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Thank you, Mr Chair,

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the outgoing Director-General Dr José Graziano da Silva for his wise leadership.

I would also like to congratulate Dr Qu Dongyu, Director-General elect for FAO, and I wish him all the best in the new assignment.

South Sudan has the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China on agenda item The State of Food and Agriculture: Migration, Agriculture and Rural Development and would like to highlight the followings;

The Group of 77 and China acknowledges the SOFA key findings on challenges and opportunities of migration in terms of economic, social and human development as a way to reduce inequality within and between countries. Rural migration constitutes a considerable portion of internal and international migration flows. Policy coherence between migration and agriculture and rural development policies is essential to ensure safe and regular migration, taking into consideration the countries in protracted crises, rural youth employment challenges and countries under economic and demographic transition phases.

Mr Chair,

The Group reiterates that poverty eradication in all its forms and dimensions is the main goal of the 2030 Agenda and remains the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.

However, understanding contemporary migration, both internationally and internally, remains a challenge. The decision by people to migrate either within their own countries or across the borders is influenced by an intricate set of factors. This report examines the complex interlinkages among migration, agriculture, food security and rural development and the factors that determine the decision of rural people to migrate; including economic factors, employment opportunities, conflict, poverty, hunger, environmental degradation and climate changes.

In this regard, we stress the importance of FAO as a strategic partner to play a key role together with other partners of international resource mobilization to support the efforts of developing countries, in order to eradicate poverty and promote people’s rights to development, as a key instrument to control migration influx, encouraging agriculture for the sake of rural and urban youth.

We emphasize that migration-related policies must aim at making migration a choice, not a necessity. Such policies should consider both the benefits as well as the costs of this phenomenon, for migrants themselves and for societies in general, which may lead to the definition of different priorities according to country contexts.

Therefore, it is imperative to address these challenges on the basis of common responsibility of all nations, genuine partnerships and common understandings, in order to ensure that international migrations can contribute to the development of both origin and destination countries maximizing the positive impacts, while minimizing the negative ones.

Mr. Chair,

The Group of 77 and China is confident that this overview of the State of Food and Agriculture will contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between migration and rural development. In doing so, it will help improve the work of Member States, the international Community and the UN agencies in such a way so as to ensure that international migrations contributes to the development of both sending and receiving countries while protecting human rights of all migrants.

Mr. Chair,

Many rural areas in the developing countries have poor levels of infrastructure development in roads, railways, waterways and air transport, which open up areas for prospective investors; provide access to markets and raw materials. The underdevelopment of these forms of infrastructures in rural areas is symptomatic of underdevelopment, therefore rural development policies must seriously address such challenges in a broader sense.  

It is important to enhance the migrants’ contributions for the development of their rural areas of origin through remittances, for example. It is also important to recognise the skills that migrants bring into the economic system of Member States that contribute to economic growth and alleviation of poverty. Several policy areas can contribute, including facilitating and reducing the cost of money transfer and promoting the investment of remittances in rural areas.

Mr. Chair,

With these comments, the Group of 77 and China urges all Member States to renew their political will in order to address the challenges and opportunities of migration, both regular and irregular, in a balanced manner as well as to promote the protection of human rights in the development and implementation of policies regarding migration to achieve all SDGs by 2030, in particular SDG 1 on poverty eradication and SDG 2 on zero hunger.

Thank you for the kind attention.