Rio de Janeiro - UNIDO participated in the G20 Development Ministerial Meeting and the G20 Ministerial Meeting on the establishment of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty organized by the Brazilian Presidency. Cecilia Ugaz Estrada, Deputy Director General and Managing Director of the Strategic Planning, Programming and Policy Directorate brought UNIDO’s message to the events on behalf of Director General Gerd Müller.

The events culminated the technical level deliberations on these important strands of work of Brazil’s G20 Presidency. UNIDO has participated this year in key G20 working groups under the Sherpa track, contributing to bringing the perspective of inclusive and sustainable industrial development to the Groups’ deliberations on Development, Energy Transitions, Digital Economy, Bioeconomy, as well as Hunger and Poverty, contributions which are well reflected in the final outcome documents of the Group of 20.

UNIDO has been engaging with the G20 for nearly a decade, and is today a recognized and valued knowledge partner providing technical and policy advice, as well as strategic support in particular to G20 Presidencies from the developing world. As Ugaz Estrada noted, UNIDO strives to be a voice in particular for the ambitions and needs of developing countries to increase local value addition and achieve higher levels of innovation, environmental sustainability, food security, and more.

In Rio de Janeiro, Ugaz Estrada, whose portfolio includes Strategic Engagement and Coordination, conveyed the Director General’s strong support for this year’s G20 priorities, above all the emphatic focus on fighting inequalities and hunger, including through the establishment of the G20 Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty. Despite notable steps forward, hunger and poverty remain critical and persistent challenges, with worrying trends reversing years of progress as triggered by multiple crises, including the pandemic, conflicts and wars and climate change impacts. The Global Alliance aims to provide sustained political drive to galvanize collective action, building synergies with existing efforts, as well as to facilitate mobilization and improved alignment of domestic and international support to enable large-scale country-owned and country-led implementation of evidence-based programs and policy instruments.

In the ministerial pre-launch of the Global Alliance, Brazilian President Luis Ignacio Da Silva underlined the decisive role of the United Nations in an implementation-oriented initiative such as the Global Alliance, recognizing that hunger stems above all from political choices as opposed to being merely the result of external factors.

In response to this, Ugaz Estrada conveyed to the ministerial audience Director General Müller’s “strongest support for this game-changing initiative, which can make a major contribution to creating a world without hunger.” Ms. Ugaz further stressed the importance of industry as “part of the solution”.  “With advanced knowledge and technology that is already available to us,” – she added – “we can optimize resource use and efficiency, create unprecedented access to healthy, nutritious food, and decent jobs at the same time”. UNIDO is committed to contribute to the Global Alliance and “play our part in a new quality and new scale of efforts against the twin scourges of hunger and poverty.”

As the UNIDO Director General’s Special Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, Ugaz Estrada moreover engaged in various bilateral meetings with high-level representatives from key governments and international organizations from the region, as well as productive exchanges with the upcoming South African G20 Presidency, and the current Italian G7 Presidency.

UNIDO will continue its engagement with the G20 and other key organs of global governance as part of its strategic engagement approach to advance its mandate and elevate its influence in the global development cooperation debate and action.