In the text, read on Monday during the event by Monsignor Fernando Chica, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to FAO, the Supreme Pontiff expressed that “decisive and competent action must be unavoidably taken to eradicate the scourge of hunger in the world, which is advancing in places rather than regressing.”
The Pope stated, “millions of people continue to suffer from poverty and malnutrition in the world due to armed conflicts, as well as climate change and the resulting natural disasters.”
He also referred to “political, economic and military tensions on a planetary scale,” which he said “weaken efforts to guarantee a better condition of life for people based on their intrinsic dignity.”
It is worth repeating again and again: poverty, inequalities, lack of access to basic resources such as food, drinking water, sanitation, education, housing, being a serious obstacle to human dignity,” the Bishop of Rome emphasized.
The Bishop further indicated that in the opinion of many experts “the goal of Zero Hunger will not be achieved in the term set by the international community,” but ‘the inability to fulfill common responsibilities should not lead us to turn the initial intentions into new revised programs.”
“We must be very careful and respectful of local communities, cultural diversity and traditional specificities, which cannot be altered or destroyed in the name of a myopic idea of progress that, in reality, could become synonymous with ideological colonization’, he reflected.
“Today’s huge challenges require a holistic and multilateral approach’ Francis stressed, and considered that “FAO and the other international agencies will only be able to fulfill their term and coordinate preventive and incisive measures for everyone’s sake, especially the poorest, thanks to a loyal synergy.”
Such synergy, the Pope added, must be “designed in a consensual manner and with high hopes on the part of all the actors concerned “for which governments, businesses, academia, international institutions, civil society and individuals must make a joint effort.”
ef/omr/mem/ort
