Preventing Famine in 2021 | First meeting for High-Level Task Force on Preventing Famine
Format
First meeting for High-Level Task Force on Preventing Famine
With 30 million people facing famine, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has established a High-Level Task Force(HLTF) on Preventing Famine to coordinate attention on famine prevention and mobilize support to affected countries. In the first meeting (see notes) of the Task Force, led by Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock and including representatives from WFP and FAO, stated its intention to focus efforts on preventing famine in the countries at highest risk of famine in 2021 if no action is taken: Yemen, South Sudan, and Nigeria (North-East), and potentially Burkina Faso.
U.N.: With 30 Million Facing Famine, Secretary-General Announces Prevention Task Force, Warns Security Council Against Cutting Aid as Solution to Economic Woes
Targeted News Service
March 11, 2021, by Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres to the
Thank you for this opportunity to brief you on the links between conflict and hunger an urgent and important issue. Today, I have one simple message: If you don t feed people, you feed conflict. Conflict drives hunger and famine, and hunger and famine drive conflict.
When a country or region is gripped by conflict and hunger, they become mutually reinforcing. They cannot be resolved separately. Hunger and poverty combine with inequality, climate shocks, sectarian and ethnic tensions and grievances over land and resources, to spark and drive conflict.
Friday, 12 March 2021, 7:09 pm
Conflict drives hunger, and when that turns to
famine, that then drives conflict, the UN chief told the
Security Council on Thursday, adding that “if you don’t
feed people, you feed conflict”.
“When a
country or region is gripped by conflict and hunger, they
become mutually reinforcing…[and] cannot be resolved
separately”, Secretary-General António
Guterres said via videoconference to the meeting which
focused on how conflict and food security are
interlinked.
And when hunger meets inequality, climate
shocks, sectarian and ethnic tensions, together with
grievances over resources, they then “spark and drive
conflict”.
At the same time, conflict forces people
With 30 Million Facing Famine, Secretary-General Announces Prevention Task Force, Warns Security Council Against Cutting Aid as Solution to Economic Woes
Format
SG/SM/20619
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the Security Council debate on conflict and food security, held today:
Thank you for this opportunity to brief you on the links between conflict and hunger an urgent and important issue. Today, I have one simple message: If you don’t feed people, you feed conflict. Conflict drives hunger and famine, and hunger and famine drive conflict.
When a country or region is gripped by conflict and hunger, they become mutually reinforcing. They cannot be resolved separately. Hunger and poverty combine with inequality, climate shocks, sectarian and ethnic tensions and grievances over land and resources, to spark and drive conflict.