Statement at the Ministerial Conference Uniting for Global Food Security

Thank you for your question, Carin.

Yes, that is right. Norway has put food security at the top of our development agenda. We increased our funding to agriculture and food security at the beginning of the year, and recently Parliament confirmed an additional increase given the ongoing crises. This year we will allocate more than 300 million dollars in grants to food security initiatives alone.

If the global community does not act swiftly, the current food price crisis will develop into a food availability and food supply crisis.

I applaud Germany’s leadership in this initiative. Let me stress the need to work in parallel on short-term and long-term transformation.

The Alliance needs to prioritise several parallel tracks:

First, in the short term we need to increase spending on humanitarian assistance and established social protection mechanisms.

Second, in the medium and long term we need to increase local food production in the Global South, creating local and regional value chains and robust regional food systems.

Smallscale producers must secured access to seeds, fertilizers, and technology.   

Third, we need to continue our support for the transformation to sustainable food systems.

I urge the G7 to take lead on Sunday. This Alliance will only succeed with clear objectives. It must decide on and commit to a select number of tracks.

With strong leadership, Norway and other actors will follow up the G7 proposals for concrete and direct global action for food security.