On February 12, President of the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly Tijjani Muhammad-Bande convened an Interactive Dialogue on "Targeting Hunger: South-South and Triangular Cooperation for Transforming Agriculture" at the UN Headquarters in New York. President of the UN General Assembly Bande, Director-General of Food and Agriculture Organization Qu Dongyu, and Envoy of the Secretary-General on South-South Cooperation Jorge Chediek attended the opening ceremony and delivered statements. Permanent representatives of member states to the United Nations attended the dialogue and had communication with professionals in the agricultural field. Ambassador Zhang Jun, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations, attended the meeting and made a statement.

Ambassador Zhang said that unbalanced and insufficient development remains a big problem in the world today. Hunger and poverty remain serious challenges in many countries. In this context, the international community needs to accelerate actions and work together. We should adhere to development as our top priority. Development is the master key to solving all problems. Without development, poverty reduction and hunger eradication will be impossible. The United Nations should insist on keeping development as a top priority, make every effort to create good development environment for developing countries, and vigorously promote the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and related strategies. FAO and other UN agencies should be action-oriented and provide concrete, powerful and effective support to developing countries. We should commit to a people-centered approach for development. Poverty eradication is the primary goal of the 2030 Agenda. Ending hunger is the fundamental human right. Addressing these two issues is fundamental to achieving other SDGs. In this regard, China is making every effort to advance poverty eradication in the process of securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. China will lift all rural people living below the current poverty line out of poverty by the end of this year, making China one of the first countries to realize SDG 1 of Agenda 2030.

Ambassador Zhang emphasized that South-South cooperation should be dedicated to strengthening capacity building, providing targeted assistance for developing countries through technical training and experience sharing, and promoting common development. In the future, China will continue advancing South-South and triangular cooperation, work together with other developing countries to achieve the goals of poverty reduction and hunger eradication, and build a community with a shared future for mankind.

All the parties expressed appreciation to the President of the General Assembly for placing poverty reduction and hunger eradication as priority. They said that achieving inclusive and sustainable economic growth is crucial to eradicating poverty and hunger. The international community should create a good external environment for developing countries to advance development. Countries should actively conduct South-South and triangular cooperation, develop global partnerships, focus on agricultural science and technology innovation as well as infrastructure construction, and promote agricultural transformation and sustainable development. The parties also spoke highly of China's important contribution to promoting South-South cooperation and helping other developing countries implement the 2030 Agenda.