Food security Minister Müller calls on G20 to do more to address hunger crisis
Copyright© BMZ
Minister Müller (left) on the second day of the meeting of G20 foreign and development ministers in Italy on 30 June 2021
Minister Müller said, “COVID-19, climate change and conflicts are increasingly combining to create a polypandemic which is causing the number of people who are starving to once again rise. The number of displaced people has risen for the ninth year in a row, COVID-19 has pushed 100 million people back into extreme poverty, droughts in Madagascar, for example, mean that more than one million people do not have enough to eat. All of this is taking us further away from achieving the goal of eradicating hunger in the world by 2030. In the last few years, the number of malnourished people has been rising again and it has now reached 820 million.
The G20 was founded with the aim of working together to overcome global crises. The Group’s joint efforts are needed here more than ever. The World Food Programme – which is for millions of people their only hope of being saved from starving – is forecasting that it needs 15 billion US dollars to fund the work it will carry out over the course of the present year – but member countries have only contributed just about half that amount. That is unacceptable. I call on the G20 countries to quickly close this gap. As the second-largest donor for the World Food Programme, Germany is already leading the way today.”
Germany recently made available an amount of 2.4 billion euros for international food security and agriculture. Under the framework of the BMZ’s Emergency COVID-19 Support Programme for measures to address the economic and social consequences of the pandemic, the Federal Development Ministry has made available a total of 800 million euros last year and this year to fight hunger.
With the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the international community has set itself the goal of ending hunger in the world by the end of the present decade.