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FAO/ HUMANITARIAN CRISES AND HUNGER DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL INTERVIEW

The growing number of people impacted by pressing humanitarian crises in conflict-affected places like Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan, or by climate extremes, requires urgent and collective action, said Beth Bechdol, Deputy Director-General at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), ahead of her momentous intervention at the UN Security Council on February 13 on the escalation of acute hunger worldwide.

Language English

Country Italy

Duration 6m9s

Edit Version International

Video Type Video News Release (VNR)

Date 02/11/2024

File size 812.49 MB

Unique ID UF15LEW

NO RESTRICTIONS

Production details and shotlist

UNFAO Source FAO Video

Shotlist STORY: FAO/ HUMANITARIAN CRISES AND HUNGER DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL INTERVIEW
TRT: 06’09’’
SOURCE: FAO
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT FAO ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/NAT
DATELINE: ROME, ITALY 11 FEBRUARY 2024 / RECENT

SHOTLIST:

DATELINE: 15 SEPTEMBER 2023, ROME, ITALY

1. Drone shot, headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
2. Wide shot, a board displaying FAO logo

08 FEBRUARY 2024, ROME, ITALY

3. SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “There are really almost unprecedented levels of acute food insecurity, hunger and near famine-like conditions in Gaza. It's really an almost unprecedented situation that we find ourselves in. We have categories for how we measure acute food insecurity, the IPC phase classifications, and in IPC 3, 4 and 5, which takes us from emergency to crisis to catastrophe, all 2.2 million people in Gaza are in those categories. And again, we've never seen that before.”

15 SEPTEMBER 2023, ROME, ITALY

4. Wide shot, FAO headquarters

08 FEBRUARY 2024, ROME, ITALY

5. SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “We estimate that there's about $40 billion worth of damage to the Ukrainian agricultural system infrastructure, and that comes in the shape of, and form of, so many different damages. That's damage to infrastructure, like grain silos, laboratories, ports. It's damage to farms themselves, whether it's contamination and destruction of land, destruction of livestock, damaged equipment, whether that's tractors or other kinds of machinery that's so critically needed. And obviously, we also saw so many of the farmers themselves actually move into military service.”

15 SEPTEMBER 2023, ROME, ITALY

6. Wide shot, a board displaying FAO logo

08 FEBRUARY 2024, ROME, ITALY

7. SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “We are seeing nearly, there too, half of the population in acute food insecurity settings, nearly 18 million people who are struggling. There has been a tremendous loss of life. Many people killed, millions of people killed in the Sudan conflict.”

15 SEPTEMBER 2023, ROME, ITALY

8. Wide shot, FAO headquarters

08 FEBRUARY 2024, ROME, ITALY

9. SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “Any one of those types of meteorological scenarios gives us an opportunity, with better forecasting that is coming into place, to be able to help farmers better plan for water storage, water harvesting, water management. We can help them [farmers] in identifying ways that they can be better prepared in terms of planting their crops or taking care of their livestock. The Dry Corridor is really important to us, because what we're seeing there is, in that region, a very concerning amount of migration.”

15 SEPTEMBER 2023, ROME, ITALY

10. Wide shot, FAO logo

08 FEBRUARY 2024, ROME, ITALY

11. SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “Conflicts go on for years, climate crises, climate issues become protracted eight years, ten years, droughts, floods that continue to come. So we have to carefully, all of us, find new ways to think about the right balance, the right approach to including support for farmers, support for pastoralists, support for fishermen and women into these responses, because agriculture is what really can be, I think, a part of the longer term solution to not only working on hunger-related issues, but as we know, ultimately gets to the place where you're really trying to build resilience back into the economies, into the lives, into the circumstances that are a result of all of these very difficult situations.”

15 SEPTEMBER 2023, ROME, ITALY

12. Wide shot, FAO flag

08 FEBRUARY 2024, ROME, ITALY

13. SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “We are seeing finally a reversal, a return to the positive trends of reduced numbers of people who are in these food insecure situations. It doesn't mean that the problem is solved, by no means.”

