G20 Development Working Group Submissions
FOOD SECURITY³
Food security remains a critical issue for the
international community. In 2012, approximately
868 million people in the world still went
undernourished. With world population estimated to
reach 9.6 billion by 2050, global food production
will have to grow by at least 50-70% to reinforce
global food security and improve access to and
availability of safe and nutritious food for the most
vulnerable particularly women and children in
developing countries. To meet this challenge and
in support of the Rome Principles on Food Security
the G20 committed to actions to enhance global
policy coherence and coordination as part of the
2010 MYAP on Development (Action 1) and to
mitigate risks posed to sustainable agricultural
productivity growth, access to food, nutrition and
crisis prevention (Action 2).
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To enhance policy coherence and coordination
under Action 1, several important deliverables were
launched including the "AgResults" Initiative
result-based mechanism for agricultural innovation
and the Tropical Agriculture Platform. The existing
G20 commitments were reviewed and reported
during the French Presidency, and the Global
Strategic Framework aiming for broader policy
coherence for food security was elaborated and
endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security
(CFS) in 2012. To elaborate on the effort, a report
on "Sustainable agricultural productivity growth and
bridging the gap for Small Family Farmers" has been
produced with a set of recommendations made to
G20. Additional work could be envisaged to follow
up on some of these commitments.
In order to mitigate risks under Action 2, the G20's
several important deliverables including the Principles
for Responsible Agricultural Investment (PRAI) -
a code of conduct for responsible food reserve
management and the Platform for Agricultural
Risk Management (PARM) have been encouraged.
G20 has supported the ECOWAS initiative to set up
targeted regional emergency food reserve systems
and also requested international organizations (IOs)
to submit a report on price volatility with a set of
3 Since 2010, France, Brazil, Canada and Japan have
co-facilitated work under the Food Security Pillar, with the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), IFAD, IMF, OECD,
UNCTAD, the WFP, WB and WTO being major contributors.
Food Security Success Story
With input and advice from IOs, the G20 has promoted
a range of actions and policies to mitigate the impacts of food
price volatility on LICs.
The Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture
adopted by the G20 ministers of agriculture in June 2011 called
for the development of a proposal for a cost-effective system of
small strategically positioned emergency food reserves. With
encouragement from the G20 Cannes Summit Communique
in November 2011, the Economic Community of Western
African States (ECOWAS) led the development of a targeted
regional humanitarian food reserve system as a pilot project.
Commissioners for Agriculture from ECOWAS and the Western
African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) reported on
their progress in developing the emergency reserve system at
DWG meetings in 2012 and 2013. The ECOWAS pilot project
was incorporated into the Global Initiative for Resilience in Sahel
and Western Africa (AGIR), launched in December 2012. AGIR
is a joint effort made by Sahel and Western African and partner
countries, and regional and international organizations, with
financial support provided, in particular, by the European Union.
Further steps towards operationalization of the emergency
humanitarian food reserve system continued in 2013.
On the policy front, the G20 agreed to remove food
export restrictions or extraordinary taxes on food purchased
for non-commercial humanitarian purposes by the World Food
Program and not to impose them in the future. This unprecedented
policy commitment will help ensure the availability of humanitarian
food supplies even in times of extraordinary market circumstances.
recommendations for developing a joint action plan
on water, food and agriculture. The implementation
of these recommendations led to such initiatives as
the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS)
and Rapid Response Forum (RRF).
In-Depth Assessment: AgResults
In the light of Toronto Summit commitments, where
leaders pledged to explore innovative results-
based mechanisms to harness the private sector
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