Eating Together: FAO-forged coalition to fight hunger in the pandemic-stricken world serves an important need

While 690 million went hungry in 2019, as per the 2020 State of Food Security and Nutrition report, 130 million more will get pushed into chronic hunger by the end of this year, largely because of the pandemic. With malnourishment already being a top global concern, global pandemic-response has to be centred on controlling the spread of hunger. To that end, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) forging an international coalition for improving food security is a major step; Netherlands and Italy have already pledged and delivered technical and financial support.

The main purpose of this coalition is to help bring countries on track to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals—especially the one on ending poverty and hunger. FAO underscores the importance of nations, ensuring that their food value-chains remain intact and functional through the course of the pandemic and don’t falter due to lockdowns and other restrictions.

Also, countries must make sure that their agricultural labour force and poor consumers don’t slip below the poverty line. To enable this, there will be a trust fund and a web-based hub for allowing participants to access funding. The coalition aims to eradicate hunger with international cooperation and will work towards solution-oriented plans and programmes.

This is a sea-change from the approach that looks at hunger and malnutrition as national problems to be dealt with by respective national government, albeit with aid from multilateral agencies and developed countries’ international aid bodies. It will also, with the help of all the countries, work towards a coordinated Covid-19 response. This will undoubtedly help increase the resilience of the agri-food systems and minimise the risks arising due to their disruption.