting, this one. The one on 1997, it was one of the worst El Ninos in our country's history, and it has killed 2,000 people, and it has destroyed a large portion of the economic livestock and the livelihood of the people. And it has impacted that huge cost for economic loss human loss and as well as the communities displaced a lot of almost 2.5 million people. And that time our central government was not there. Only the organized communities used it to stand with the UN agency support and it has impacted hugely to the lives of many Somali people. That time there was not a central government. Now the upcoming Alino that has been onset on maybe October first or second week. And there was another El Nino, it was 2023. And that has also impacted 2.5 million people. But the government has a plan, coordinated plan, led all the preventive activities. And we have managed well with the support of our partners to mitigate and prepare before things happen. So the government has established a plan called a preparedness plan for food security and nutrition, which is a plan that is bringing together the government, the international partners, the UN, the humanitarian actors as a one plan, one coordination, and we have managed, mitigated very well. 188 people has it has killed that one. Now it was more controlled, well managed because of the government involvement was very strong. The leadership was well coordinated. So, and now the other one we are expecting now, the government is way ahead, proactive because we have a plan from data prospective, program prospective, and also in coordination and court prospective. So What I'm proposing is we cannot be reactive. We have to be very proactive. We have to support the government systems to intervene, to lead how we are mitigating the response. So that are the two points I just want to emphasize. And the last point I just want to say is, What we need is we need to act earlier, we need to finance earlier, and also we have to invest in resilience. That is what I'm proposing. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Excellency Minister. Now, for Sierra Leone, at the G7+ we deal with the impacts of conflict on people on a daily basis. As confirmed by the latest Global Report on Food Crisis, conflict drives hunger. In fact, conflict and insecurity is the primary driver of acute hunger in 19 countries or territories where 147 million people face high levels of acute food insecurity. Increasingly, however, the argument is being made that hunger itself can drive further insecurity and conflict. To further explore this thought, I'd like to turn to Her Excellency, Ms. Keni Bahley, Minister of Planning and Economic Development of Sierra Leone. Your Excellency, the Feed Salone initiative is pioneering and represents your government's recognition of food security as fundamental to the nation's security. What drove the government of Sierra Leone to that position, and what lessons can you share with us here today? The floor is yours, ma'am, please.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Honorable Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, Federal Republic of Germany. I stand on all other laid down protocols due to the exigencies of time and two minutes. So, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I'm grateful for this opportunity to share a perspective from Sierra Leone at this event, a member of G7+. I I would first of all like to point out that in times of global disruption, food is not merely a commodity, it's a question of sovereignty. And Sierra Leone has known the cost of dependency. For too long, our nations imported what we could grow. We watched global supply chains, geopolitical tensions and economic shocks dictate whether our markets had rice, our staple food, whether our children had adequate nutrition or whether our farmers actually had a future. The figures from our own monitoring told a sobering story. Severe food insecurity affected millions and a persistent vulnerability that no emergency assistance could fully address. And this is why in 2023, our president, Dr. Julius Madabele, launched the Feed Salone. That's in the local parlance, but you can all understand what Feed Salone is. It was the flagship program of his Big Five Game Changers. It was launched not as a development program alone, but as a national resilience strategy. It is anchored in the fundamental conviction that a nation cannot feed itself, a nation that cannot feed itself cannot fully govern itself. So, Feed Salone was conceptualized as a whole of government approach, a whole of society initiative to transform our agricultural sector from subsistence to commercial productivity, from import dependence to self-sufficiency. And there were three strategic pillars. accelerating agricultural productivity and commercialization, strengthening fisheries and the blue economy, and ensuring access to safe food and nutrition. And through this program, which has been monitored by us, there are significant developments in terms of cutting severe food insecurity by half, increased food self-sufficiency, a reduction in the importation of certain commodities, especially onions which was at crisis level in 2023. Not only that, we are producing and exporting oil which we had never done before. And we are building infrastructure. Roads and bridges to get to communities that in the past we couldn't access. Uh due to the bad roads and flooding. So we are investing in our farmers as well. We have 10 million credit facilities in the Bank of Sierra Leone. What lessons have we learned? First, food security must be led from the highest level of government. FeSaLoN is not a ministry program. It's a presidential flagship initiative, as I said at the beginning, driven by a presidential council. It meets regularly and guides this program, and we report back to the president. Second, we must treat farmers as our partners, not as beneficiaries. Our success depends on making agriculture bankable and profitable and respectable. Thirdly, we need to encourage the private sector to and provide the enabling environment for them to expand into and expand within the agricultural sector. And fourth and finally, and perhaps the most fundamental, Food security is not just about production, it's about dignity, stability, and democracy. Partnerships, I will just briefly mention that, that we need partnership and it multiplies the impact of what we're doing. And we have mobilized over $1 billion in financing, working with the World Bank, the World Food Program, and FAO, and bilateral partners like Germany. So the Food System Resilience Program, supported by the World Bank and implemented by our National Research Institute, is a model of what results-driven partnership looks like and is what we should emulate. I thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister. In the interest of time, I'll go straight to the next speaker intervention, remarks from K.S. Relief. His Excellency Mr. Abdullah Al-Rabea of KS Relif. Please, the floor is yours. Two minutes, please.

