Brazil's President Michel Temer, left, delivers his country's ratification instrument to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Jason DeCrow AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.
In his first address to the UN General Assembly, in September 2003, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva described the eradication of hunger as ‘a civilisational challenge’, making clear to his peers that, while it was to be a domestic priority for his Workers’ Party (PT) government, it was also an international ‘moral and political imperative’. Now the subject of contested corruption charges, Lula left office at the end of 2010 with an unprecedented approval rating of 83 per cent. Among the main sources of popular satisfaction were his success in reducing hunger among poor Brazilians and his expansion of Brazilian influence abroad.
The Department for Humanitarian Cooperation and Combat Against Hunger (CGFome) was established in 2004 to straddle these two fields of policy. Drawing on the Brazilian experience, CGFome has exported tested methodologies and technical expertise in hunger reduction, positioning Brazil as a world leader in food security and nutrition. Over the last 12 years, it has played an important substantive and symbolic role in the development of a foreign policy aimed at projecting Brazilian power while promoting sovereignty, multilateralism, and solidarity.
