LIMA, PERU APEC LEADERS´ INFORMAL DIALOGUE

Your Excellency the President of Peru,

Excellences,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Buenos Dias, Zhao an, Good morning, Selam alakon, Dobraye utra,

It is a great honour for me to address you today on behalf of FAO and to come back to Peru where I started my international career 38 years ago.

Thank you, Your Excellency Madam President, for your invitation.

Despite so many ongoing national and international efforts to alleviate poverty and hunger, the world is critically off-track to achieve the SDGs by 2030.

Our global agrifood systems, which provide daily sustenance for eight billion people, are under immense pressure from the impacts of the climate crisis, economic disruptions, conflicts and resource scarcity.

Today, 8.5 percent of the world population live below the extreme poverty line.

Around 733 million people were facing hunger in 2023, equivalent to 9.1 percent of the global population.

FAO reports estimated 29 percent of the global population was moderate or severely food insecure，

Poverty and food insecurity disproportionately affect rural populations, women, and socially marginalized groups. More than three-quarters of the global extreme poor lived in rural areas.

Rural poor populations experience higher risks and vulnerability to climate change due to reliance on climate-sensitive livelihoods, fragile infrastructures and limited means to cope with shocks. 

APEC has a critical role to play in enhancing economic cooperation and building inclusive, resilient and sustainable growth that reaches all communities, everyone everywhere.

Today, our agrifood systems can be transformed to better serve our most vulnerable populations and secure a healthier, more equitable future for all.

FAO commends APEC and the G20 for bringing food security and poverty reduction back to the center of global discussions.

One critical step toward this goal is to support initiatives like the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty launched by the G20 Presidency of Brazil.

FAO has proudly joined the Alliance and will host its Support Mechanism at FAO headquarters, in close collaboration with all its members.

Dear Colleagues,

We are at a critical moment, at a juncture to build and scale up concrete solutions for securing SDG 1 (no poverty) and SDG 2 (zero hunger).

We must seek solutions, and platforms like the World Food Forum unite all partners in building more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable agrifood systems.

By introducing enabling policies, improving investment and strengthening science and innovation, APEC members can scale up investments in expanding social protection systems, sharing best practices, promoting healthy diets, supporting smallholder farmers, enhancing agriculture resilience, and promoting gender equality and socio-economic inclusion.

Building effective cross-regional bridges means creating pathways that connect these communities with larger markets, financial services, and essential resources, creating new hope for people and producers.

By investing in digital tools and rural infrastructure, we can enable smallholder farmers to access critical data, market insights, and e-commerce opportunities, like that promoted by FAO through the Digital Villages Initiative globally.

Digital inclusion can be transformative, enabling farmers to improve comparable advantages and better sharing of value chain for their products and services.

Countries with highest level of food insecurity are often the countries with least access to financing.

Globally, this funding gap may well reach several trillion US dollars.

APEC members can help to scale up financing to address the major drivers affecting food availability, food accessibility and food affordability.

The right to food is a basic human right.

Dear Colleagues,

By prioritizing agrifood systems and focusing on the vulnerable, APEC can help build a better future for shared prosperity and an inclusive world,

Together, we can relize the Four Betters Hand-in-Hand across the Asia Pacific region and beyond: for better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life, leaving no one behind.

Thank you. Muchas gracias!