Responsible to Protect. The Impact of COVID-19 on Food Security and Nutrition and the Role of the G20

The G20 plays a crucial role in supporting the global fight against hunger and malnutrition in its multiple forms such as undernutrition and obesity. The pandemic has exposed the most vulnerable groups of the population (e.g., children, women, the elderly, internally displaced people, and informal workers in urban contexts) to several forms of food insecurity. The G20 can provide collective and coordinated leadership to tackle food crises, promoting an inclusive approach and coalition with all stakeholders, private and public, and ambitious initiatives across its different sectoral tracks. A key moment in this regard will be not only the final summit scheduled at the end of October 2021, but also a series of intermediate milestones. Among them, the recent Matera Declaration, through which the Italian Presidency has proposed the G20 members to fully endorse the FAO-led Food Coalition, the UN Food Systems Summit, the COP15 on biodiversity, the COP26 and the December Nutrition for Growth Summit. The G20 needs to promote cross-cutting and integrated solutions to address these challenges, buidling a legacy for the future Indonesian and Indian G20 Presidencies in a “3 Is” (Italy, Indonesia and India) perspective.