john c williams : healthy workforce, healthy economy remarks ( via videoconference ) by mr john c williams, president and chief executive officer of the federal reserve bank of new york, at combating food insecurity : what ’ s working – and what ’ s scalable?, 30 november 2021. * * * as prepared for delivery good morning, and welcome. we are pleased that so many of you have joined us today for this important discussion about food insecurity. it is not lost on me that we are holding this event just five days after thanksgiving, a holiday that is largely centered around food — the turkey, the stuffing, the mashed potatoes, the pumpkin pie. for some of us, the big concern coming out of the weekend was whether we had eaten too much. but for far too many, the much bigger concern is that they and their families did not — and still do not — have enough to eat. that ’ s what brings us here today. our mission at the new york fed is to make the economy stronger and the financial system more stable for all. but we can ’ t have a healthy economy without a healthy workforce. and that is why health — along with household financial well - being and climate change — is a focal point for our community development team. before i continue, i must give the standard fed disclaimer that the views i express are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the federal open market committee or anyone else in the federal reserve system. food insecurity has long been a systemic problem. here in the federal reserve ’ s second district, many households in both our urban and rural communities are vulnerable financially. and since the onset of the pandemic, access to quality, nutritious food has been greatly impeded. after many businesses were forced to shut down in the spring of 2020, food banks were quickly overwhelmed. in addition to an abrupt increase in need, there was also the challenge of distribution. i ’ m sure many of you remember the long lines to food pantries that stretched through neighborhoods. and many of our schools shifted from providing free lunches to students to offering grab - and - go meals to entire families. now, we are facing another economic challenge : higher food prices. transportation and labor costs — along with supply - chain disruptions — are driving up the price of many staples, such as beef, poultry, eggs, peanut butter, and produce. food is not only becoming far more expensive for

legitimacy and effectiveness has also progressed, granting a larger weight in their decision bodies to emerging economies, as well as expanding the representativeness of the financial stability forum and of the basel committee on banking supervision. the imf and the expanded financial stability forum are called to increase efforts in crisis prevention and responses. the g20 communique backed the calls for a broader international cooperation in several fronts, but let me remind you that the international community of central bankers and financial regulators have already developed strong cooperation ties. institutions as the bis with its regular meetings or governors and of senior central bank officials and experts or forums like the basel committees and the financial stability forum have been providing for years the necessary dialogue, exchange of ideas and information between us. i understand that other forums of economic authorities can replicate our own model of cooperation. regarding the imf, the discussion currently concentrates around its role and legitimacy. its role should focus on three main topics. the first is surveillance. it is very important that the imf becomes a key and integral part of the financial early warning system. the imf is vital not only in terms of forecasting, which is already regularly performed and published, but also in terms of surveillance of each country ’ s policies and specific warning indicators, aimed at detecting its growing unbalances. one of the points that, in my personal opinion, have complicated efforts to deal with the current financial crisis is that the whole focus of the imf during decades was to prevent crises in emerging markets. there is a different picture now, and is paramount that the surveillance done by the imf focus on every relevant economy and really works as an early warning system. the second topic, evidently, is international cooperation. and international cooperation requires that the imf and the financial stability forum work together to propose a new set of regulations – some of them were already discussed here today, and particularly regulation and supervision of cross - border transactions, which are not directly restricted to one national supervisory authority. the basel committee will most likely continue to be the focal point of conducting the implementation of the process. the third topic is the imf role in supporting emerging and developing countries, which have no financial conditions to address the effects of the financial turmoil on their economies. traditionally, the imf has focused on crisis generated in one specific economy or group of economies and in proposing policies to restore that country ’ s soundness. the problem that we are facing today is that some countries might have a sound policy but were affected by the