The United Nations and Myanmar’s Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MoAI), with the support by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), have marked this year’s World Food Day with the launch of a major initiative to eradicate hunger.

The National Zero Hunger Challenge (NZHC) was launched today in the nation’s capital by Myanmar’s Vice-President U Nyan Tun. The event was attended by Government Ministers and deputy ministers, representatives from specialized agencies of the United Nations and civil society organizations. Representatives from various embassies and foreign missions joined other stakeholders and delegates.

“The launch of a National Zero Hunger Challenge is a great step forward for Myanmar as it strives to eradicate hunger,” said Hiroyuki Konuma, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific. “FAO is a solid partner in this aim and will provide whatever technical assistance is necessary to help the people of Myanmar achieve this goal.”

The launch of the Myanmar NZHC is intended to pave the way for concrete formulation of a national action plan and creation of national ways and means to follow up on activities in support of the global Zero Hunger Challenge (ZHC). The ZHC was initiated at global level by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2012 and is now being applied at national level in Asia and the Pacific. Timor-Leste was the first country in this region to launch a national ZHC. Today Myanmar followed suit becoming the second in this region.

Achieving MDG hunger reduction goal is on track in Asia, but the Goal should be “Zero Hunger” to achieve “0” percent hunger.

According to the latest estimates released by FAO, WFP and IFAD on 16 September 2014, the world is a home of 805 million undernourished people in 2012-14, and one in every nine people worldwide is suffering from chronic hunger. Although the proportion of the undernourished in Asia declined from 24.4 percent in 1990-92 to 12.9 percent in 2012-14, and achieving the MDG1 target to reduce the proportion of chronic hunger to 12.2 percent by 2015 is on track (just the balance of 0.7% left to achieve), problems still exist with the last remaining 12 percent who constitute the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in our society and who desperately require our support.

“In the Asia-Pacific region, following the lead of Timor-Leste and today Myanmar, Nepal and Viet Nam have also expressed interest in launching NZHCs,” Konuma said. “And Myanmar’s NZHC has been launched on a day of great significance,” Konuma added. He appreciated the initiative taken by the Government of Myanmar, especially the Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, U Myint Hlaing.  He also appreciated the UN Resident Coordinator in Myanmar and her UN team for the joint UN efforts to support Myanmar in promoting the UN Secretary-General’s initiative.

The theme for this year’s World Food Day is “Family Farming: Feeding the world, caring for the earth.” Family farming is a very important factor to ensure national and global food security, as it is managed by smallholder farmers who represent over 80 percent of total farmer population and produce the majority of our food we eat every day in this region. They also constitute the largest portion of poverty and nutritional hunger.  

In September 2014, at a meeting in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar government was presented with the draft strategic document of ASEAN Vision and Objectives in Agriculture and Forestry Towards 2025 at the 36^th Meeting of the ASEAN Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry (AMAF) by Mr Konuma on behalf of FAO Director General Jose Graziano da Silva.