14 February 2013: The Special Joint Meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on food security and nutrition focused on efforts to address food insecurity and malnutrition and to eradicate hunger.

The event, which was held on 14 February 2013, at UN Headquarters in New York, US, took up the theme “Food Security and Nutrition: Scaling Up the Global Response.” It aimed to promote coordinated international action to address short- and long-term issues affecting food security and nutrition, including high food prices, and production, trade and consumption of food.

Addressing participants via video message, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that, “in a world of plenty, no one – not a single person – should go hungry.” Also speaking at the event, George Talbot, Chair of the Second Committee, highlighted that the problem of food insecurity is solvable and underlined the important roles that governments, the UN system, civil society and the private sector have in strengthening agriculture and addressing malnutrition. He noted the need to tackle short-term issues of volatile food prices, as well as more long-term issues of production, consumption and trade that require structural policy change.

ECOSOC President Néstor Osorio highlighted the pledges and promises to boost sustainable agriculture output and farming productivity made by world leaders during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20). Outlining some of the UN’s efforts in this respect, including the adoption by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) of the Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition, Osorio called on participants to build on this momentum, stressing that the challenge now is to transform the commitments that have been made into meaningful action.

Speaking via video link, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), José Graziano da Silva, said ending world hunger is one of the main challenges for the international community and called for the adoption of a specific time frame to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty.

In addition to these discussions at UN Headquarters, a two-week social media campaign took place before the event, in which the public submitted comments and questions via Facebook or Twitter. [UN Press Release] [Meeting Summary] [FAO Press Release] [Facebook Media Campaign Page]