India envoy says G20 presidency to ‘depoliticise’ global food, medical supplies

Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau

UNITED NATIONS, 5th Aug.  Indian Ambassador to the UN Ruchira Kamboj on Friday said that to fight the global threats of food shortages and famine, India has declared that it is committed to leveraging its presidency of the G20 to depoliticise global food supplies.

She was addressing the Security Council, Ruchira Kamboj quoted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that India’s presidency of the G20 is committed “to depoliticising the global supply of food, fertilisers and medical products so that geopolitical tensions do not lead to planetary crisis”.

Ms. Kamboj stressed that leading the G20, India has advocated for greater efforts to accelerate the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, especially the one calling for ‘Zero Hunger.”

Council meeting was presided by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on famine and conflict-induced global food insecurity.

“As far as India is concerned, we are fully committed to playing our part in addressing contemporary challenges,” she added.

India offered a discreet criticism of Russia for leaving the Black Sea Initiative which allowed Ukraine to export food grains through Black Sea ports.

Kamboj said, “Recent developments in this matter have not helped insecurity, the larger cause of peace and stability.”

“India supports the efforts of the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in continuing the Black Sea Green Initiative and hopes for early resolution on to the present impasse,” she added.

She said, to meet the global food crisis threat, “We must work together to find common solutions through dialogue and diplomacy” and “choosing peace, cooperation and multilateralism is essential for building our collective future, strengthening the international architecture and governance systems to protect the global order”.

Ms. Kamboj added “Addressing the growing food shortages requires us to go beyond current extremes,”.

She stressed that guided by the ethos of ‘Vasudaiva Kutumbakam’, India sees the world as one interconnected family motivating to help countries in distress.

She emphasized that during the Covid pandemic, India worked proactively to strengthen food security by providing thousands of tonnes of wheat, rice, pulses and lentils to several countries in the neighbourhood and in Africa.

She said with its policy of “Neighbourhood First”, India has provided food aid to Sri Lanka and Afghanistan in recent time.

Paul Beresford-Hill, the representative of the Order of Malta, a Catholic charitable organisation that has permanent observer status and was invited to address the Council recalled the humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh between 1970 and 1974 he said 2 million people died due to starvation and malnutrition, and warned that it could be repeated.

A colony of Pakistan in 1970, Bangladesh was hit by a devastating cyclone and it was followed by a violent crackdown by Islamabad’s military on the independence movement from which it took years to recover.

It illustrates “how environmental and man-made factors can combine to have significant repercussions to the civilian population” and the “collapse of the Black Sea initiative raises concerns about the potential for a similar humanitarian disaster, particularly in vulnerable parts of Africa,” he added.