Your Excellency Ambassador Massari,

Your Excellency Amina Mohammed, DSG,

Excellences, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

I am delighted to join you today and I wish to thank first Ambassador Massari for giving me the opportunity to engage in this meeting of the Group of Friends.  And, I look forward to seeing many of you again when I attend the UNGA High Level Week later this month.

I just arrived in Rome this morning from Kigali, Rwanda where I spent the week attending the African Green Revolution Forum to highlight the relevance of CFS -- its policies, reports and its platform -- for African food security and nutrition.

After my many engagements with ministers, private sector actors, youth and others from across the continent, I was left with a renewed sense of optimism.

As a result of the extremely challenging times we are all facing, the focused efforts of countries to address the crisis and deliver on promises to transform toward sustainable food systems is encouraging.  There will be no shortcuts and no easy answers, just hard work, the need for sustained investment, and continued political commitment and leadership.

I intend to continue using CFS as a platform to assist those efforts, for countries to both share their experiences, and for CFS to continue providing science-backed policy guidance on the most critical issues linked to attaining SDG-2 and the other related 2030 development goals.

These were the same points I emphasized during the high-level event I co-convened with the President of the General Assembly on 18 July this year, entitled “Time to Act Together: Coordinating Policy Responses to the Global Food Crisis.”

Many of you who attended will recall, that this high-level event aimed to: 

• One, contribute to building synergies and linking multiple policy responses;
• Two, advance a shared understanding of the main issues and challenges;
• Three, deliberate on options for further policy responses;
• Four, identify emerging areas of convergence; and
• Five, foster coordinated action on the crisis.

Supported by – and convened in support of – the UN Secretary General ́s Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance (of which the CFS is participating), the high-level event included Prime Ministers, Ministers, Permanent Representatives, civil society representatives, private sector actors, academia, and many UN System leaders.

During that event, we highlighted SIX priority actions we must take together, to raise ambition and deliver concrete actions, NOW:

1. First, step up humanitarian response for those already in need to alleviate immediate suffering, in all humanitarian contexts;
2. Second, stabilize markets and commodity prices, release strategic food stockpiles and fertilizers into markets, minimize hoarding and other speculative behavior, and avoid unnecessary trade restrictions to immediately restore the availability, accessibility and affordability of food to enable all people everywhere to realize their right to food;
3. Third, encourage increased local production and consumption of diverse crop varieties, supporting and protecting smallholder and family farmers, cooperatives and SMEs who produce 80% of the food we eat. Diversify the sources of foods; and reduce food loss and waste, especially to wean countries off dependency on imports and increase their overall resilience;
4. Fourth, restore the availability of inputs including fertilizers, ensuring sustained and affordable access by smallholders and family farmers as well as larger-scale food producers. This should go hand-in-hand with increased efficiency in the use of energy and fertilizers, unleashing the full potential of agroecology and other innovative approaches for sustainable agriculture;
5. Fifth, reinforce social protection systems that are needed to prevent a slide into poverty by those in vulnerable situations. This include well-proven nutrition-focused systems such as school meals or cash transfers.
6. Sixth and last, equip countries with the financial resources, fiscal space and funds to support and protect their people, while speeding up the transition to more resilient and sustainable food systems, with the IMF, World Bank the regional development banks and the donor community playing an essential role.

Excellencies,

Like most of you, we are delighted that the Black Sea Grain Initiative has taken hold, and is easing pressure on global grain and fertilizer supplies, and prices. I commend the UN Secretary-General, Turkey, and the Ukranian and Russian leaders for making this deal possible. However, there remains a large way to go just to clear the backlog of stored grains. We still do not know the effect on availability next year, due to higher costs of fertilisers and other supply-side disruptions.

According to FAO, the high costs of fertilizers are also affecting the planting of rice, a disruption in the markets of which triggered the crisis of 2009.   We must all remain vigilant and work together to avoid export restrictions and other policy steps that can create further problems.

Next month at our 50^th Plenary Session, we will continue the discussion on the crisis at a full-day ministerial session on 10 October. In addition, CFS 50 will feature a Special Event on 13 October where a number of governments will share progress on their national pathways and efforts at food systems transformation.

It is hard to over-emphasize the importance of our working together to address the challenges we, collectively, face.  CFS remains the open UN policy platform to address global food insecurity and malnutrition.  Our policy products and the scientific reports of our High Level Panel of Experts are a global good that should be strengthened and supported.

I take this opportunity to warmly welcome you to CFS 50 from 10 – 13 October at the FAO Headquarters in Rome, and to remind you that CFS is not an implementing organization – implementation of the policy guidance we negotiate together is up to your countries and governments, either domestically, or by assisting others in their development pathways. 

We appreciate your continued commitment and support.

Thank you!