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00:00I'm delighted to get more on this from Liz Yee, who is the Executive Vice President of the Rockefeller Foundation.
00:06Liz, thank you for joining us here in France 24. We appreciate your time.
00:09Just leaving the very summit we've been talking about,
00:13one wonders how the gap can be filled if the United States pulls its funding out
00:18for such essential projects like this that are feeding children worldwide.
00:22Well, Mark, thanks again for having me here.
00:24It's great to be with you and it's great to be able to actually talk about something that we can do together as a planet.
00:29And you're right. Philanthropy has been asked to do many different things in this moment.
00:34The needs are very great.
00:36One of the things that we are excited about in particular is our $100 million commitment to school meals,
00:41which is built on top of an existing $120 million to nutrition,
00:46because we are a foundation focused on climate and making sure that we protect and elevate the underserved.
00:53And so the reason why we actually got behind school meals is an economic one.
00:58Government procurement. School meals is 70% of government procurement.
01:03So there's a real chance to both change a food system but also make sure that it delivers for people.
01:08And the World Food Program showed us that for every dollar we invest in school meals,
01:13you can get somewhere between 7 and 35 times your money of investment and returns and socioeconomic returns.
01:20And so when we think about where do we put our money to be catalytic,
01:23it's in solutions like that that can help people, that can help livelihoods, that can help planet.
01:29That is, as you say, smart use of the money.
01:32There is a link, though, between climate change, malnutrition,
01:35the fact that people aren't getting the food they need because of what is happening to the change of the weather where they live.
01:40Absolutely. And one of the things that we are wrestling with and think the reason why we have to continue to invest in kids
01:48and nutrition in particular is that if we don't do something, 950 million more people will slide into extreme hunger by 2030.
01:57And so as a foundation that's focused on the well-being of humanity,
02:00we have to address the current moment and make sure that we elevate those who aren't at the table,
02:05who weren't there today and make sure that they have the same opportunities you and I do.
02:08You're giving 100 million dollars to this project, which is an enormous amount of money to find in your own pocket.
02:15However, when you think about the scale of what we're talking about here, it can only go so far.
02:19Yes, that's exactly right. I mean, given how many kids actually rely on school meals every day
02:25and the 73 million who actually need them that don't get it, 100 million dollars is a drop in the bucket.
02:30But what we hope to do with the 100 million is to catalyze another,
02:35is to help support 100 million students actually get access to good food.
02:40And what we heard today is philanthropy is actually putting a billion and a half dollars against nutrition.
02:45And so that money has to be catalyzing other, better government and market actions to deliver on the future.
02:52Famine coming down the line in Sudan, where the civil war is still going on,
02:56in spite of one side getting control of our tomb and declaring it's nearly over.
03:00It isn't. Lots of things happening there.
03:02In our report, we highlighted the situation in Yemen, where many children are suffering from malnutrition.
03:08It's a horrible situation. But if I understand it correctly,
03:12it's not just poor countries and countries of conflict that are suffering.
03:15There is a nutrition issue across even well-off countries.
03:18Absolutely. And one of the things that we're excited about and brings us hope
03:23is something called the School Meals Coalition. I don't know, Mark, if you're familiar with it.
03:27But over 100 countries have committed to the School Meals Coalition as members
03:32because they see that as an opportunity to expand resourcing and really build a future generation that is well-nourished.
03:40Because, look, I know what I get like when I'm hungry. I can't work.
03:43And certainly if I'm a kid, I can't learn. And so that actually, if we invest in kids early on,
03:49we can build a strong workforce. We can give people access to economic opportunity in a way that people deserve.
03:56I can recall as a younger journalist doing stories about a school in Liverpool that had a breakfast club for kids who weren't getting breakfast at home.
04:06They were coming to school hungry and the teachers were noticing that they weren't learning because of what you said.
04:11You can't work if your tummy's empty. That's one of those things.
04:13That's exactly right.
04:14It's as simple as that. But again, there's only so much you can invest, only so far it can go.
04:18How do you perhaps change people's attitudes, government's attitudes, local authorities' attitudes towards this issue?
04:26It's really important.
04:27I think it's exactly what you said. You know your school meal. You remember it. You remember what it did for you.
04:32And so it's something that we can collectively relate to. It is bipartisan.
04:36It is not polarizing because we all know what it did for us.
04:40One of the things that we've seen, for example, is in Brazil.
04:44They've made a commitment that 30% of their food sourcing for schools has to be local.
04:51And what's happened there is remarkable.
04:53We're actually seeing farmers double and triple their income as a result of having to basically grow local food to source it for school meals for their population.
05:03And so you see multiple winds of benefits as a result of this.
05:07And that's why, for example, governments and markets can get behind it because it is.
05:11It's a $48 billion annual market on school meals every year.
05:16So there's a lot of private sector, public sector economic opportunity that underlies the rationale for putting money against this.
05:24And all that is a massive investment.
05:25Absolutely.
05:26In the future of not just our children, but of course the country.
05:30Because if you're not investing in the children, you can't grow the future of the country.
05:34Absolutely.
05:35And especially when you've got so many in Africa, most of the population is below the age of 20, 25.
05:41So you've got to make sure that they and their future generations will have a chance at the same life that we've had.
05:47That brings me to the question again about climate change, because obviously I know that's something that the foundation works on a lot as well.
05:52How do you put those two things together to improve things?
05:55Because clearly, yes, there is this issue about helping farmers to grow their own food, to feed local communities, to create these nutrition possibilities for everybody concerned.
06:06But if the climate is against you, it is really an uphill battle, isn't it?
06:10It is.
06:11And that's why just two pieces of that, Mark.
06:14I think one is a statistic that I am really struck by is that with every one degree of warming, we lose 130 calories in nutrition.
06:24That's not okay when kids are already nutrition.
06:27We've seen it in the videos you showed, very under-resourced.
06:30And so that's why we believe in solutions.
06:32Kenya, for example, is a leader in transitioning.
06:35Right now, they have a lot of rice as a core part of their school meals.
06:39But by transitioning to millet, sorghum, indigenous crops, we're both reducing the cost of school meals from 25 cents to 22 cents because they're locally farmed,
06:47but we're also creating much more climate-resilient crops for their communities and crops that are much more nutritious as well.
06:55So we can get those multiple wins if we actually do these things right and bring them together.
07:00Liz, fantastic talking to you.
07:02It's a great scheme that you've started, and I hope that it's successful everywhere that it touches.
07:06Liz Yu from the Rockefeller Foundation, thank you for sharing your depth of knowledge with us.
07:11It's been a pleasure to meet you.
07:12Thank you very much indeed.
07:13Thanks, Mark.
07:14Thank you very much indeed.