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Will World Food
south-north development
monitor (SUNS) #6815 Development:
More promises to eat The UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is holding the summit to give fresh impetus
to the fight against hunger, a scourge it says now affects over a billion
people - almost a sixth of the global population. United States President
Barack Obama is not expected to attend the event, which will run from
Monday to Wednesday at the FAO's "It's a tragedy
that the world leaders are not going to attend the summit," Daniel
Berman of health and humanitarian assistance NGO Medecins sans Frontieres
told a news conference. Many experts are
also concerned that, as often happens at such meetings, after lots of
fine talk, there will be little that ties nations down to taking action
at the end of the summit. Indeed, the first such food summit in 1996
set the goal of reducing hunger by half from around then 825 million
sufferers at that time by 2015, but instead, the world has moved in
the opposite direction. "We may get
more good declarations, but what is the substance behind it? I doubt
there will be specific financial commitments next week," Markus
Giger of the "The number
of hungry and malnourished people is rising. Countries must do more.
We are far from reaching our targets. It's unacceptable." A draft of the summit
declaration contains little that was not stated by the G8 group of the
world's leading economic powers at the In L'Aquila, the
G8 promised to "act with the scale and urgency needed to achieve
sustainable global food security", among other things, by reducing
trade distortions in negotiations at the World Trade Organisation and
mobilising $20 billion over the next three years for sustainable agriculture
in developing countries. But diplomatic sources
told Reuters news agency that less than a quarter of that eye-catching
figure will actually be fresh cash. "The declaration
is just a rehash of old platitudes," said Francisco Sarmento, the
food rights coordinator of ActionAid. "It says hunger will be halved
by 2015 but fails to commit any new resources to achieve this or provide
any way of holding governments to account... Unfortunately, the poor
cannot eat promises." Even if the $20
billion figure were all fresh money, it would still fall short of what
is required to address the problem, according to the FAO. FAO director general
Jacques Diouf said this week that $44 billion in official development
assistance was needed each year for investments in agriculture and rural
infrastructure, adding that developing countries themselves must allocate
more of their budgets to these areas. This money is needed
to increase farmers' access to irrigation systems, modern machinery,
seeds and fertilisers, as well as improving rural infrastructure and
roads so they can obtain the inputs they need to up production and then
take their goods to market. Jean-Philippe Audinet,
director of the policy division of the International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD), is more upbeat than some of the NGOs about what
will come out of next week's summit. Rural poverty agency
IFAD, part of the threesome of UN food organisations based in Rome along
with the FAO and the emergency-relief-providing World Food Programme,
champions the cause of small-holder farmers and their families, who
number two billion people, or about a third of the world's population. IFAD says their
plight should be paramount not only because three-quarters of the world's
hungry live in rural areas, but also because investing in them will
help the world achieve the goal of increasing food production by 70
percent to meet the needs of a population likely to reach 9.1 billion
by 2050. So Audinet is pleased
to see that the importance of agriculture in general, and of small-holders
in particular, is now getting universal recognition. "In terms
of substance, we know what will come out of the summit and, unless there
are surprises, the contents of the declaration are not new," Audinet
tells "But the fact
that the same principles are being endorsed by all countries, including
countries where hunger is a major problem, at the UN level, is an achievement.
It is a sign of a larger, worldwide consensus on how to tackle food
security." Audinet admits,
however, that he is worried about the prospect of many political heavyweights
being absent. "We are concerned
that a number of G8 and OECD countries will not be present at the highest
levels," he said. "This would be worrying because after "It's a concern,
although it would not necessarily mean that these countries do not want
to respect their commitments. Maybe, they think they can implement them
in other ways than at an FAO summit." The presence of
over 60 heads of state or government in "We really
welcome the fact that the World Food Summit is taking place and that
so much preparation has gone into it," Action Against Hunger's
Natalie Duck told "It's fundamentally
important that heads of state and government come together to discuss
hunger. We are pleased hunger is regaining its rightful position among
the priorities," she said, adding that it was also crucial for
the international community to recognise that tackling hunger is not
just a question of agricultural production. "We also have
to look at health, livelihoods and nutrition. The quality of food people
receive is important. The health actors are important to take the lead
in treating children dying of hunger. We also have to look at livelihoods
and making sure people have money to gain access to food. "So it's about
getting the UN agencies and the international community to understand
the need to coordinate all areas - health, nutrition, livelihoods and
social protection, as well as agriculture." Duck also believes
that a big step forward would be the creation of a mechanism to monitor
whether promises like those made by the G8 in July are respected. "There have
been many declarations from summits in the past that have failed to
translate into national action," she said. "We need a
system that tracks donor pledges and commitments to ensure in-country
investments so that policies to fight hunger and under-nutrition can
be implemented at the national level. A body needs to be given the mandate
of holding people accountable to the pledges made at these summits." For his part, Diouf
seems to be doing all he can to mobilise public support behind the fight
against hunger and stir world leaders into action before the summit. This week, FAO launched
an online petition (www. 1billionhungry. org) demanding that the issue
be made a priority, and Diouf has called for a "global day of hunger
strike" this weekend as a way of showing solidarity with the undernourished. His message mixes
optimism that "eradicating hunger is no pipe dream" - as shown
by countries such as Brazil, Nigeria and 29 other states that have achieved
significant progress - with warnings about the price of inaction. "One in every
six people suffer the pain of hunger, every six seconds a child dies
of hunger, and this enormous tragedy is not only a moral outrage and
an economic absurdity, but also represents a serious threat to our collective
peace and security," Diouf told a news conference Wednesday. "This hunger
summit cannot afford to fail. Without immediate, decisive action, the
hungry billion could rise still higher, and with it death, disease,
despair among the world's poor. "Remember hungry
people are also rightly angry people, a serious potential source of
conflict and forced migration, as we saw in 2007 and 2008 when riots
broke out in 22 countries in all continents due to rapid increases in
food prices. "Unfortunately,
the high interest seems to be fading away, with other issues coming
to the forefront of the international agenda. What is more sad is that
concrete actions are lagging despite all the promises." +
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