Harness Youth Potential to End Hunger, FAO Urges Govts

The Food and Agriculture Organisation, has called for an increased effort to harness the potential of youths in view of immense challenges facing them, to end hunger.

This, the Rome-based organisation said was imperative to scale up youth-focused initiatives to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) 2.

The FAO Director-General, Qu Dongyu, stated this was the main message at a panel session on food security in Africa at the World Youth Forum.

Qu, highlighted the challenges young people in Africa and Middle East were grappling with - rising hunger and malnutrition, uptake of increasingly unhealthy diets, lack of stable jobs and income opportunities, climate change, water scarcity, and in some countries, conflict.

“But we must not feel discouraged by these challenges. There are more solutions than challenges. We need the energy and potential of young people to achieve rural transformation, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2.

“Failing to achieve SDG 2 places reaching all SDGs at risk,” he stressed.

Making the most of innovation, digital technology, investments, encouraging youth’s greater appreciation of sustainable and healthy food systems and enhanced policies are some of the solutions mentioned by the FAO Director-General.

To this end, Qu also presented FAO’s recently announced Hand-in-Hand initiative, which seeks to match donors and recipients in a more targeted way to assist the most vulnerable people and help to achieve the SDGs.