Parliamentarians of the World, Unite!

200 parliamentarians from 80 countries met at the headquarters of the Spanish Senate for two days seeking to redouble the efforts of the international community to realize the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2) of the UN 2030 agenda that seeks to achieve, within 12 years, a world free of hunger.

The meeting also addressed the problems that are causing overweight and obesity, which have been qualified by the WHO as a 21st century epidemic at global level, with devastating effects on people and threatening to raise the costs of public health budgets.

The Final Declaration of the Summit was approved by acclamation and contains a call to realize something that has never happened in the history of humanity: that no human being may suffer from hunger.

According to FAO figures, hunger in the world has increased, instead of decreasing: from 777 million people in 2015 to 821 million in 2017. In the meantime, overweight reaches 1.9 billion people, of which 672 million are obese.

The reasons for hunger are varied –above all, conflicts and wars, but also climate change that causes floods and droughts or economic crises-, and it is concentrating in some places in Africa, Southeast Asia and to a lesser extent in Latin America.

On the contrary, overweight and obesity are a global problem affecting developed as well as developing countries, reaching all parts of the planet. Within the OECD, it is the United States that leads the list, followed by Mexico and New Zealand.

Why a Parliamentary World Summit against Hunger and Malnutrition? Because it is in the hands of legislators to promote and pass laws designed to ensure the right to a healthy diet, by influencing governments and ensuring the resources that States allocate for these purposes.

It is also parliamentarians who can stop the growing supply of unhealthy foods with which large companies have flooded the world market, with their incomprehensible and often illegible labels for the consumer and misleading advertising aimed primarily at children.

Both the Director General of FAO, José Graziano da Silva, and the President of the Spanish Government warned that there are only 12 years left until 2030, recalling that all countries that compose the United Nations have committed to making the 17 SDGs a reality.

Achieving Zero Hunger, along with eliminating poverty, is a moral and ethical duty that will make us better human beings on a planet that produces more food than we consume, and where a third is thrown away.

*Fernando Ayala‘s article was published in Wall Street International. Go to Original.