World Leaders Renew Pledge To Fight Food Insecurity At Latest G7 Summit
Alongside the seven member countries, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida included eight additional mid-power, growing global forces at the 2023 G7 Summit. The move communicated the imperative to strengthen international bonds and encourage commitment to solving the biggest existential problems facing the world: Climate change, Russia's war in Ukraine, de-risking China's rise, and global hunger.
In 2022, the G7, the G20, and the UN created the Roadmap for Global Food Security — endorsed by over 100 countries — as a part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to reduce poverty, respond to the climate crisis, and address debt vulnerabilities in low and middle-income countries. At the 2022 G7, leaders committed $14 billion to global food security but mobilized $14.9 billion. The 2023 G7 set forth more goals in the Hiroshima Action Statement for Resilient Global Food Security, like providing immediate assistance to crisis areas, preventing and preparing for future crises, and enabling efficient and inclusive food systems.
The Action Statement calls for leading nations to find more funding to provide immediate assistance to areas like the Horn of Africa, which experienced its worst drought in 40 years, with 37 million people facing catastrophic food insecurity. It calls to enhance early warning models, market transparency of fertilizer and vegetable oils, school meal program funding, support of job-generating agricultural policies, and gender equality in food systems that disproportionately affect women. And considering the crisis will only get worse, it mandates better global access to food reserves in countries with surpluses.
High stakes in a highly connected world
The United Nations identifies 58 nations — a whopping 30% of the world — as food crisis countries. The World Food Programme estimates that in 2023, more than 345 million face high levels of food insecurity, a number double that of 2020, and 900,000 people worldwide are facing catastrophic hunger or are one step away from famine — 10 times the number from five years ago. Beyond being a devastating humanitarian crisis, global hunger and resource shortages hold a high potential to destabilize global peace and security.
These are the problems that the G7 Summit aimed to solve. As climate change intensifies, growing seasons are destabilized; from Filipino ube farmers to indigenous wild rice harvesters in Minnesota to climate hazard-stricken countries like Bangladesh, Guatemala, and island nations like Fiji. War in Ukraine has created food instability both for Ukrainians and countries reliant on its grain exports, and the war's resulting supply chain disruptions and fuel crisis directly correlate to a farming crisis around the world. Economic instability among superpowers has rippling effects, like the cost of living crisis in the U.K. and the looming U.S. default, which will send the global economy into a tailspin. Increased instability can potentially escalate refugee migration, in turn creating more conflict, food insecurity, and economic burden. Economic instability, conflict, and climate change create a perfect storm of escalating hunger and malnutrition, and without global cooperation and action on each piece of that puzzle, it will likely only continue to worsen.