Ethiopian Informer
ADDIS ABABA: November 4 (EI) – Ethiopia’s National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) on Monday launched a global convening on the provision of transformative food assistance to end hunger.
The meeting, which deliberated on the provision of “Transformative Food Assistance for Zero Hunger,” was said to be part of the realization of a need for a new way to look at and address problems in the world’s food systems in order to attain the Sustainable Development Goal 2 of Zero Hunger by 2030.
WFP, which noted that some 820 million people are currently chronically hungry around the world, said during the high-level meeting that “the fact that 125 million are acutely hungry, meaning they lack access to enough food to live healthy lives, suggests food systems do not work in ways to meet the needs of the many.”
The high-level meeting is also expected “to achieve a consensus on an action plan toward the creation of a Global Centre for Transformative Food Assistance in 2020 to be based in Ethiopia,” WFP said in a statement issued on the sidelines of the meeting on Monday.
As more than 200 participants gathered in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa for the two-day meeting, the event among other things is expected to deliberate on increasing awareness of the scope and depth of food assistance, and on developing consensuses on priorities for policy reform, institutional innovation and investment toward transformative food assistance in different contexts, it was noted.
The participants include policymakers responsible for food and nutrition security, food assistance practitioners from humanitarian and developmental organizations, donors and philanthropic bodies and food security academics.
“We are seizing an opportunity by convening here in Addis Ababa, and by proposing that the Global Centre is established in Ethiopia,” said WFP Representative and Country Director in Ethiopia, Steven Were Omamo, during the meeting.
“Ethiopia has solid knowledge and track record of delivering food assistance at scale. The design and implementation of food assistance strategies are embedded within its institutions. That scale is indicative of how Ethiopia is already leveraging and influencing food systems,” Omamo added.
Participants also raised awareness ahead of the meeting with the hashtag #TFAzerohunger.
Photo- UN Information Center (UNIC)
