Today (Thursday), the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights activist Tawakkol Karman made an open appeal to the G20 and global networks concerned with food to immediately intervene to rebuild food value chains throughout the year, especially in war and conflict areas, stressing that there couldn’t be there food security without peace.

Her remarks came in a speech she delivered at the high-level launch of the Food coalition, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“I open an appeal to the G20 and the Food and Agriculture Organization and to the global networks concerned with food and hunger reduction to intervene immediately to rebuild food value chains across the world, especially zones of war and conflict,” Tawakkol Karman said. 

 Karman emphasized that there cannot be there food security without peace, and vice versa.

She added: “Wars and crises cast heavy shadow over the life of tens of millions who can’t afford to buy food for themselves and their families. It is the duty of the G20 and the Food and Agriculture Organization to step forward to lead the global trends to confront food-related crises.”

The food coalition suggested by the Italian government and supervised by the FAO is aimed at dealing with the medium and long-term harmful effects of "Covid-19" on food systems and agricultural sectors.

The launch was participated by FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands and Carola Schotten, several ambassadors and ministers of agriculture and the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

The coalition is going to activate and mobilize resources and technical expertise for unified global action against "COVID-19", with the aim of helping countries get back on track to achieve the sustainable development goal of ending hunger by 2030.

The coalition will also support the implementation of the FAO response and recovery program in the context of "Covid-19". 

In 2019, an initiative called Hand-in-Hand was also launched to accelerate agricultural transformation and sustainable rural development to eradicate poverty (SDG1) and end hunger and all forms of malnutrition (SDG 2).