Monday’s UN World Food Summit in Rome
(16-18 November) could be a waste of time and money unless world leaders intervene now to salvage it. International agencies ActionAid and Oxfam say governments are at risk of throwing away a great
chance to stop more than one billion people going hungry. The current declaration finalised Tuesday night (10 November) says little new. Meanwhile, this summer’s G8 pledge of $20 billion
to tackle hunger appears to have been grossly overstated. The new money amounts to little more than a one-off payment of around $3 for each hungry person – barely enough for a single hot
meal.Francisco Sarmento, ActionAid’s food rights coordinator said: "The declaration is just a rehash of old platitudes. 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 through the UN’s Committee on Food Security. Unfortunately the poor cannot eat
promises."ActionAid appreciates Pope Benedict XVI’s attendance at the Summit but frankly he needs to pray for a miracle if the G8 can only find $3 billion in new money to
solve world hunger. That is less than Goldman Sach’s $3.2 billion profit announced on the eve of World Food Day."Oxfam spokesperson Frederic Mousseau said: "Currently,
many rich countries seem intent on trying to increase food production by simply pushing for more chemical fertilizers and new technologies, particularly in Africa. This could offer some poor farmers
short-term relief but it is not the answer to the structural problems behind world hunger, nor is it sustainable. It will simply condemn the developing world to a future of repetitive food crises and
more environmental degradation."Instead we need more investment in better policies, institutions, services and training to encourage sustainable farming adapted to local
agro-ecological environments. Smallholder farmers, mostly women, are on the frontline in the fight against world poverty, hunger and climate change and we must not continue to ignore
them."The summit is also largely ignoring other vulnerable groups, such as landless farmers and the urban poor who are in desperate need of long-term social protection and livelihood
support as an alternative to short-term food aid. "Rich countries are failing to show enough interest and urgency. At the G8 in Italy this summer they pledged $20 billion for
agriculture over three years, so they believe they have done enough. They haven’t – and the $20 billion is a mirage. Less than a quarter of this money is new. The UN itself says that
$25-$40 billion in public spending is needed each year just to keep up progress towards achieving the first Millennium Development Goal to halve hunger by 2015," Mousseau
concluded. The agencies say that developing countries must also play a bigger role in the summit by committing to spend 10% of their agricultural budgets and focus their plans
to reach the poor and hungry. At a minimum, the UN World Food Summit must:
Endorse and fund a reformed UN Committee on World Food Security as the central high level political platform for
food security
Increase public support for sustainable production by smallholder farmers and social protection in developing countries to fight poverty and hunger and to build resilience to
harmful climate change
Agree at least a $40-billion-a-year rescue of the Millennium Development Goal to halve global hunger and turn it into country-specific commitments, with proper plans and
resources for food security and rural development focusing particularly on smallholder farmers.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
Lebanese villagers harvest olives as U.N. peacekeepers patrol the border with Israel near Kfarkila village in south Lebanon October 28, 2009. Lebanese army soldiers found and deactivated four rockets on Wednesday ...