Thank you. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start with by thanking the organizers for convening this very important session. on realigning global action to address food crisis in times of disruption. Conflict is identified as the main driver of acute food insecurity in many countries, and preventing food insecurity must be at the top of our global priority, with a focus on systematic prevention, long-term resilience, not simply on short-term crisis management. We must implement comprehensive measures to ensure that the aid is delivered safely, efficiently, and for the intended purposes. And so we have to develop innovative delivery methods to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and strengthen partnership to improve the scope and speed of our humanitarian response. We must also improve the supply chain for a faster and more effective delivery assistance. We must also recognize the importance of engaging directly with the affected communities to understand their perspective on food insecurity and also culture needs or agriculture needs. Local knowledge and experience are essential to ensuring that our interventions are responsive sustainable, and also we must take both larger scale priorities and local context into consideration when designing our interventions for everyone, including those who are in the fisheries, livestock, and beekeeping sectors. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia continues to help many countries achieve long-term food security, both by addressing immediate food shortages and also by implementing local capacity building programs to increase community food production and improve supply chains. And to date, the Kingdom has contributed more than $3.4 billion for 1,289 projects. Let me give you just before I conclude two examples. for the acute response, the Central Kitchen project in Gaza, and also for the recovery and resilience is the Badra project, which is the seed initiative, which enhances the resilience and recovery capacity of affected rural communities. I have no doubt that together we can successfully combat food insecurity, helping to ensure that all people, no matter where they are, have an equal opportunity to live healthy and dignified. Thank you.

Thank you, Excellency. Now I'd like to turn the floor to Ms. Bektol of FAO, the Deputy Director General of Food and Agriculture Organization. Please, the floor is yours.

Very much, moderator. And before I say a few words about some systemwide changes that could help, I need to take advantage of having this group assembled on a point related to the global network. Karl mentioned its creation in 2016, at its very core, it connects three things that often remain quite separate. Shared evidence on where food crises are worsening and why, decisions about where resources should go, and action to protect and restore food production. This said, I think many of us are increasingly concerned about the support for the evidence on which this work depends. The picture of what we are up against is becoming increasingly less complete. Of the 65 countries and territories selected in the last Global Report on Food Crises, 18 of those had no acute food insecurity data or data that did not meet the report's requirements. This was the report's lowest country coverage in a decade. So we need to protect credible, independent analysis and make sure that the warning it provides leads to action. Very quickly, three system-wide changes that I think some have reflected on and would be useful for the conversation. First, early warning has to change our decisions. When the evidence shows that a crisis is worsening, we need to agree what action is needed, who will take it, and when financing must arrive. From an agricultural perspective, we know that agricultural seasons do not wait for our own funding cycles. If support comes too late to project production or markets, we will spend more time responding to the consequences. Second, we need to organize around country priorities. We've heard that already and common plans. National governments need to be the ones that define the needs and the results they expect. Those of us in agencies should bring our respective strengths, agree who does what, and be clear about where our work connects. And donors need to support this approach with more common resourcing plans rather than separate projects operating on too many different timelines. This is going to require behavioral and institutional change and may make some of us not too terribly comfortable. And last, we need to direct financing to the interventions that evidence supports. Many people facing acute food insecurity depend on agriculture, yet emergency agriculture receives only about 5% of humanitarian financing for food sectors. Food assistance is essential, but protecting people's ability to produce food and earn an income is essential too, if we want to reduce repeated need. Thank you.

