Statement delivered on October 16, 2017 by Ambassador Inigo Lambertini, Deputy Permanent Representative of Italy to the United Nations, at the Event on “Change the future of Migration: Invest in food security and rural development” on the occasion of World Food Day —
President of the General Assembly,
Excellencies,
Ms. Mucavi (FAO),
Mr El Nour (OIM),
Distinguished delegates,
I am pleased to be here today to commend FAO’s choice of the theme for the 2017 World Food Day, which is dedicated to the connections between food insecurity and migration, two critical issue on which Italy is fully engaged. The 2018 Global Migration Group is being co-chaired by FAO and OIM, a fact whose importance we underline.
The awareness of public opinion and of policy-makers to this nexus is growing, also thanks to World Food Day, helping to mobilize adequate political support for increased investment into food security.
World Food Day is also a good occasion to advocate for strengthened support of the Elmau, Ise-Shima and Taormina G7 decisions on food security, especially since, as the most recent report on “the state of food security in the world” presented last month by FAO, IFAD, WFP UNICEF and WHO makes clear, food insecurity appears to be on the rise again.
In one very recent demonstration of that increase and its effects, last week, in just 36 hours and 6 rescue operations, more than 240 minors reached Italy, 170 of them unaccompanied by an adult. We cannot watch with indifference to this tragedy.
We cannot afford to watching people migrate because of food insecurity, two years into Agenda 2030. That Agenda is a call to act together and put in place concrete measures that will support sustainable and inclusive development, in particular rural development, in countries of origin.
We take the nexus between food insecurity and migration very seriously, and are already partnering with FAO and the Ministries of Agriculture of Tunisia and Ethiopia to mitigate distress migration for rural youth through productive employment and entrepreneurial opportunities in agriculture.
Indeed, food insecurity is, together with conflict and climate change, one of the root causes of forced migrations, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Funding rural and agricultural sustainable development means investing in resilience, stability and peace.
And nobody can achieve it alone: we need closer cooperation.
For Italy, changing the future of migration means enhancing our already close cooperation with African countries. It also means more partnerships to legally manage migration; more protection to defend the rights of the most vulnerable people; and more prosperity, for countries for origin and for all of us.
Thank you.
