The Vice President and Foreign Minister of Colombia, Martha Lucia Ramirez reported this Monday that the Government filed a complaint with the offices of the Food Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome in which they reject the report that places the country in an early warning of nations at risk of suffering hunger this year.
(See: 62.3% of households could not buy major basic goods in December).
The report, published last Friday, January 28, took “by surprise” to the Government, as well as the map in which Colombia was included – together with Haiti and Honduras in the Latin American region – in the context of early warning for hunger.
“We ask that Colombia be removed from the map and that some of the parts be rectified“, urged Ramírez, who at a press conference criticized the report because “unaware of the work that the Government has been carrying out with the FAO and the World Food Program (WFP)“.
The report came to alert that “Food insecurity is likely to further deteriorate in Colombia in the coming months due to a combination of political instability, economic challenges, and the continuing impact of the regional migration crisis amplified by internal displacement.”.
(See: “The most important thing in labor matters is to continue with investment”: Duque).
The vice president defended that the report “should collect in the most objective way the reality of the country“, something that does not do, he asserted, since it is “an interpretation that puts us in the crosshairs of countries that have precariousness, which, in the case of Colombia, does not exist“.
EXCESS IN HIS MANDATE
The Colombian vice president also attacked the international agency by assuring that exceeds its mandate in some statements, as “it is not up to him to refer to the situation of political stability in Colombia and the degree of implementation of the peace agreement“.
On the other hand, Ramírez criticized that the document “unaware of the multiple advances that have been made with a policy aimed at increasing food production and minimizing any risk of shortages“.
(See: The Nation’s debt, in 2021, reached 61.5% of GDP).
One of the concerns highlighted in the report is the additional burden that Colombia has due to the increased migration, especially Venezuelan, continued the vice president, and precisely for that reason “FAO does very wrong putting Colombia on the risk map“.
Contrarily, “what the FAO should have done in its report was to call for greater solidarity from the international community with Colombia“, reproached the vice president.
One of the concerns highlighted in the report is the additional burden that Colombia has due to the increase in migration, especially from Venezuela.
Also the Minister of Agriculture, Rodolfo Zea, criticized that “a better context was lacking, especially considering that the report was not socialized so that the Government could provide its comments“, to which he added that “there is no food shortage in Colombia.”
(See: New projections for GDP in 2022 are around 4%).
FAO RESPONSE
For his part, the FAO representative in Colombia, Alan Bojanic, intervened to ensure that “the report had another intention“which precisely was”draw attention to the acute food insecurity of some populations, especially Venezuelan migrants“.
“However, the map did not help and makes it seem that Colombia is at the same point as other countries that are chronically insecure.“, admitted the representative, who considered that “it would be unfair not to recognize the joint effort that Colombia and international agencies have been developing“.
In this context, Bojanic announced that the United Nations agency “is working on how to better represent the situation of migrants“, since the report sought to “attract more resources”, although it specified that cannot anticipate the final decision that the agency will make in relation to the Colombian Government’s complaint.
(See: Colombia’s GDP would grow 4% in 2022, according to Credicorp Capital).
“It is not a situation of the country as a whole, the report suffers from not being able to give that vision of the true intention that was to support vulnerable groups“, lament.
This opinion was joined by the WFP representative in Colombia, Carlo Scaramella, who took on acommunication failure” to emphasize that it is a “useful conversation” to clarify the report, since they have a “great relationship of trust“with the administration.
EFE
