Dublin Conference Overview

The Dublin Conference on Hunger · Nutrition · Climate Justice took place in Dublin Castle on 15-16 April 2013, during Ireland’s Presidency of the EU.

Conference Background

The world’s population is set to reach 9 billion by 2050, which will require a 60% increase in agricultural production if everyone is to be fed. Over the same period climate change, water scarcity and land degradation could reduce food production by one quarter, leading to further increases in the number of people suffering from hunger. 

It is those who are already poor and vulnerable who will be worst affected, despite having contributed least to the causes of climate change. The global challenges of hunger, nutrition and climate justice are linked.  To be credible, the global response must be based on a clear understanding of the rights and the reality of the lives of the people most affected, now and in the future.  We need to move away from a business-as-usual approach to development if these global challenges are to be resolved in our lifetimes.‌ 

Conference Overview

The Government of Ireland and the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice co-hosted an international conference in Dublin Castle on 15-16 April 2013. This conference opened a dialogue and debate on the linked challenges of addressing hunger, nutrition and climate justice, and encouraged innovative thinking and solutions. 

The conference was organised in partnership with the World Food Programme and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) with support from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).This was not an intergovernmental meeting. It brought together a diverse audience, of approximately 300 people, connecting key policy makers and global thought leaders with local people and practitioners facing the realities of rising food prices, failed crops, under-nutrition and voice-lessness. The objective of the conference was to facilitate a respectful dialogue: learning from practical experience and discussing robust evidence to inform a new approach to addressing hunger, nutrition and climate justice, in the context of the new Post-2015 international development agenda.

This conference brought together a diverse audience, of approximately 300 people, connecting key policy makers and global thought leaders with local people and practitioners facing the realities of rising food prices, failed crops, under-nutrition, climate change and voice-lessness.

A strong emphasis was placed on ensuring that the voices of those most affected by the impacts of climate change in developing countries were heard and approximately 100 delegates representing their community’s experiences participated. The remaining participants included policy makers, civil society, business and advocacy groups, research institutions and academia.

The conference aimed to inspire new ways of thinking about global development challenges and to invigorate and broaden the debate, at all levels, by listening to and learning from the experiences of local people, and rooting future thematic policy approaches in their lives and their efforts to cope.  The key messages from the conference are available in the post-conference report, and include:

• Bringing grassroots practitioners and policy makers together to have a respectful dialogue works and should be done more often throughout the post- 2015 development agenda discussions and beyond; by civil society, the private sector, governments and multilateral organisations.
• There is a need to raise awareness at all levels of the processes that are in train for post-2015 development so that people can engage with it.
• Women are at the heart of effective solutions.                                                        

Connecting with the Post-2015 Development Agenda

In 2013, the international community will review progress on the Millennium Development Goals, two years before the target date for their achievement. Policy discussions will also begin on the post-2015 framework for international development.  It is essential that the policy processes over the next 2-3 years be firmly rooted in the reality of people’s lives and objective evidence of what has worked and what has not.  There has been significant progress on many of the development goals, with improvements in education, healthcare and other basic services across the developing world. But nearly one billion people still suffer from hunger, most of them women and children. Under-nutrition among mothers and children is the underlying cause of 2.5 million deaths every year. In developing countries, nearly one third of children under five are stunted and will never reach their full potential.