NEW YORK: The Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari participated in the Ministerial Meeting on ‘Global Food Security Call to Action’ in New York on Thursday.
In his statement, the foreign minister lauded the initiative to unite and mobilize the international community to respond to the urgent food security and nutrition challenges being faced by the world, which had been further aggravated by the recent geo-political developments.
The foreign minister said that Pakistan had the potential to not only meet its own food security needs but also that of the region and the world.
However, suffering from the vestiges of colonialism, turbulent history, constant quest to improve democracy, and caught in the cross-hairs of global geo-politics, Pakistan had been unable to unlock its agricultural and economic potential.
Bilawal Bhutto added that Pakistan faced existential threats of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and poverty, which resulted in food, water, and energy insecurity.
Welcoming the ‘Roadmap for Global Food Security’ presented at the Ministerial meeting, the foreign minister expressed the hope that the initiative would not only motivate countries with resources but also provide assurances to those who face challenges due to resource constraints.
The foreign minister said that despite limited resources, Pakistan had never shirked its responsibility in times of a humanitarian crisis. Pakistan was playing a leadership in advocating for humanitarian aid for the people of Afghanistan, and had provided humanitarian aid to Afghanistan as well as Ukraine.
The minister added that hunger has no nationality, poverty does not care for the skin colour, infections do not recognize borders, and the threat of climate catastrophe does not recognize ethnicities.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari underscored that wars aggravated the challenges of poverty and hunger, and created humanitarian crisis in their wake.
Emphasizing the importance of dialogue and diplomacy to resolve disputes peacefully, he stressed that the new generation looked up to the world leaders to unite to overcome these challenges, and to ensure that vaccine and healthcare are a right, and not a privilege.
The foreign minister said that his generation was looking towards the United Nations to deliver the peace it was promised, and the peace it deserves.
The Ministerial Meeting was convened by the United States to mobilize action around the key objectives of addressing and mitigating the impacts of the global food security crisis.
Chaired by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, it brought together a regionally diverse group of countries to evolve a shared vision for confronting global food security challenges.
