Rome - Earlier this year, international donors pledged 22
billion dollars to promote global food security. But 'only 10 per
cent of this has so far materialized,' the head of a UN food agency
said Thursday.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Jacques
Diouf made his comments at a ceremony marking World Food Day at the
agency's Rome headquarters.
'I wish to reaffirm that we know what needs to be done to
eradicate the hunger of 923 million people in the world. We also know
what needs to be done to double world food production and feed a
population that is expected to rise to 9 billion people by 2050,'
Diouf said.
Referring to the outstanding amount of aid Diouf added: 'What we
need ... is political will and delivery on financial commitments, if
we are to be able to make the essential investments that are needed
to promote sustainable agricultural development and food security in
the poorest countries of the world.'
In a keynote speech at the ceremony, Egypt's First Lady Suzanne
Mubarak said that the food crisis merited a rescue effort on par with
the international response to the financial and credit crisis.
'We have just witnessed how seven hundred billion dollars were
raised in record time to salvage the financial markets. How similar
injections were made to salvage financial banks,' Mubarak said.
'I believe that the scale of the food crisis is of such magnitude
that it warrants nothing less than the same swift and decisive
measures to curb its lethal progression,' she added. 'Let us all
remember that it is the lives of millions of people that are hanging
in the balance.'
Pope Benedict XVI, in a message read at the ceremony by Monsignor
Renato Volante, the Holy See's permanent observer to the FAO, said
that a lasting solution to hunger in the world lay in the promotion
of an international order based on social justice.
The world produced enough food to feed a growing population, the
pope noted. If people went hungry, it was partly because of a 'race
for consumption' which 'imposes forced reductions on the nutritional
capacity of the world's poorest regions.'
Other reasons included lack of political will by nations but also
'runaway speculation,' together with 'corruption in public life or
again growing investments in weapons and sophisticated military
technologies to the detriment of people's primary needs...', the pope
said in the message.
'An essential condition for increasing production, safeguarding
the identity of indigenous populations, as well as peace and security
in the world, is to guarantee access to land, thus helping
agricultural labourers and promoting their rights,' the pope added.
Climate change and bio-energy are the focus of this year's World
Food Day - which is celebrated annually on the day FAO was founded in
1945.
Activities involving over 150 countries are planned to mark the
event, including the third Run for Food. The popular event will take
place October 19 in Rome with more than 4,000 people. A similar event
is scheduled to be held simultaneously in Milan.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and former US President Bill
Clinton are slated to participate, together with Diouf and the heads
of other UN Agencies, in a World Food Day ceremony at the United
Nations in New York on October 23.
USA
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