15 SEPTEMBER 2023, ROME, ITALY

14. Wide shot, people walking towards FAO headquarters

08 FEBRUARY 2024, ROME, ITALY

15. SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “There are a lot of forces at work that still make this a very tenuous and a very fragile situation. But the work that FAO has been doing there with other partners to reach, I think, somewhere on the order of 7 or 8 million farmers last year, with a goal to reach 10 million in this coming year with winter wheat seed, with animal vaccines, these types of agricultural production, saving inputs that are so needed is making a difference.”

8 NOVEMBER 2021, DAMAN DISTRICT, KANDAHAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN

16. Wide shot, aid workers in a warehouse preparing wheat seeds bags for distribution

17. Med shot, aid workers preparing wheat seeds bags for distribution

18. Med shot, farmer leaving the warehouse with a bag of seeds

19. Med shot, bag of seeds being put on the shoulders of a farmer

20. Med shot, farmer preparing himself for planting seeds

21. Med shot, farmer pouring water on seeds

22. Wide shot, farmer planting seeds

23. Close up, farmer planting seeds

4 NOVEMBER 2022, VOLYNSKA OBLAST, UKRAINE

24. Med shot, machines loading sleeves with grain

25. Close up, grain

26. Wide shot, grin sleeves being loaded

27. Wide shot, grain sleeves

28. Wide shot, machinery and people walking around

27 OCTOBER 2022, CHERNIHIVSKA OBLAST, UKRAINE

29. Pan right, sleeves in the field

APRIL 2020, ALEPPO GOVERNORATE, SYRIA

30. Pan down, farmer wearing a mask installing low tunnel arch as part of an FAO project helping farmers produce amid COVID-19 pandemic

31. Med shot, FAO expert following the work

32. Med shot, farmers wearing masks fixing the low tunnel arches

8 JULY 2017, AL GHEZLANEYE, SYRIA,

33. Med shot, veterinarian preparing spray for parasites control as part of an FAO and the Syria Veterinary Medical Association animal health campaign

34. Med shot, veterinarian spraying parasiticides on sheep

35. Med shot, veterinarian giving treatment to sheep

Script The growing number of people impacted by pressing humanitarian crises in conflict-affected places like Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan, or by climate extremes, requires urgent and collective action, said Beth Bechdol, Deputy Director-General at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), ahead of her momentous intervention at the UN Security Council on February 13 on the escalation of acute hunger worldwide.

Some 258 million people in 58 countries and territories face acute hunger driven by armed conflicts, economic and climate shocks, poverty and inequality, according to FAO.

Echoing the findings of a recent report of the FAO-hosted Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) global initiative on Gaza, the Deputy Director-General said the levels of acute food insecurity there are “unprecedented.”

SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “There are really almost unprecedented levels of acute food insecurity, hunger and near famine-like conditions in Gaza. It's really an almost unprecedented situation that we find ourselves in. We have categories for how we measure acute food insecurity, the IPC phase classifications, and in IPC three, four and five, which takes us from emergency to crisis to catastrophe, all 2.2 million people in Gaza are in those categories. And again, we've never seen that before.”

Unless the hostilities cease and the population of Gaza has access to food, water, and assistance, a growing number of people will go hungry, underscored Bechdol. The risk of famine is increasing by the day, said FAO Deputy Director-General.

Reflecting on her upcoming intervention at the UN Security Council with the theme “Maintenance of international peace and security: Climate, food security and conflict,” Bechdol referred to the economic losses the war in Ukraine has caused in a country long considered an agricultural powerhouse.

SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “We estimate that there's about $40 billion worth of damage to the Ukrainian agricultural system infrastructure, and that comes in the shape of, and form of, so many different damages. That's damage to infrastructure, like grain silos, laboratories, ports. It's damage to farms themselves, whether it's contamination and destruction of land, destruction of livestock, damaged equipment, whether that's tractors or other kinds of machinery that's so critically needed. And obviously, we also saw so many of the farmers themselves actually move into military service.”

