Washington DC, The Indonesia Post – Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Agriculture of G20 member countries through the first G20 Joint Finance and Agriculture Ministers (JFAMM) Meeting in Washington DC, United States, expressed readiness to mitigate the risk of food insecurity.
“We provide commitment as an important foundation for strengthening coordination and responding to challenges in food security,” said Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati at a press conference in Washington DC, USA, Tuesday local time.
She said Indonesia’s G20 Presidency had reaffirmed its commitment to use all appropriate policy tools to address economic and financial challenges, including the risk of food insecurity.
Therefore, through the JFAMM, the G20 is ready to take rapid collective action on food security and nutrition, including by cooperating with various other initiatives.
In addition, the G20 will continue to take rapid joint steps in dealing with food and nutrition security issues, including cooperating with other initiatives.
Furthermore, the G20 supports enhanced coordination to ensure a harmonized global response to food insecurity and cooperation with other multilateral initiatives.
The meeting also agreed to delegate tasks to FAO and the World Bank in mapping the global policy response to food insecurity, through input from technical experts and other relevant international organizations to report at the 2023 IMF-WB Spring Meeting.
The momentum for handling food security will also continue to be built ahead of the G20 Summit in November 2022. The Forum will also continue to maintain solidarity to address important issues and minimize spillover effects, accompanied by a spirit of consensus, collaboration and cooperation.
Various initiatives in overcoming global food security problems resulting from Indonesia’s G20 Presidency will continue to be carried out until the next Presidency in 2023 under the leadership of India.
Previously, the issue of food security had become a concern of the G20 forum through the High-Level Seminar: Strengthening Global Collaboration for Tackling Food Insecurity and the third Meeting of the Minister of Finance and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) in July 2022.
Meanwhile, several global initiatives have been launched by regional, international organizations, and even independently by several countries to deal with food security problems.
These include the UN Global Crisis Response Group (GCRG), the G7 Global Alliance for Food Security (GAFS), the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), the International Finance Institutions Action Plan, and the Global Development Initiative.
In addition, the World Bank has committed to provide USD 30 million in new or existing funding for projects related to food security and nutrition over the next several years.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also provides developments on food market conditions, including through the G20 Agricultural Market Information System.
Minister of Agriculture Syahrul Yasin Limpo conveyed that the G20 Presidency of Indonesia implemented a strategy to increase production capacity in order to stabilize food prices, suppress inflation, reduce imports and increase food exports.
This strategy is applied to several strategic food commodities with operational activities to overcome problems that arise in the system
food agribusiness, in order to achieve efficiency and increase competitiveness.
“Today’s first JFAMM meeting forms the basis for the close coordination needed in the future to determine the best way to deal with food security challenges,” he said. (mhn/bbs)
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