The FSC 53 warns that the SDO “Zero Hunger” will not be achieved before 2030

The world remains far away from the number two Sustainable Development Objective, “Zero Hunger”. This is the main warning that has presided over the opening of the 53rd session of the Committee on Global Food Security (FSC53), celebrated from the 20th to the 24th October in the FAO headquarters, in Rome. In spite of the years of commitments and promises, the new SOFO 2025 report - The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World - confirms that close to 630 million people suffer from chronic hunger. This is a small reduction of global hunger, from 8.7 to 8.2 of the global population. However, despite these numbers, more than 23,000 million people do not have regular access to adequate nutrition. This establishes a worrying tendency. The cost of a healthy diet has increased by more than 30% since 2020. Armed conflicts, the climate crisis and economic stagnation have overflown the most vulnerable food systems. 

As the FAO Deputy General Director, Beth Bechdol, summarised it: “Without a radical change in the way we produce, distribute and consume food, the world will not reach the SDO 2. Hunger is not unavoidable: it is a political priority issue”. 

The FSC is the intergovernmental reference space on food security within the United Nations system. In the 53rd session, ministers, ONU agencies, organisations such as ORU Fogar, civil and private representatives,  have reunited. This year’s slogan, Making a Difference in Food Security and Nutrition, wanted to set the accent on the necessity of moving from declarations to action. The debate revolved around four key axes: urban and periurban food systems, responsible financing, resilience against crisis and the importance of maintaining the political pressure on nutrition after 2030. Everything with a clear objective: finding concrete ways of accelerating the transformation of food systems in a global stagnation era. 

One of the most highlightable news from this edition has been the growing importance of cities and regions. The recommendations document on food systems recognises that food policies can’t be limited to the national level anymore. For the first time, the FSC talks specifically about multilevel governance, claiming a coordination between national, regional and local governments to guarantee food policy coherence. The recommendations agree to support territorial strategies that connect rural production, regional distribution and urban consumption, as well as to strengthen urban nourishing plans with proximity, sustainability and public health criteria. This vision coincides with what many regions in the world - from Europe to Latin America, going through Africa - have already started practicing: local markets, school nutrition programs, short market chains and regional policies for a healthy diet. “The future of nutrition is not written only in Ministries but also in cities and territories”, highlighted the European Committee for the Regions Representative in one of the sessions. 

The debate on the financing of sustainable food systems was also central. The FSC 53 underlined that the fight against hunger can’t be separated from the debate on capital: where it is invested, with what criteria and with what outcome. Recommendations insist that agriculture and food financing must prioritise nutrition, social justice and climate action, not only economic benefit. One of the highlights is the call to mobilise regional development banks and subnational finance mechanisms. Local and regional governments, it is confirmed, can be effective platforms to guide resources towards sustainable agri-food projects, small producers or circular economy initiatives. 

The last years have demonstrated that food crises are not isolated phenomena, but recurrent expressions of structural vulnerabilities. The FSC 53, in its debate on food resilience, recognised that the proposal shall go further than emergency aid. It was proposed to strengthen territorial capacities to anticipate and counter the - climate, economic or political - hits, and reduce the external dependence that increases the fragility of food systems. The resolutions on resilience lead to, empower regional and local governments so that they develop their own strategies, adapted to their own context. In zones affected by conflict or climate change, management proximity may be the difference between resisting or collapsing. 

ORU Fogar has been present in the FSC 53 represented by its General Secretary, Carles Llorens, who had several meetings of a technical capacity to establish cooperation lines with the FAO and with other participant organisations. During the meetings, he was specially focused on the possibilities of continuing working with the Sahel and Western Africa regions on food security and rural poverty. In one of these meetings, Corinna Hawkes, the director of the Agroalimental and Food Security Systems Division, and Llorens identified new opportunities that may use FAO dynamics for women, youth and rural world promotion, three areas that form part of the own recommendations adopted in this session. 

The participation of ORU Fogar has reinforced the idea that regions  can be strategic agents in food transformation, a message that is becoming very popular among the United Nations system. In the meeting with the FSC President, Ambassador Nosipho Nausca-Jean Jezile, assured the ORU Fogar Secretary General that the Committee’s recommendations place territories and regions in the centre of the solution. 

One of the most debated questions was, in any case, how to guarantee that the FSC recommendations do not remain unused. The Committee has created a new action plant to strengthen the territorial application of policies, with a multilevel check. This would include regional cooperation platforms, where subnational regions, city webs and international organisations could share experiences and good practices. Organisations such as ORU Fogar may have a key role in this process, easing the dialogue between territories and the United Nations system. 

In spite of the desolate panorama that the SOFI 2025 portraits, the FSC 53 has also been a space of pragmatic optimism. There is a generalised consensus on the idea that the solutions are already on the table, but some new alliances and a coherent governmental action are still needed. Food transformation can’t wait any longer. As it was summarised by one of the speakers in the final session: “The future of food security is being won in the territory. Only if communities, regions and cities are empowered we could reverse hunger and guarantee the right to nourishment for everyone”.