Thank you, FAO. In the interest of time, may I ask each intervention to stick to maximum two minutes, please. And now I'd like to turn the floor to UNICEF. Mr. Ted Triban, please.

Thank you very much, Dr. Coss. And thanks to the organizers. Let me focus on how we can keep essential humanitarian food and nutrition supplies moving even when shocks occur. And the short answer is we need to invest to make supply chains more resilient, efficient and rooted in local and regional capacity. Some quick practical examples. First, localization. Investing in expanding local and regional production and procurement, shortening lead times, reducing exposure to global disruption, and strengthening resilience. 25 years ago, there was one supplier of ready-to-use therapeutic food used to treat acute malnutrition globally in France. Today, there's 23 suppliers, and 65% of the RUTF procured globally comes from the countries where it's highly needed. Second, as supplies cross borders, this becomes a choke point. And we've often seen supplies pass through as many as 50 steps before they're cleared coming into countries. That's why UNICEF and the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation have joined forces through an initiative called Accelerated Delivery of Essential Products Together, or ADEPT, to address challenges at the border under the leadership of national governments. And we're seeing results reducing transit times by 60 percent. In Nigeria, for example, the clearance time for supplies has gone from 100 days to 20, with a drop of charges from $12,000 to $1,700 per container. I want to thank the government of Germany for supporting this initiative. And then third, as part of UN80, UNICEF and WFP have successfully negotiated with global shipping lines to temporarily suspend war risk and emergency carrier surcharges on humanitarian cargo, saving an estimated $2 million in the early weeks of the Gulf War. These are the kind of practical examples that we can take to make systems more resilient. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Allow me to turn to Ms. Anne Bertsch, sorry, managing director of operations at the World Bank. So the floor is yours, ma'am, please.

