How G20 could help end hunger

FOOD SECURITY

- RAJ PATEL REFILOE JOALA

A photo dated Aug 16, 2022 shows a farmer placing water weeds on top of seedlings' roots on a floating bed at his farm in Pirojpur district, Bangladesh.

(REUTERS)

Upon assuming the G20 presidency in December, South Africa chose “solidarity, equality, and sustainability” as its theme. Far from being an empty slogan, this vision reflects the principles on which any credible international response to today’s hunger crisis must rest.

Driven by climate change, conflict, and inequality, food insecurity is spiking around the world. The tools to address it already exist. The challenge is to mobilise the political will to act. South Africa’s G20 presidency presents a unique opportunity to do just that.

Brazil offers a valuable model. Over the past two years, it managed to lift 40 million people out of food insecurity, removing itself from the United Nations’ hunger map. To achieve this, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's administration reinstated policies scrapped by his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, bolstered school-meal programmes through procurement from smallholder and indigenous farmers, raised minimum wages, and legally recognised the right to food.

None of these measures is experimental. They are tried, tested, and proven solutions, and their success shows that eliminating hunger does not hinge on technological innovation but on political courage.