Zero hunger

In his last speech as the secretary general of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, stated: “Everyone eats. Everyone needs food. Yet around 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That’s about one in nine people on earth”. The secretary general highlighted the need for a global movement for ‘Zero Hunger’ by world leaders. No head of state has expressed much concern on global poverty and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) yet. Although US President Barack Obama spoke about migration, he didn’t highlight the problems associated with it in detail. Because of the ongoing wars, people of Syria, Libya, Egypt, Iraq and other places have been migrating to American and European regions. This mass migration is strengthening the global poverty. Brexit is the most recent example of the European nations facing crisis due to a large-scale migration.

The burning question is how Ban Ki-moon can put the alarming matter of poverty on plate. What policies will be adopted by the succeeding secretary general to curb poverty? The lack of interest of the leaders in pointing out issues like global poverty and hunger crisis at the current UN session has made it necessary for the UN to bring the world leaders on the same page in order to achieve UN SDGs.

Aijaz Ali Khuwaja

Karachi