Extreme weather events, wars, population displacements, and cuts in official development assistance programs and budgets. This context at the start of 2025 outlines the scale of the global society’s challenge to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs 1 (poverty eradication) and 2 (zero hunger) by 2030, and was the central focus of the 48th Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
IFAD’s main decision-making body, the Governing Council, dedicated this year’s Center Stage to the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty. As a basis for the debate, numbers were presented. For example, that the world wastes 6.6 billion tons of food, while about 10% of the population survives on less than US$ 2.15 per day.
Three months after the launch of the Global Alliance by G20 leaders, the event was the first opportunity for leaders to discuss its implementation, advance commitments, and display initial results. The event established a dialogue, strengthening global commitments and partnerships, to reinforce engagement with the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty and identify synergies for collaborative actions.
Transforming ambitions into actions
At the opening of the Panel, Alvaro Lario, President of IFAD, recalled that the first step to overcome current challenges is not to forget that “together we are stronger.” He highlighted that the world is experiencing various instabilities – social, price, climate – which accentuate problems, but also demonstrate the importance of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty.
Lario stressed that the Global Alliance’s approach as the theme of the Center Stage reflected the Fund’s commitment to addressing food insecurity, poverty, and inequality. “The Global Alliance places rural communities and, especially, inclusion and social security at the center of efforts. This is the ideal moment to transform ambitions into actions,” he pointed out.
He also emphasized the importance of effective public policies and collaboration between governments, international organizations, and civil society to achieve SDGs 1 and 2.
The event’s Keynote Speaker, Brazil’s First Lady, Rosângela (Janja) Lula da Silva, began her intervention with numbers. In addition to those already mentioned, especially the fact that of the more than 700 million people who live in hunger worldwide, 60% are women and girls; and that 2.3 million people live in food insecurity.
Janja drew attention to the fact that climatic phenomena and geopolitical conflicts impact the most vulnerable. “Access to food has become increasingly complex. The journey of food to our tables follows several stages, which not only impacts food quality, but especially access. The current food system perpetuates inequalities and affects access to food,” said Brazil’s First Lady.
Janja defended the importance of multidisciplinary actions that recognize the diversity and complexity of current challenges and create concrete and coordinated efforts to combat hunger and poverty. For her, it is urgent to create actions that enable the establishment of sustainable and resilient environments for the production and delivery of healthy and economically viable foods.
Alternative of collective support
Special guest, the Minister of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger of Brazil, José Wellington Dias, co-chair of the Board of Champions of the Global Alliance, underlined the current geopolitical context to emphasize the relevance of the Global Alliance’s pillars. “Recent announcements of cuts in official development assistance programs and budgets have caused dismay in the international community. Challenges continue to grow, but the means to face them are dwindling”, he said. “We must, of course, persist in the urgent reversal of these trends of declining international solidarity”, he urged.
Dias also highlighted the innovative aspect of the Global Alliance’s structure by citing that the decline in aid budgets emphasizes the need for improvements in cooperation. “With so many cuts and so many challenges, we can no longer afford to spend a single dollar on redundant, fragmented, impactless activities.”
As the Brazilian Minister recalled, the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty arrives precisely at this time, offering an alternative of collective support to national states, especially the poorest countries, recognized as the entities capable of eliminating hunger and poverty.
“It is not about doing the work for these States, but about giving them the minimum conditions, funding, and knowledge, so that they can take care of their populations with their own means. It is much cheaper to build capacity, build permanent and efficient national prevention and response systems, than to sustain successive emergency responses, marginalizing local governments and keeping them dependent.”
As examples of the Global Alliance’s innovative aspect, Dias named the Sprints 2030, a test of the Alliance’s approach that the Brazilian G20 Presidency made to obtain concrete announcements and implementation commitments in various areas of the policy basket.
The Sprints summarized commitments from 41 national governments and 32 international organizations, aiming at objectives such as reaching 500 million people with income transfers in low and lower-middle-income countries, reaching more 200 million students with expanded school feeding; more 150 million children and mothers with early childhood support programs, and more 100 million people with socioeconomic inclusion programs. There are financial commitments, such as US$24 billion in credit from the Inter-American Bank, US$2 billion from CAF, IFAD’s commitment to double its reach, reaching 100 million small farmers, and the World Bank’s commitment to double the beneficiaries of social protection programs and allocate part of the IDA (International Development Association) concessional resources and donations to the implementation of Alliance basket policies.
Dias also celebrated the numerical advances of the Global Alliance, which, in three months, reached 89 member countries, plus the African Union and the European Union, 66 public and private international organizations, and 10 international financial institutions, including the World Bank and many of the main development banks.
Experiences of success and persistent challenges
Representatives from Tanzania, Nigeria, and Laos shared their experiences in the fight against hunger and poverty. The Minister of Agriculture of Tanzania, Hussein Mohamed Bashe, highlighted the need to redefine the concept of small farmers and offer them access to capital, technology, and markets. The Minister of Agriculture of Nigeria, Abu Baka Kiari, emphasized the importance of empowering young people and strengthening partnerships to ensure food security.
The event served as a call to action for world leaders, international organizations, and civil society. The Global Alliance seeks to mobilize resources, share knowledge, and implement effective programs to eradicate hunger and poverty by 2030. The next steps include the consolidation of an operational Support Mechanism, to be hosted by FAO, and the holding of periodic meetings of the Board of Champions to monitor progress and ensure the implementation of actions.