Much and good to be with all of you. And I'll try to be very brief because many very good points have already been raised and I'll just emphasize three points that I think resonate also with Her Royal Highness's emphasis on prevention and resilience building. but also the comments made by FAO on the work we're doing to build broader resilience through our flagship initiative, AgriConnect. My first point is exactly that prevention and preparedness need to be the cornerstone of food security. And that is because we cannot, as many have emphasized, tackle food security once a crisis hits or after it becomes an emergency. And that's why at the World Bank Group, we put a lot of emphasis working on preparedness together with our clients. And we do this through enhancing data, knowledge, financing, coordination, but also the delivery capacity so that when it happens, we are better equipped to respond. And then when a crisis happens, we make sure we have financing very fast through our crisis response toolkit, which we have been revitalizing and expanding and improving over the last few years. My second point is that no single actor can end hunger. It requires really unprecedented coordination among all of us. And that is, of course, governments, humanitarian and development partners. And here, I think Somalia is actually a very good example, and it's good to see you here. In February 2026, Somalia activated its national preparedness plan, which was based on a strong data system. So again, starting with that preparedness of good data. And that made international partners able to move very fast to secure financing. And in the case of the World Bank, we used our IDA crisis response window, which is perfectly suited for this, to provide additional funds for Somalia so it didn't need to tap into its existing resources. And my third point is that we need to scale up solutions for prevention and keep countries on a path to growth and resilience. The point again on resilience. And here again, it's really about strong country systems. which become a reality from data to delivery, and that's the link also between early warning and the early action. And here we work on things like risk monitoring, delivery systems. as well as crisis financing. Malawi is a good example here because we had a lot of work on preparedness in the case of Malawi. So when we helped on the drought response, we had a social protection system of 1.3 million people across 4 drought events. And actually, the payment delivery timing, because of preparedness, was reduced from six months to one month. So again, learning how to deliver faster by being better prepared by working on the operational delivery system. And just finally, AgriConnect is our ambition to connect 300 million farmers. to better agri-connect systems by 2030. And by that, we mean both the infrastructure, roads, access, financing, innovation, digital, the whole idea being to take smallholder farmers from a subsistence farming to surplus farming, which also then leads to greater food security. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bujab, for your intervention. Allow me to turn here to Ms. Inger Ascheing, CEO of Save the Children. And the floor is yours, please. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I want to say a few words about the impact that food crisis are having on children's lives, choices, and coping strategies. At Save the Children, our teams working in nutrition crisis all over the world see every day that extreme hunger can be both life-altering and life-changing, life-ending for children. And seeing a child with severe malnutrition is something that you never forget. Some children arrive at our clinics so weak that they cannot cry, they cannot sit up, or even lift their heads to look at their mothers. But food crises affect more than a child's physical survival. Hunger changes the choices children and their families are forced to make. Children leave school, families sell assets, take on debt, or move in search of food or income. Adolescent girls face greater risk of early marriage, and children become more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. We already heard from the Honourable Minister of Somalia, and we somewhat see a lot of the challenges in Somalia today. And my colleagues in Somalia told me just a few days ago that the warning signs are once again flashing red, as we've heard. More than 500 health and nutrition facilities have closed as funding has fallen. and families are increasingly being forced into impossible choices. One mother recently told our team that she can no longer afford both food and medicine for her children. No parent should ever have to decide which basic need is most important for their child's survival. And that points to a broader lesson. Hunger is not simply a food issue. Children die when malnutrition collides with disease, unsafe water, failing health systems, and inadequate protection. In Somalia, four out of 10 children treated for wasting become malnourished again within three months. That tells us that we are still responding to crisis in ways that are too short-term and too fragmented. And if we listen to the experience of children and their families, we should define the problem differently. We should see hunger as child survival and development issues that require integrated investments across nutrition, health, WASH, and protection. And this is exactly why Save the Children have committed to raise $300 million over the next two years through our Nutrition Futures Initiative, built around an integrated child-centered approach to malnutrition that spans prevention, treatment, and stronger systems. We know what works. and we know that acting early saves lives. The question is whether we will act before today's warning signs becomes tomorrow's catastrophe, and the cost of waiting is measured in children's lives. Thank you.

Thank you, Save the Children. I'd now like to turn the floor to Mr. Chris Elmore, MP, Minister for the Americas, Multilateral and Human Rights at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The floor is yours, Minister, please.

Thank you, Minister, and the Global Network Against Food Crises for bringing us together. Today's discussion has reinforced that challenges ahead are no longer one-off events, but recurring shocks that require longer-term solutions. The pressures on the global food system are growing, and the test for us is whether we can turn warnings into action and get ahead of crises before they escalate. For the UK, That is where international financial institutions, including the World Bank and IFAD, have a critical role to play. Their purpose is not simply to finance recovery after crisis, but to help countries act earlier, prepare better and to build resilience. Financing must support prevention as well as response and address the range of risks that countries face from conflict and instability to extreme weather and environmental damage. That requires governments, international organisations and development banks to work from the same risk picture so support can be mobilised sooner and directed where it is needed. We know that tools like pre-arranged financing, disaster risk insurance and anticipatory action can help protect livelihoods before harvests fail. Alongside strong safety nets, these can help families and farmers cope with difficult times and recover more quickly. That is why this month the UK announced up to 15 million pounds in anticipatory support for countries most at risk from El Nino. But we must ask whether we have the right systems in place to turn analysis into action. Organizations like the FAO and the Global Network Against Food Crises provide invaluable evidence. Yet too often, humanitarian agencies, development banks and development partners still work in parallel and move at different speeds. So the question is not whether we need more analysis, it is whether we are organised well enough to act on it. I was particularly encouraged by recent commitments from development banks to strengthen cooperation on fertiliser supply chains. This is a practical example of the kind of coordination and action that we need across institutions. And of course, there's more good examples to build on, including Germany's leadership in recent years. because the test of this system is not how well we respond once a crisis has begun, it is whether we can prevent the next one. That is the shift the UK wants to see, and we stand ready to work with you to deliver it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Excellency Minister. Excellencies, colleagues, that wraps up our roundtable discussion. We now open the floor for the intervention from the floor. We do have important, we only have 15 minutes left and we have my list nine interventions. So as a moderator, this is a very challenging to handle, but I'll try my best. So in the interest of time, let me call on the Minister of Social Development of Brazil, his Excellency, Mr. Wellington Dias, if he's available here. No? Let me call on Mr. Tom Hart, the CEO of InterAction. Please, if you are here. Please, go ahead.

