Professor Corinna Hawkes speaks at the T20 Summit, Indonesia, on the opportunities and challenges facing Global Food Systems today and in the future.

By Mr Shamim Quadir (Senior Communications Officer), Published

G20 Summit

The G20 is a strategic multilateral platform connecting the world’s major developed and emerging economies. It holds a strategic role in securing future global economic growth and prosperity.

The 17th G20 Heads of State and Government Summit will take place between the 7th and 8th of November 2022, in Bali, Indonesia.

The Summit will be the pinnacle of the G20 process and intense work carried out within the Ministerial Meetings, Working Groups, and Engagement Groups throughout the year.

T20 Summit

The T20 Summit provides evidence to the G20 and recommendations for actions it should take. 

Held last week in Bali, on the 1st and 2nd September, the summit brought together world-leading thinkers, policy makers, and experts to discuss the latest research-based policy recommendations and matters of global importance.

Professor Corinna Hawkes, Director of the Centre for Food Policy, spoke on the first day of the conference at Parallel Session 1A: Building The Future of Global Food Systems: Opportunities and Challenges.

She stressed the importance of how the G20 can initiate global cooperation to build a more resilient food system, which includes nutrition and health. Professor Hawkes said in part:

The issue at hand is one of a short term, or an immediate problem of crisis caused by conflict, climate change, economic turbulence, Covid, etc. But if we’re going to address the issues we face now, we don’t just need to solve the consequences of this problem, but the causes of the problem, and I’d like to pick up on the wise words of Dr Torero in highlighting how those causes are often  about inequalities.

“The second point I’d like to make is that when we’re thinking about how to build a more resilient food system, we need to remember that the purpose, the ultimate purpose, of the food system is to produce food to nourish people.  It isn’t just to produce food to enable people to survive, but enable people to flourish. To support human nutrition, health and development. So the ultimate sign of a resilient food system is that during all times, including during crisis, is that people are not just fed, but they are fed well and that they are able to thrive on the food that they eat. I think that’s absolutely not the case now.”

A recording of Professor Hawkes' full talk (from 41:11 - 49:17) can be viewed on YouTube below:

Professor Corinna Hawkes discusses how to build resilient Global Food Systems for the future.

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