On Wednesday 24 July, at the G20 Development Ministerial Meeting chaired and organised by Brazil (see EUROPE 13458/9), Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced the launch of a Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty.
In February, a special G20 working group was tasked with drawing up four fundamental instruments to give a mandate, form and content to this new global alliance, which is due to start work in November.
Deploring the lack of progress on the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, President Lula, who initiated the project, intends to facilitate the mobilisation of national and international financial resources as well as the knowledge needed to implement public policies to reduce poverty on a global scale.
Membership of the Alliance is open not only to G20 members, but to all interested countries or organisations. On Wednesday, the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, immediately announced the European Union’s support for this initiative.
“We intend to join the Alliance. We are currently assessing the details of the EU’s membership, taking into consideration our current and envisaged actions that support the Alliance’s objectives”, declared Ms Urpilainen in Rio de Janeiro.
According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published on Wednesday and presented in Rio, 733 million people, or 9% of the world’s population, suffered from hunger in 2023.
To see the four founding documents of the Alliance, go to https://aeur.eu/f/d4l (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)