Belarus’ representative called on FAO to minimise the consequences of irresponsible actions of certain countries
The statistics cited by all UN agencies show that the situation with hunger in the world is only getting worse. There are no reasons for optimism. Today, more than ever, it is necessary to focus all efforts on honestly identifying all factors influencing the spread of hunger and finding effective ways to minimise their impact – as stated by Representative of Belarus Kirill Petrovsky at the 43rd session of the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
“100 percent of the FAO bodies’ activities should be devoted to substantive discussion on these issues. Meanwhile, in fact, FAO has been stricken with disease for more than a year now: the disease of politicisation, the disease of the ambitions of a group of countries, the disease of their desire for world domination at any cost. The FAO Secretariat is doing everything in its power to keep the organisation neutral and efficient, but, unfortunately, not everything is in its power,” the Belarusian representative stressed.
According to him, the FAO Council, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and other bodies that are primarily responsible for formulating policy in the fight against hunger are forced to spend most of their time listening to the same word for word accusations of a group of states read from a piece of paper, so far sincerely believing in their superiority over the rest of the world, and the discussion about one of the current conflicts that inevitably unfolds after these accusations.
He urged these countries to think, “Two-thirds of the CFS members and more than half of the FAO Council members do not support your aspirations and ideas. This is clearly illustrated by the results of all voting. Discuss politics in the Security Council and at sessions of the UN General Assembly. Let FAO be FAO.”
Addressing the same countries, Kirill Petrovsky underlined, “Have the courage to admit your mistakes. Sanctions have been imposed on fertilisers: do not mislead the whole world by saying that there are no such sanctions. We are not going to discuss in FAO why you introduced them. These are topics to be discussed at other platforms. But we need a real picture of what is happening in order to understand how to minimise the consequences of your irresponsible actions, how to minimise the consequences not for fertiliser and food producers, but for developing countries that cannot afford to buy either. There are already almost a billion starving people who live neither in your countries, nor in the countries against which you have imposed these sanctions, but in completely third states that have nothing to do with your conflicts. In a word, I want to call on all of us to responsible behaviour, to dialogue, to the search for solutions not where it is convenient, but where it is most needed. We must reverse the existing sad trends and Belarus – as a producer of food and fertilisers, an honest and conscientious subject of international relations – is ready to continue to do everything possible for this!”
Reference. FAO is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to combat hunger. Its goal is to ensure food security for all and ensure that the population has regular access to high quality food. With 195 members (194 countries and the European Union), FAO works in more than 130 countries worldwide.