Yes, thank you. Distinguished leaders, on behalf of our civil society members, nonprofits who work tirelessly on humanitarian relief, global health, and development, thank you. This assembly, UN General Assembly, is a time to take stock of our sustainable development goals, the pledges we made to the world over a decade ago, and we've seen some progress. More children are going to school, greater water and sanitation and child survival. But a decade after we decided zero hunger, more than 2 billion people remain food insecure, over a half a billion more than when we had made that pledge. And despite welcome progress, 645 million people still go hungry. And this isn't a mystery illness. We're not waiting for a medical miracle or a technological solution. We know what causes it and we know what to do. Conflicts, climate shocks, and economic pressures like the rising cost of fuel translate to higher food prices and hunger for too many. These factors are colliding with deep cuts in funding. 70% of those facing acute food insecurity live in fragile and conflict-affected countries, and the lack of respect for civilian life and property by parties to conflict disrupts food systems and markets and destroys livelihoods and employment. Addressing protection risks are critical through multi-sectoral strategies, and it's intrinsically linked to addressing food security that arises by those affected by them. To repeat, we know what to do, and despite these odds, we are doing it. Our NGO members witness and support heroic work every day to deliver food, led by local communities, supported by international NGOs and UN agencies and other governments and other actors. This is not a matter of reinvention. This is a matter of recommitment, scaling up effective responses and mustering the political will to ensure enough people have nutritious food to eat. Thank you.

Thank you, Tom. Let me now give the floor to Dr. Rana Al Dhaher Al Shamsi, Minister of Climate Change and the Environment of United Arab Emirates. Please, Madam.

Thank you. Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, this is a timely conversation. A time of conflict, climate change, economic pressures, and disruptions to global supply chains are increasingly testing our food systems. But our response cannot begin when a crisis arrives. We must establish and build resilient food systems before disruption occurs. First, we need to strengthen the infrastructure that keeps food moving, diversifying trade and logistics corridors, maintaining strategic reserves, and investing in resilient supply chains can help ensure that food reaches those who need it, even when established routes are disrupted. Second, water security is food security. The UAE's experience has reinforced the importance of taking water, energy, food nexus approach, bringing together policy, technology, infrastructure, and sustainable water management to strengthen food systems in a changing climate. Our National Food Security Strategy 2051 reflects this very approach, including through climate-smart agriculture, modern technologies, and more resilient domestic production. Third, we must move from reactive relief to proactive mitigation. The UAE's global logistics capabilities, including the humanitarian hub near Jebel Ali Port, enable the rapid deployment of essential supplies when crises disrupt conventional routes. As a member of the WFP Executive Board 26-28, the UAE supports empowering regional hubs and national institutions to strengthen local capacity and build enduring self-reliance. Food security cannot be secured through emergency response alone. It must be built through preparedness, resilient infrastructure, secure water sources, and stronger local and regional capacities. And this is how we can move from responding to food crisis to preventing them from becoming humanitarian catastrophes. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam. I now turn to Her Excellency, Ms. Katia, Minister of Population and Solidarity of Madagascar. No? Thank you. Next, Mr. Pascal Grotenhuis, Vice Minister for International Cooperation, Kingdom of the Netherlands. Thank you.

