Mister President, Executive Director, Under-Secretary-General, Colleagues,
our special guest enlightened us on the dramatically growing need to respond to humanitarian crises of all levels, not ‘forgetting’ anyone.
The scale and scope of humanitarian crises have dramatically intensified over the last 2 years.
For this reason, WFP and other humanitarian actors are under intense pressure: the gap between needs and available financing continues to increase.
So let us praise the relentless commitment of WFP and its staff wherever in the world human dignity and even survival are at risk!
Italy fully supports the Program and is proud to host it as well as our entire “WFP family”, also in the run up to the World Humanitarian Summit.
Dear Friends,
We need innovative solutions to bridge domestic and international finance and in order to eliminate any kind of wastes and inefficiencies. A larger level of participation of the private sector as well as the involvement of new donors could represent an asset in order to secure more adequate and predictable finance to support people in humanitarian crises.
The Italian Government is fully committed – also through the EU/ECHO engagement – to make sure the Summit can lead to an empowered and more efficient global humanitarian aid system.
The international humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence need to be endorsed by all Governments, Organisations and Peoples of different religious and cultural background.
We support the advocacy role of WFP to ensure humanitarian access and put the dignity of affected people at the heart of the humanitarian action. I want to recall, once again, the need to protect the most vulnerable population (women, children and people with disabilities).
Quality of aid is crucial. Aid effectiveness demands cost-effectiveness, transparency and mutual accountability on the use of funding, as well as ownership and collaboration with local authorities.
It is fundamental to join forces to respond to crises, also by strengthening the collaboration among different donors as well as between humanitarian and development actors.
In this sense, we acknowledge the efforts undertaken by the Management to draw a Management Plan aiming at major savings within administrative processes currently held at WFP. Transparency and accountability towards donors and beneficiaries are of paramount importance, as well as streamlining and simplifying the internal organization of WFP.
We’ve been pleased to hear that the Executive Director decided that a deeper analysis of the Cost Excellence initiative was needed, thus allowing this Board one more year to reflect on the expected impact.
As we only discussed the issue at informal consultations, I’d like to state in this arena that, should the Board assess the need for a Global Service Centre and give the green light to the operation next year, the Brindisi option would qualify as an excellent one.
It already is a ‘Human Security operative hub’ – due to the presence of both UNHRD and UNLB – and the cost of life and the UN payroll criteria are significantly lower than in Rome.
Mr President,
Later today we are going to hear an update on the collaboration among the Rome based agencies. We encourage WFP to co-operate actively and in full complementarity with the other RBAs in resilience building and for implementing the Agenda 2030.
It is also important that WFP and FAO further enhance their co-operation in the lead of the food security cluster.
We appreciated the release of the Evaluation policy. It is important that the assessments made serve to plan concrete and more effective interventions on the ground, especially in situations of protracted relief.
We welcome the progress made to take into account that nutrition is a multi-sectoral challenge that cannot be addressed by single actors or single strategies. The outcomes of ICN2, especially the need of sustainable food systems that promote healthy diets, must be leveraged in order to raise the nutrition profile of the most vulnerable and strengthen human and institutional capacities. We are pleased to see that the Committee on World Food Security has put nutrition at the core of its program for the next biennium.
Mr President,
As Syria is still the major crisis WFP is facing, I want to recall the Vienna consultations held last October 30th, where also the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs actively contributed to discuss a possible way-out of the war. After 5 years of bloodshed and millions of refugees and IDPs who fled their homes, we deem it crucial to broker a concrete, inclusive and realistic political solution. Italy is grateful to WFP for its untiring engagement in Syria.
Mr President,
I close my statement by thanking WFP for the valuable contribution it provided – together with the other RBAs – to the extraordinary success of EXPO Milan.
Also, the side event held during the UNGA, last September in New York, contributed to acknowledge the meaningfulness of the 6 month Exhibition and showcased the potentialities of its legacy, starting from the Milan charter.
Let me also thank WFP-Italy for the awareness raising campaign it conducted during EXPO with its partners, which provided WFP with a bigger contribution than expected.
Thank you Mr. President.
