RIO DE JANEIRO: Malaysia has joined the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, an initiative led by Brazil's G20 presidency, aimed at speeding up the eradication of hunger and poverty while championing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said that by joining this Global Alliance, Malaysia is reinforcing its commitment to achieving the 2030 Agenda in combating hunger and poverty, ensuring nobody is left behind.
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"The Malaysian government has made significant strides through the Madani Economy Framework to enhance the welfare of the people.
"Our focus centres on strengthening governance structures, ensuring fiscal sustainability, increasing women’s participation in the economy, advancing digital transformation and committing to climate action,” he said at the first session of the "Fight Against Hunger and Poverty" at the G20 Summit on Monday (Nov 18).
Anwar, who also serves as the Finance Minister, expressed that as chair of Asean 2025, Malaysia is prepared to cooperate on capacity-building efforts which concentrate on enhancing resilience, alleviating poverty, and improving governance across the region.
"The struggle against hunger and poverty directly impacts human development. Ultimately, a collaborative commitment to these objectives will result in a world where hunger and poverty are eradicated and all people can prosper,” he continued.
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The Prime Minister added that the Global Alliance demands strong political commitment and collective action to end these misguided policies if we are seriously committed to effectively eliminating hunger and poverty.
"In this context, China’s success story in eradicating poverty is well worth emulating, subject, of course, to the particular socioeconomic needs of the respective nations,” he noted.
Malaysia, along with 16 other countries, including Chile, Qatar, Egypt, Singapore, Spain, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam, are guest countries of G20. The last time Malaysia attended the G20 Summit was in 2015 in Turkiye as Asean chairman at the time.
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Anwar is accompanied by Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan and Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Aziz.
The Alliance was launched with 148 founding members, including 82 countries, the AU, the EU, 24 international organisations, nine international financial institutions and 31 philanthropic and non-governmental organisations.
Its innovative goal is to expedite global efforts to eliminate hunger and poverty.
Among the pledges and commitments is the objective of reaching 500 million people with income transfer programmes in low- and middle-low-income countries by 2030.
In addition, the Alliance plans to extend high-quality school meals to over 150 million children in countries with endemic child poverty and hunger and, simultaneously, raise billions in credit and donations through multilateral development banks to implement these and other programmes.
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"Hunger, as the Brazilian scientist and geographer Josué de Castro said, is the biological expression of social evils. It is the product of political decisions, which perpetuate the exclusion of much of humanity,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said at the launch of the initiative.
The G20 represents 85% of the US$110tril in the world’s GDP. It also accounts for 75% of the US$32tril in trade in goods and services and two-thirds of the 8 billion inhabitants of the planet.
"It is up to those who are here around this table to take on the urgent task of ending this wound that shames humanity. Therefore, we put the launch of a Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty as a central objective of the Brazilian presidency at the G20.
"This will be our greatest legacy. It’s not just about doing justice. This is an essential condition to build more prosperous societies and a world of peace,” the Brazilian president concluded. – Bernama