Excellencies, thank you very much for organizing today's event. I think all of us in this room are actually acutely aware of the mounting pressure on the global food security. This stems, on the one hand, from the deep integration of the global food systems, creating vulnerabilities to disruptions in trade flows, and on the other, from the consequences of rising geopolitical instability and climate change. We need to step up the fight. We need to fight hunger, and we need to fight humanitarian needs. We will therefore continue to be a multi-year and fully flexible donor to WFP and other humanitarian UN agencies for the coming four years. We are reinforcing this commitment this year by increasing our humanitarian budget by 30%, including 16 million in flexible funding for WFP and 8 million for UNICEF's Global Humanitarian Thematic Fund. Dutch development cooperation in the field of food security, we will focus on building resilient food systems through targeted innovation, stronger local leadership and alternative sustainable productivity models. We value the efforts of IFAD and the World Bank through the Crisis Response Initiative and the Food System Resilience Program to cushion the worst impacts of geopolitical turmoil and climate change in the event of shocks to food systems. And I very much agree with you. It's time for action. Thank you very much.

Thank you, ma'am. Next, I'd like to turn to His Excellency, Mr. Carlos Guevara Man, Vice Minister of Multilateral Affairs and Cooperation of Panama.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, a detailed picture of food insecurity has already been presented and reiterated today. For Panama, our response must match the scale and urgency of this challenge. Protecting food supply chains, civilian infrastructure, freedom of navigation, and international trade corridors must remain a priority. For countries dependent on food imports, disruption in one part of the world can rapidly become hunger and instability in another. We must change the way we respond. Early warning must lead to early action. Financing must move beyond reacting to emergencies and invest more decisively in anticipation, prevention, and long-term resilience. Humanitarian assistance, development, and peacebuilding cannot operate in isolation. food crisis require coordinated action that addresses immediate needs while strengthening national capacities and tackling structural vulnerabilities. Panama's experience shows that sustained public policies, international cooperation, and strong national capacities can deliver results. We have made significant progress in reducing hunger, strengthening family farming, supporting local food production, and expanding food school feeding. As a humanitarian and logistical hub for our region, Panama is committed to strengthening international cooperation and supporting more effective responses to humanitarian and food crises. This year, we commemorate the bicentennial of the first multilateral congress in our region, the Congress of Panama, a historic call for nations to confront common challenges through dialogue, cooperation, and collective action. As we commemorate this bicentennial, we call for stronger international cooperation, resilient supply chains, greater investment in prevention, and a global food security architecture capable of acting before hunger becomes catastrophic. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Minister. It's my honor now to bring this session to a closure, Excellencies. Ministers, distinguished guests, we have now come to the end of our event to bring us home. I'll now turn to closing remarks from Mr. Neil Richmond, Minister of State for Development of Ireland. Minister Richmond, the floor is yours, please. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Chair, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, from the ICS. Thank you, dear Reem, for organizing this key event with partners and said that Ireland continues to be a very proud member of the global network. I had a very wonderful prepared speech that I've thrown away, something my officials love when I do. And the reason I did it is we're very good at diagnosing and giving excruciating detail of what the problem and the impact that we are facing at the moment. So therefore, I don't want to repeat a lot of the really, really valid and powerful contributions. But one thing that did strike me was Carl's pretty somber assessment that we are currently looking at two man-made famines and we're on the verge of moving to four. This is exactly where we're at. We don't need statistics, we don't need to talk about numbers, we're talking about famine. Those of us of a generation were brought up watching famine in Africa on our television screens, were moved to do something about it. unfortunately today's generation are seeing us repeat the mistakes that previous generations made before and that we have all said that we won't let happen again. So therefore we have to look at, well, what are we going to do about it? We've talked about the macro issues that are impacting peace, conflict, trade routes, logistics, free and fair trade agreements. and indeed the climate emergency that we're facing. They're big issues that probably not one person in this room could impact alone, or indeed any of us can really get solved when we leave this room in the next few minutes. But it's the level below that where I fundamentally believe we can do something about it and where we are moved to do something about it far more urgently. And that, I suppose, first and foremost goes for that increased need for resilience. resilience in the most impacted areas. When I think about the most impacted areas, it's hard to see past sub-Saharan Africa. And friends, greater access to fertilizer alone is not going to solve this problem, despite what some people have told us. It goes far deeper than that. And I was very struck from my dear British friend Chris's intervention when he talked about the need for partnership and we talked about the need to get rid of an elements of the duplicity. and know that works well. We think of our Rome-based agencies who all contributed so powerfully and thoughtfully on how their work is under threat and how the multilateral system is under threat. And that's why we need to actually stand up for those organizations and the work they do in the field, but also the work they do to back up the work that happens in the field, the harnessing of the real data that matters, the innovation that can actually save lives with very little effort or indeed investment. I suppose it is how we work with those partners to ultimately completely change the global food production system. That is what we have to do. How food was produced 10, 20 or 30 years ago is no longer relevant. It is not truly aligned with the challenges that we face. The knowledge, the expertise and the resources are there, but is the political will there? I think this comes to the overall focus of our discussions here, which I'd like to think have moved on to an element from last year's United Nations High Level Week. The very importance of development cooperation is a statement of our values, is a statement of the values not for those of us just in the global north, but for those of us who are collectively part of the United Nations. Ireland is very, very much focused not just on development cooperation, and I'm proud that last year we passed our largest ever budget for both development cooperation and humanitarian in the history of our state. But we do so for many, many reasons, and the first and foremost, and the fact that the majority of our funding goes to hunger and malnutrition, is steeped deeply in our history. We are a people that experienced famine. We're in New York City, if you haven't noticed, there's an Irish bar on every second corner. they're great go spend some time there but the reason there is actually truly very sad century and a half ago we lost a quarter of our population either through death or emigration the city of New York Chicago Boston are all built on the shoulders of Irish people who are fleeing famine who could not feed their families who could not feed their children and that is why we put such focus on food security and malnutrition. And we often go into chambers and debate and people go like, well, we have to consider our budget priorities. We have to look at defense and security. The number one impacting issue on security is food security. As Carl very eloquently said, if you cannot feed your family, where do you turn to? You migrate, you rebel, you starve. So I think fundamentally friends, when we leave this meeting, we have very clear options available. We have been presented with a menu of options. Let's stop talking about them. Let's back our action with words and make sure that we actually put money behind it. It's a very, very simple ask. And I really, really hope that we don't simply come back to this meeting next year and talk about the same problems, but unfortunately they've just got worse. Thank you very much, Chair.

