EU Parliament’s Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition

Brussels - In recent years, parliamentarians in Europe and other regions of the world have formed alliances to step up efforts to combat hunger and malnutrition globally, while making food systems more sustainable, inclusive and resilient.

The European Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition,  was created in 2016 as an initiative of and under the auspices of FAO, is an alliance of currently 30 members of the European Parliament formed with the aim to achieve the objectives encompassed in the Sustainable Development Goals and in particular, SDG2 (end hunger).

“The European Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition always works to keep food security and the fight against hunger at the centre of the international debate, themes which, recently, have shown increasing importance also at the European level,” says one Alliance member.

Alliance members work in thematic clusters and committees and in consultation with FAO and other UN partners to discuss and support European Union (EU) policies, legislation, and budget which have immediate and direct impact on the EU’s global policy agenda on food and agriculture. Through the Alliance, members also actively work on raising awareness on the right to adequate food for all and the transformation of food systems. They are Europe’s legislative food heroes!

The priorities of the Alliance are organized around thematic clusters which include the European Green Deal, climate change and natural resource management; sustainable value chains and responsible investment; nutrition for all and the transformation of food systems; connections between peace, humanitarian action and development, and extreme rural poverty and inequality. 

Like parliamentary alliances in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, European parliamentarians have had to grapple with added challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, factoring its impact and related uncertainties into long-term recovery plans.

Aware that the European Union represents the world’s largest development-aid donor, European Parliamentarians also keep a close eye on development investments abroad.

In forming their Alliance in 2016, parliamentarians called on their colleagues to “ensure that EU-based investors respect, and encourage other partners in the alliance to respect, the rights of local communities and the needs of small farms, in following a human-rights based approach within the cooperation frameworks, including the maintenance of environmental, social, land, labour and human rights safeguards and the highest standards of transparency.”

Advocates for the transformation of food systems and the eradication of hunger, these food heroes are pooling their resources to translate political will into action.