Brazil's Lula seeks to bolster support for global alliance against hunger

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva unveiled a global alliance against hunger and poverty in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, an initiative he described as one of Brazil’s top priorities for its current presidency of the Group of 20 nations.

“Hunger is not something natural. Hunger is something that requires a political decision,” Lula said during a ministerial meeting to establish the global alliance. The leftist leader slammed the perpetuation of hunger across the world despite sufficient production.

Lula was seeking to bolster support ahead of the formal establishment of the alliance later this year, when world leaders will gather in Rio de Janeiro for the Nov. 18-19 summit of the leading 20 rich and developing nations.

Presidents of multilateral banks, delegations from abroad, Brazilian ministers as well as members of UN agencies attended the event, held in downtown Rio.

The alliance aims to implement a mechanism to mobilize funds and knowledge to support the expansion of policies and programs to combat inequality and poverty, according to a statement from Brazil’s G20 press office on Tuesday. It will be managed from a secretariat located at the Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters in Rome and Brasilia until 2030, with half of its costs covered by Brazil, Lula said in his speech.

World Bank President Ajay Banga expressed his support for the initiative during a bilateral conversation with Lula, according to a statement from Brazil's presidency which also emphasized that the initiative is Brazil's main proposal.

A former trade unionist who governed between 2003 and 2010, Lula returned to the presidency for a third, non-consecutive term in 2023 after thwarting the reelection bid of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula, who was born to a poor family in Brazil’s northeastern Pernambuco state, has long sought to tackle hunger both at home and abroad.

Food security issues and poverty are present across Brazil, from the Amazon to large urban centers, which means the country can bring expertise to the global discussion, said Marcelo Cândido da Silva, a history professor at the University of Sao Paulo and vice-coordinator of an international research project against hunger.

Brazil is also one of the world’s top exporters of food, sending abroad large quantities of corn, soja, coffee, sugar, beef and chicken.

Ending extreme poverty and hunger by 2030 are part of the UN’s sustainable development goals, adopted in 2015, but progress has been lagging.

Around 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in eleven people globally and one in five in Africa, according to the annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, released in Rio on Wednesday.

There was a sharp upturn in people facing moderate or severe food insecurity in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and since then numbers have remained stubbornly high despite progress in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a statement accompanying the launch of the report.

“A future free from hunger is possible if we can rally the resources and the political will needed to invest in proven long-term solutions,” said World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain in the statement.

Women and girls are particularly vulnerable to hunger and poverty, Brazil's first lady Rosângela da Silva - known as Janja - said during a side event spotlighting the issue at the end of the day.

As well as spotlighting hunger and poverty, Brazilian diplomats are using the presidency of the G20 to push for the reform of global governance institutions and advocate for a sustainable energy transition.

Those efforts are part of Lula’s bid to pitch his nation – and himself - as leader for the Global South.

The alliance against hunger and poverty “allows Brazil to position itself as a leader because it is bringing an issue dear to the world’s poorest countries to a forum where they are not represented, the G20,” said Eduardo Mello, a professor of international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank and university.

But there is a lack of political will because of ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, Mello said.