I was delighted to have participated in the conference organised by Alliance 2015 in Dublin last March on 'Scaling Up EU Impact on Community Resilience and Nutrition'. The conclusions of this conference are closely aligned to the Government’s development priorities for Ireland's EU Presidency. A central focus for Ireland's Presidency, which is strongly mirrored in the outcomes of this conference, has been the need to tackle global hunger and under-nutrition and the need to build the resilience of vulnerable individuals, families, communities and nations to food and other crises.
As EU Presidency, we are striving to forge stronger links between the EU's development and humanitarian policies and programmes, through an increased focus on building community resilience. We are emphasising the need to comprehensively address the root causes of food and nutrition insecurity and the underlying vulnerabilities affecting poor people. We are stressing the need for the EU and its Member States to increase support for longer-term programmes which assist partner countries to anticipate, prevent, prepare for and manage food and other crises. We are asking the EU to recognise the importance of addressing vulnerability in a joined up, multi-sectoral way by linking relief and development through a strong partnership approach and to manage risk rather than simply react to it.
Ultimately, better development and risk reduction can reduce the need for emergency relief and better relief can contribute to sustainable development. Investing in resilience today through humanitarian and development assistance is also much more cost effective than responding to a crisis tomorrow. I am bringing these messages to the development segment of the Foreign Affairs Council today. We have worked closely with EU Member States, the European External Action Service and the EU Commission to develop strong sets of Council Conclusions on food and nutrition security in external assistance and on the EU approach to resilience. I expect that these Council Conclusions will be considered and adopted by the Foreign Affairs Council today.
