ROME – This morning at the Farnesina, Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Antonio Tajani, met with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed.
The Deputy Prime Minister and the Deputy Secretary-General agreed to hold in Rome (on 24-26 July 2023) the international summit following up on the Food Systems Summit, held in New York in 2021, the pre-summit of which was held in Rome in the summer of 2021. The summit will be attended by Heads of State and Government and Ministers from the 193 UN Member States.
The “UN Food Systems Stocktaking Moment” will be hosted by Italy in cooperation with the agencies of Rome’s agri-food hub (FAO, IFAD, WFP), the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub and the wider UN system. The aim is to provide countries with an opportunity to report on their national progress since the 2021 Summit and on their contributions to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda, in a global context that has changed profoundly as compared to two years ago.
During the meeting, the Italian Deputy Prime Minister also underlined that UN-centred multilateralism is a cornerstone of Italy’s foreign policy and confirmed Italy’s support for the UN vision outlined in the report by Secretary-General Guterres “Our Common Agenda”.
In highlighting Italy’s prominent role in the UN scene, Tajani mentioned that Italy hosts several UN agencies (in particular Rome’s Agri-Food Hub, making the city the third most important UN “hub” in the world after New York and Geneva), is the seventh largest contributor to the UN budget and is the western country that provides the largest number of Blue Helmets.
The meeting was also an opportunity to discuss the main international crises, including those affecting Afghanistan and the global effects of the war in Ukraine (energy crisis, financial instability and, above all, food security).
The Deputy Prime Minister and the Deputy Secretary-General focused in particular on the African crises (among them, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa) and on the need for a global commitment for the sustainable development of the continent, also through innovative investments in the agri-food chain and in the training of the young African generations. Italy, said Tajani, is ready to play its part immediately.
In all cases, it was agreed that crises should be resolved multilaterally and that humanitarian assistance should be guaranteed for the populations affected by emergency crises.
