The global ceremony marking World Food Day 2024 took place in Rome today (16/10/2024), with participants underlining the need for universal access to enough diverse, nutritious, affordable, and safe foods. The event came amid growing global tensions and conflicts and climate shocks, which are among factors contributing to the challenge of hundreds of millions of people worldwide facing hunger and billions being unable to afford a healthy diet.
Stressing that food is a basic human right, in his opening remarks, QU Dongyu, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), described this year’s World Food Day theme “Right to Foods for a Better Life and a Better Future” as a timely reminder that all people have the right to adequate foods. He called for a renewed “commitment to build more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable agrifood systems that can nourish the world.”
Qu said such systems needed to “support smallholder farmers, family farmers and small business people across the value chain who, in many countries, are fundamental to making nutritious, diverse foods available to all, and to preserving traditional food cultures.” With around 730 million people facing hunger and more than 2.8 billion people globally unable afford healthy diets, the Director-General warned: “There is no time to lose, we must take immediate action.”
In his video message, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “Something is very wrong with a world in which hunger and malnutrition are a fact of life for billions of children, women and men.” He said a zero-hunger world was possible, but “food systems need a massive transformation,” to become more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable.
The celebration also included the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM). This agreement involves work on FAO’s upcoming project of a Food and Agriculture Museum and Network, as part of a collaboration between FAO and host country, Italy.
Today’s celebrations will be followed on October 17 by the Junior World Food Day Assembly, an educational event aimed at encouraging youth action. Special guests will include food heroes such as the Harlem Globetrotters exhibition basketball team, chef Max Mariola, sustainable fashion activist Matteo Ward, as well as Climate and Social Entrepreneur Andile Mnguni, and Gender and Human Rights Youth Activist Shreyaa Venkat. Together with international food experts, they will tell inspiring stories and engage youth through quizzes, games, live music and dance performances.
The World Food Week events in Rome join hundreds of events around the world that are calling for action in over 50 languages.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security.
#WorldFoodDay is celebrated on 16 October every year to commemorate FAO’s founding on that day in 1945.