Nicaragua's foreign minister says he will withdraw from UN FAO over food report

The report "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World in 2024", prepared by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, is inaccurate and published for political purposes, therefore Nicaragua is withdrawing from this UN structure and closing its offices in the country. This was announced on February 4 by the Foreign Minister of the Republic, Waldrak Jencke.

A document published on the FAO website says that in 2022, 27.3% (1.9 million) of Nicaraguans did not receive a healthy diet. According to the organization, the country has food shortages and 3.67-4.61% of the population was undernourished in 2021-2023. In addition, the republic has a large poor population that lacks money for nutritious food.

"We reject [the report] because of the lack of objectivity, methodological rigor, because of the content of false information, interventionist and aggressive tendency, it was disseminated maliciously for political purposes," said the minister's note, as quoted by Canal 4 TV.

Jentschke pointed out that the publication of data on Nicaragua in the report was not coordinated, the UN structure did not consult with the country's institutions when preparing the document. The Government of the Republic does not confirm the information from the FAO report.

The Foreign Minister said that international organizations must respect the member countries, and the UN food structure violated this obligation by publishing false information to discredit the Nicaraguan government. Jentschke called FAO's position unacceptable, inadmissible and disrespectful, and therefore the republic leaves the organization and closes all its offices on its territory.

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Earlier, on November 18, 2024, Russia joined the Global Alliance to Fight Hunger and Poverty at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. The new association included 81 other countries and international organizations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the next day that the goal of this alliance is to move toward the complete eradication of hunger. The minister expressed hope that the new organization will help to improve the situation in the world. Moscow, for its part, has already taken a number of measures to ensure food security.