WORLD FOOD FORUM 2025 Board of Champions of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty Opening Remarks

Your Excellency, the President of the Federative Republic of Brazil,

Your Excellencies the Co-Vice-Chairpersons,

Distinguished Champions of the Global Alliance,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is truly a great honour for me and for FAO, as we celebrate our 80th Anniversary, to welcome President Lula. Thank you for having made precious time to come be with us.

Brazil has been a key Member of FAO during the past 80 years. Additionally, you played a decisive role, not only in feeding your own country, but also by contributing to global food security.

Welcome all of you to FAO and to the World Food Forum 2025.

Since I came in 2019, I established the World Food Forum to build an open platform for all players, not just government officials in 2021.

FAO commends Brazil for its leadership in the creation of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty and for its leadership of the G20 Presidency last year – it was truly historic.

People will remember you in history for a lot of things, but for FAO, for the ordinary people from poor families, we will remember you for your lifelong commitment and support in eliminating poverty and hunger.

In 2024, 673 million people faced chronic undernourishment – this means nearly 1 in every 12 people globally

If current trends persist, by 2030 more than 512 million people will still be hungry –almost 60 percent of them in Africa.

Beyond hunger, nearly 2.3 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2024.

Given the challenges we currently face, the urgency and need for an Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty is timely and undeniable.

This transformational initiative will address the current fragmentation of efforts and financial commitments and will refocus efforts towards country-led impactful policies to eradicate hunger, poverty, and inequalities.

FAO applauds the members of the Board of Champions for their collective leadership in championing the fight against hunger and poverty,

I would like to emphasize the importance of communicating the Global Alliance’s work and approach, and in monitoring the full implementation of the commitments made by its members.

We must leverage our professional expertise, technical knowledge, and financial resources to drive real, measurable progress,

To ensure that countries have access to adequate support to implement evidence-based enabling policies in the fight against hunger and poverty.

The Global Alliance will further facilitate flexible and strategic partnerships.

It will help us to be better together.

FAO commits to supporting the Alliance’s Support Mechanism and will offer all the necessary networking globally because we have 194 Members.

Secretary-General António Guterres also asked me to provide network support to other UN agencies because at FAO we have the most accessible Country Offices around the world – in 168 countries.

I really appreciate your leadership as Brazil is among the top 20 Members that approved my proposed budget for the next biennium with no decrease, in fact with a 1.1 percent increase. This is truly phenomenal!

I also appreciate the other Members like the United States of America, China, Japan, Germany and others, who unanimously supported and approved my budget proposal.

To support FAO means to support basic human rights. This was my understanding and interpretation from the last FAO Ministerial Conference decision.

At FAO, we try our best to support any initiative from Members, no matter whether it is Brazil, or the United States of America, China, Japan, Germany, India, Ethiopia, or one of the Small Island Developing States – because FAO is a Member-owned Organization.

FAO is a one-country-one-vote Organization - no matter whether you are a big or a small country. That is why we have our own independent Constitution. Any important decision made by Ministers is done through voting, which requires a two-thirds majority. This is the Constitutional right of our Members.

Honourable President Lula, FAO is your Organization. You are welcome at any time. All of FAO’s technical capacity is at your disposal. It is a public goods, not only for yourself, but for all the Brazilian people and for the world.

I wish you all the best. Despite your short time here, I am pleased to have the opportunity to be updated on our work, and I warmly invite you to come back again.

This is the Chinese culture. I invited all the former Deputy Directors-General, and the former Director-General Graziano to join us in celebrating FAO’s 80th anniversary, to see the changes, and to enjoy the moment with us and build solidarity to work more and better together.

Thank you.