Excellencies, Ministers, I thank the leadership of the Government of Germany in bringing us together with the partnership of WFP, IFAD and FAO and so on. Our discussion today resonates deeply with this year's UNGA theme, which focuses on trust, transformation and delivering for all. I don't intend to summarize the discussion, but let me just paraphrase a few takeaways from this session. Food crisis are today persistent, severe and concentrated. Compared to a decade ago, numbers have doubled, with majority of those affected in the same 33 countries. And unfortunately, progress is insufficient. The world produces enough food to nourish everyone. The challenge is not availability, like alluded early on, but access limited by war, climate shocks and inequality. We must focus on removing these barriers and ensuring equitable access for all. And while the data is clear, what remains immeasurable is the countless levels of suffering and diminishing futures of our communities and our future generations. We must transform and move from managing food crisis to reducing them. I'm, however, deeply inspired by the sense of trust and energy I see here today. And indeed, we can deliver for all. as we heard that strong rallying cry for international cooperation, as this is an issue that demands profound solidarity. Second, we must adhere to rules-based trade and diverse trade routes and supply chains, the one that mentioned by DG of WTO. Prevention is no longer optional, with many raising need to ensure early warnings lead to early action, must act before hunger becomes emergencies. Ladies and gentlemen, a summary of today's discussion will be published in the Global Network website, and I encourage you to all visit the website and explore this and many of other resources available therein. So once again, Your Majesty, Minister, representative of Majesty, soon to be Majesty. Excellent, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for your participation, and have a great weekend. Thank you. Thank you so much.