OTTAWA, Canada, Sep 23 (IPS) - Current food systems are no longer fit for the 21st century. Inequitable distribution, poor nutritional habits, and climate change are three issues breaking down our global food systems today, forcing us to look for solutions to transform them. Food aid – very much part of our global food systems – needs to be responsive to the challenges that lie ahead.

NEW YORK, Sep 23 (IPS) - With the world still counting the social and economic costs of the Covid-19 pandemic, amid a fresh “code red” on the climate crisis, food may not seem like the most pressing threat to humanity.

SAN FRANCISCO, California, Sep 22 (IPS) - September 23, 2021 is the first-ever UN Food Systems Summit, convened to mobilize the highest-priority transformations needed to end hunger through the sustainable production and distribution of food. Transforming food systems to ensure food security for all has never been so urgent.

In his speech to the high-level debate at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared that it is time for mankind to grow up and take responsibility for the damage we are inflicting on the planet.

Norway Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, said on Wednesday the world is contending with three crises at the same time: a climate crisis, a health crisis, and an economic crisis. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to threaten lives and livelihoods globally, the President of Viet Nam told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that his nation is “vigorously” combating the virus, protecting its people, sustaining economic growth and leaving no one behind.

Equitable global access to vaccines must be at the core of efforts to build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.

President Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday said his country was the victim of a “fierce campaign” of permanent and systematic aggression through economic and financial sanctions coming from the United States and its allies.

The President of Estonia, Kersti Kaljulaid, lauded the world’s embrace of online services in response to the COVID-19 pandemic on Tuesday, in her high-level General Debate speech at the 76th United Nations General Assembly session.

The crisis in Yemen, now in its seventh year of war, continues unabated, with thousands of people displaced and millions “a step away from starvation”, the UN Humanitarian Relief Coordinator said on Wednesday during a high-level side event on the margins of the 76th General Assembly.