President of the General Assembly,
Thank you for organising this dialogue on an extremely important subject. One which is also a high priority for my government.
Thank you also to the panellists for your insightful comments.
Hunger is on the rise.
Globally, every fifth child under the age of five is stunted due to malnutrition.
Small-scale farmers are finding the struggle to secure a livelihood harder by the day.
More than 820 million people will go to bed hungry tonight.
This is unacceptable.
It is an issue which affects almost every part of society.
Nutritious food is the basis for good health.
And lack of food hampers learning in school.
To put it simply: Without food – there is no development.
Together we need to take immediate action to curb hunger through evidence-based policy making.
Norway is stepping up our own efforts.
We have launched an Action plan for sustainable food systems in our foreign and development policy.
The plan has four key areas:
- Food production,
- Value creation and markets,
- Nutrition and diet, and
- Politics and governance
To underpin this plan, we are also intensifying our support to climate adaptation and increased food production strategies.
We will also launch a new institutional partnership programme in the area of agriculture. With the aim of knowledge sharing, and the transfer of competencies between institutions in Norway and our partner countries. We hope this will be a contribution to the global efforts on this important topic.
As all in this room know: Food systems have the potential to be part of the solution to some of our most pressing global challenges.
From reducing inequalities and health problems, to addressing climate change, and biodiversity loss.
And we welcome this opportunity for dialogue on solutions here today.
Thank you.