World Food Day Celebrated at MGIMO

World Food Day Celebrated at MGIMO

18 October 2018

October 16th, MGIMO hosted an event dedicated to World Food Day, which is celebrated around the world in honor of the date of the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

The event was organized by the FAO Information Center at MGIMO and the FAO Liaison Office for communication with the Russian Federation, with the support of MGIMO’s Department of International Complex Problems of Natural Resources Use and Ecology. The conference was moderated by the Expert of the FAO Information Center at MGIMO, Ambassador Igor Shcherbak and gathered representatives of Russian ministries, leading universities and research centers.

The event began with a video message by FAO Director General Jose Graziano da Silva, who spoke about the current challenges to food security in the world and called upon all countries to jointly work towards the goal of «zero hunger» worldwide by 2030.

The first presentation was made by MGIMO Rector Anatoly Torkunov who underlined some of the most challenging aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals and noted the need to improve the training of Russian diplomats on food issues. Aghasi Harutyunyan, Director of the FAO Liaison Office for Communications with Russia, spoke about the duality of the global food problem, with on one side the increase in the number of hungry people and on the other the growing problem of obesity.

Presentations were made by leading experts from MGIMO, the Higher School of Economics, the Russian Academy of Sciences ect. All participants agreed to work together on these topics and recognized the importance of the FAO Information Center created at MGIMO as a discussion platform to promote awareness on food security.

— See the MGIMO web-site for more photos and russian version