As World Food Systems Summit Convenes, Why Are Food Producers Still Going Hungry?

    BERLIN, GERMANY September 15, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Online Event on Thursday 16 September 2021, 14:00 to 17:00 Central European Time (UTC+2)

Just days ahead of the 2021 World Food Systems Summit – a high-level gathering of world leaders that the UN Secretary-General hopes will spur a transformation of our food systems – the facts remain stark:
• In 2020, almost 10 percent of the world's population - 768 million people – suffered from hunger. This roughly corresponds to the number of global citizens experiencing extreme poverty (living on less than 1.90 US dollars a day).
• The World Bank estimates that COVID-19 has pushed nearly 100 million additional people into poverty, a 12 per cent increase year-on-year in 2019 and 2020.
• According to the 2019 IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land, the climate crisis is leading to significantly higher temperatures over land compounding resource degradation and risks to livelihoods – land surface air temperature has risen nearly twice as much as the global average temperature
• About one billion people live in countries whose public structures cannot cope with the projected rise in ecological crises by 2050.
• With more than 56 percent of the global population living in cities in 2020, and in the absence of adequate social protection measures, low-income urban populations are increasingly vulnerable to hunger.
• Violent conflict is a major cause of malnutrition worldwide. In 2019, conflicts triggered six of the ten worst food crises. And all countries experiencing famine in 2020 were affected by violent conflict.

"Land-Food-Climate: Climate Resilience through the Right to Food" is the first event of a two-part online webinar series that addresses rights issues around the global governance of food and climate change. It takes place on 16 September 2021, at 14:00 to 17:00 Central European Time (UTC+2).

With a follow up event convening on 19 October, on the eve of the UN Climate Change Conference, the aim of this dialogue process is to bring a strong mix of academic, policy and practitioners from Africa and Europe to unpack the current trends, examine why proposed solutions have not worked and what needs to happen to achieve true transformation. At the heart of the discussions will be a frank exchange on how international partnerships between African and European actors can truly make a difference for those most vulnerable to both hunger and climate change, while also protecting Africa's rich biodiversity.

The discussions aim to focus attention on small-scale and nature-based solutions for food production practices in both rural and urban settings. They underscore the importance of a rights-based perspective in bridging the gap between the Sustainable Development Goals and other global aspirations, and the daily reality of people on the ground.

The event series is convened by Berlin-based Robert Bosch Stiftung and TMG Research, in collaboration with the Future Africa Initiative at the University of Pretoria and the African Research Universities Alliance Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Food Systems (ARUA-SFS).

TMG Research is an international not-for-profit think tank headquartered in Berlin, Germany, with an African regional office in Nairobi, Kenya. We undertake participatory research and experimentation at the local level to understand how to support sustainable transitions in the agrifood, climate, and natural resource management sectors. In this way, we seek to contribute to higher-level dialogues and policy processes that foster rights-based and sustainable governance systems. TMG contributes to diverse networks, including, Think Sustainable Europe, the Global Landscapes Forum, the Partnership for Regional Ocean Governance, and the SDG Land Momentum Group.

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