Lula rallies G20 countries against world hunger ahead of meeting

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will launch an initiative Wednesday to fight world hunger ahead of a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Rio de Janeiro.

Lula has made the issue a key priority of Brazil's presidency of the G20, along with taxing the super-rich, which will top the agenda when finance ministers meet on Thursday and Friday.

"The fight against inequality, the fight against hunger, the fight against poverty are all fights that cannot be done by one country," Lula told reporters on Monday.

"It has to be done by all the countries that are willing to take on this historic responsibility."

A UN report published Wednesday said 733 million people had suffered from hunger last year — nine percent of the world's population.

"We can solve this crisis, and finance is the key," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video message during the presentation of the report.

"Hunger has no place in the 21st century."

Lula's initiative, dubbed the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, will seek to secure common financial resources to combat world hunger and replicate successful programs that have worked locally.

Taxing billionaires 

The meeting of finance ministers is one of the final gatherings before heads of state gather for the G20 summit in Rio on November 18 and 19.

At a previous meeting in Sao Paulo in February, finance ministers tackled ways to tax the ultra-wealthy and prevent billionaires from dodging tax systems.

The initiative involves determining methodologies to tax billionaires and other high-income earners based on the work of French economist Gabriel Zucman — an expert on the link between tax evasion and inequality.

The initiative is backed by France, Spain, South Africa, Colombia and the African Union.

However, talks have been highly contentious, and progress is far from guaranteed.

Brazil's Economy Minister Fernando Haddad said ministers had hit a "dead end" in February.

"There is no consensus as things stand," the German Finance Ministry said on Tuesday.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen opposed international negotiations of the subject during a G7 finance meeting held in May in Italy.

"We think that probably the most effective and impactful tax solutions in this space will almost certainly vary fairly widely across jurisdictions," a senior US Treasury official said.

The meeting will also try to make progress on the taxation of multinational corporations nearly three years after an agreement was signed by nearly 140 countries.

Brazil hopes to publish three texts after the meeting, said Tatiana Rosito, a senior official at the economy ministry.

Aside from a joint final communique, this would include a document on "international cooperation in tax matters" and a separate communique from Brazil on geopolitical crises.

Founded in 1999, the Group of 20 assembles 19 of the world's largest economic powers, as well as the European Union and the African Union.

The organisation was originally focused on global economic issues but has increasingly taken on other pressing challenges.