The food security situation in Ukraine has deteriorated rapidly following the eruption of the war on 24 February 2022. The conflict has caused extensive destruction of crops, agricultural and other civilian infrastructure, and disrupted both supply and value chains. Ukraine’s exports of cereals declined by almost 30 percent in the 2022/2023 marketing year.

Bechdol said that FAO has assisted farmers through temporary grain storage. To help smallholders resume production, FAO is working with the World Food Programme (WFP) and Fondation Suisse de Déminage to de-mine and clear agricultural land from other explosive remnants of the war.

FAO Deputy Director-General noted that, while the humanitarian crises resulting from hostilities in Gaza and Ukraine have drawn global attention, the food security crisis resulting from the escalating conflict in Sudan is not receiving the attention it should.

Widespread violence in Sudan has resulted in the displacement of 6.3 million people, including around 5.1 million who have been internally displaced and 1.2 million who sought refuge in neighbouring countries.

Bechdol underscored that the alarming food security situation in the country shows, again, that conflict and hunger are “inextricably linked to each other.”

SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “We are seeing nearly, there too, half of the population in acute food insecurity settings, nearly 18 million people who are struggling. There has been a tremendous loss of life. Many people killed, millions of people killed in the Sudan conflict.”

FAO Deputy Director-General also urged to take immediate and collective action to mitigate the impacts of climate change on people’s livelihoods, especially on farmers.

This is notably pressing in areas like the Dry Corridor, a climate-stressed region in Central America with high food insecurity levels and outward migration where more than 10 million people live.

In that territory stretching across Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, FAO is ready to provide anticipatory action support to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather events and the climate phenomenon of El Niño.

SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “Any one of those types of meteorological sort of scenarios gives us an opportunity with better forecasting that is coming into place, to be able to help farmers better plan for water storage, water harvesting, water management. We can help them [farmers] in identifying ways that they can be better prepared in terms of planting their crops or taking care of their livestock. The Dry Corridor is really important to us, because what we're seeing there is, in that region, a very concerning amount of migration.”

In 2024, FAO is seeking $1.8 billion within the Humanitarian Response Plans to assist 43 million people to produce their own food.

On average, two-thirds of those experiencing acute food insecurity rely on agriculture for their survival. Yet only 4 percent of total humanitarian funding going to food sectors is allocated to emergency agriculture assistance.

Bechdol recalled that responding to mounting and long-term challenges like climate change requires rethinking the funding financing model.

SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “Conflicts go on for years, climate crises, climate issues become protracted eight years, ten years, droughts, floods that continue to come. So we have to carefully, all of us, find new ways to think about the right balance, the right approach to including support for farmers, support for pastoralists, support for fishermen and women into these responses, because agriculture is what really can be, I think, a part of the longer term solution to not only working on hunger-related issues, but as we know, ultimately gets to the place where you're really trying to build resilience back into the economies, into the lives, into the circumstances that are a result of all of these very difficult situations.”

While underscoring the significant challenges ahead, Bechdol mentioned FAO’s continued work in Afghanistan as an example of the Organization’s “comparative advantage.”

SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “We are seeing finally a reversal, a return to the positive trends of reduced numbers of people who are in these food insecure situations. It doesn't mean that the problem is solved, by no means.

FAO Deputy Director-General said that the Organization’s projects in Afghanistan have effectively contributed to reducing food insecurity.

SOUNDBITE (English), Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General: “The work that FAO has been doing there with other partners to reach, I think, somewhere on the order of 7 or 8 million farmers last year, with a goal to reach 10 million in this coming year with winter wheat seed, with animal vaccines, these types of agricultural production, saving inputs that are so needed is making a difference.”

Afghanistan is now FAO’s single largest country program, said Bechdol.

FAO is working to build resilience in all 34 provinces of the country, strengthening efforts to preserve and revive agricultural livelihoods and local ecosystems.

ENDS

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