ROME, April 4 - As candidates jostle to head the United Nations' multibillion dollar food agency, experts called on Thursday for a strong leader to tackling rising hunger and climate change threats. Levels of hunger have grown for the past three years, with one in nine people - or 821 million - worldwide without enough to eat, due to drought, floods, conflict and economic slowdowns, U.N. figures show.

On April 26, 2019, from 12:00 - 14:30 in FAO's German Room, the Private Sector Mechanism (PSM) of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) will host an event in Rome to present forward-looking policy recommendations to be considered for inclusion in the Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition. This event will provide an opportunity to have a first exchange of views on these recommendations with CFS stakeholders. It will also show how the Guidelines could significantly contribute to transforming food systems to deliver food that is available, affordable, acceptable, safe and of adequate quantity and quality. The PSM believes that the Nutrition Guidelines will help achieve the global nutrition goals and the agenda 2030.