The establishment of the Italian Parliamentary Alliance for Food Security
On the 19th of July 2017, the Italian Chamber of Deputies launched the FAO Parliamentary Alliance for Food Security; the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) welcomes this initiative in the presence of Italian Parliamentarians, representatives of the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and civil society organizations.
“Ensuring food security is a real challenge but it is within our reach”, said Honourable Stella Bianchi promoter of the Alliance, which already gathers almost 50 Parliamentarians from different political parties. “We want to contribute to the achievement of the Zero Hunger Goal and we are convinced that, as affirmed in the Milan Charter, the right to food is a fundamental human right.” Honourable Bianchi also highlighted the importance of a development plan for Africa and of tools able to implement the Paris Agreement on climate change, in close connection with food issues. Her final remarks underlined the importance of women’s empowerment, above all in terms of guaranteeing them the adequate access to land, in view of a more inclusive development model.
Honorable Susanna Cenni, member of the Alliance, mentioned the link between food security and biodiversity affirming that “when we refer to food security, we cannot fail to take this major theme of biodiversity into account”.
The role of the FAO
Mr. Mario Lubetkin, Directeur de Cabinet of the FAO Director General and Ms Marcela Villarreal, Director of Partnerships and South South Cooperation Division, on behalf of the FAO Director General lauded the initiative. Mr Lubetkin started his intervention by recalling the various national parliamentary alliances established in Africa, Europe and Latin America and emphasizing the very new Japanese Parliamentarian Friendship League and the Haitian Parliamentary Front against Hunger. He underlined the role of the Italian Parliament, above all considering Rome as home to the main UN agencies tasked with food security, agriculture and sustainable development: the FAO, the WFP and the IFAD.
“Fighting Hunger and Malnutrition is not only a question of raising awareness; it is also essential to design laws and define how resources are allocated in order to guarantee the implementation of Food and Nutrition Security legislation” said Mr Lubetkin, adding that the parliamentarians of all countries have a crucial role especially with the world hunger on the rise again. He suggested that “the hunger issue needs to be strictly connected to nutrition and, talking of nutrition, we refer also to the 650 million obese people of which a substantial figure is in the European region”. Furthermore, the fight against hunger is firmly linked to immigration and climate change. Indeed, in the words of the FAO Directeur de Cabinet “Today it is not possible to fight hunger without thinking that migratory phenomena are partly caused by starvation situations that in turn create scenarios for compulsory and non-voluntary movements; the fight against hunger is actually changing its parameters”.
Mr Lubetkin also invited the audience to reflect on another essential aspect: the key actors of this challenge. After acknowledging FAO's responsibility and leadership, he emphasized how crucial is the synergy with IFAD and WFP, and at the same time how the UN system requires the responsibility and intervention of all actors, among them national and local governments, civil society organizations and the private sector. On that note, he concluded highlighting that “Linking the UN system to parliamentarians and, recognizing the difficulty of the situation and the complexity of the problem, if the various actors interact among them, we are on the right path to reach the 2030 target".
