Rome Summit and the role of Bangladesh Prime Minister
Friday, 4 December 2009
Md. Masum Billah
The world summit on food security, hosted by UN FAO in Rome last month unanimously adopted a declaration for the eradication of hunger at the earliest. The rich countries pledged to substantially increase agricultural assistance to developing countries, so that the world's one billion hungry can become more self-sufficient. The summit reiterated the target for reducing hunger by half by 2015. The participating countries agreed to work to reverse the decline in domestic and international funding to agriculture and promote new investment in the sector to improve governance of global food issues, in partnership with the relevant stakeholders in the public and private sectors to tackle the challenge of climate change to food security. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director General Jacques Douf told a pre-summit Private Sector Forum that the importance of the private sector has increased due to privatisation, globalisation and a transformation in the food chain.
FAO says that a worsened global food security situation is a serious threat to global security with 100 million people joining one billion chronically hungry in 2009. Food prices remain high in developing countries with global economic crisis aggravating their unemployment and poverty. FAO has called for the adoption of economic and social polices for the creation of an environment conducive to supporting agricultural production is a sustained manner to ensure that the farmers, in particular rural women and young have access to know-how and means of production, including land and credit.
Close to 800 million people suffered from chronic under nutrition in 1996, when the FAO hosted the previous World Food Summit.
At that time almost 200 million children, under five, suffered from protein and energy deficiencies. Now, after thirteen years, the situation has further aggravated. Unless matching steps are taken urgently, hunger and food insecurity could worsen dramatically in some regions of the world. Poverty, the root cause of food insecurity, must be eradicated to attain the avowed goal of food for all.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina drew the attention of the leaders of rich countries to the worsening global food situation, particularly for the developing countries. She asked, if trillions of dollars could be spent to save financial markets from collapse, why a similar urgency was not felt to feed the world's hungry? She called for a sustainable food policy and mobilisation of global funds for it. She made strong pleas for an equitable food governance system to fight hunger across the world. She spoke for a preferential treatment of the least developed countries (LDCs) in transfer of technology and fair trade practices. President Luiz Iacio Lula da Silva of Brazil described hunger as a devastating weapon of mass destruction.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation called the summit with the expectation that the rich countries would raise official aid to agriculture to 17 per cent from 5.0 per cent. But the summit declaration remained vague, making a general promise to pour more money for agricultural aid, with no time frame for action. There was no pledge to eliminate malnutrition by 2025. Anti-poverty campaigners wrote the summit off as a missed opportunity, with most Group of Eight (G-8) leaders staying away. A sense of skepticism had already taken overtaken the gathering.
Africa, Asia and Latin America expect farm output to fall by between 20 and 40 per cent if the world's temperature rises by more than 2.0 degree celsius. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be the hardest hit by global warming as its agriculture is almost entirely rain-fed. Climate and food security are issues of great concern for Bangladesh as well. The threat to food security seems to be much greater than before. The spectre of sudden food scarcity of 2007-08, causing an unprecedented price spiral, haunts the developing economies.
Prime Minster Sheikh Hasina raised the crucial issues and the picture is cruel for one-sixth of global population facing the spectre of hunger. A vast majority of the poor, facing food shortage, negation of development gains and erosion of Millennium Development Goals, she said, reside in the LDCs. Output alone cannot guarantee food security, unless the marginalised and the vulnerable can access available food, she said. For this, a fair and an equitable food governance system is required at national as well as international levels.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called for a sustainable agricultural policy, transfer of technology equitable and fair trade rules for food and agricultural products with special preferential treatment of LDCs. She described as insufficient a recent G-8 decision to mobilise $20 billion in three years for small farmers in food deficit developing countries. Additional funds, she suggested, could be available only if the developed countries fulfil their official development assistance commitment of providing 7.0 per cent of their gross national income and two per cent more to the LDCs by 2010 as committed under the Brussels programme of action. The world leaders must be at one with her comments and invitations to present a really hunger free globe.
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(A senior manager with BRAC Education Programme, PACE the writer can be reached at: email: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com)
The world summit on food security, hosted by UN FAO in Rome last month unanimously adopted a declaration for the eradication of hunger at the earliest. The rich countries pledged to substantially increase agricultural assistance to developing countries, so that the world's one billion hungry can become more self-sufficient. The summit reiterated the target for reducing hunger by half by 2015. The participating countries agreed to work to reverse the decline in domestic and international funding to agriculture and promote new investment in the sector to improve governance of global food issues, in partnership with the relevant stakeholders in the public and private sectors to tackle the challenge of climate change to food security. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director General Jacques Douf told a pre-summit Private Sector Forum that the importance of the private sector has increased due to privatisation, globalisation and a transformation in the food chain.
FAO says that a worsened global food security situation is a serious threat to global security with 100 million people joining one billion chronically hungry in 2009. Food prices remain high in developing countries with global economic crisis aggravating their unemployment and poverty. FAO has called for the adoption of economic and social polices for the creation of an environment conducive to supporting agricultural production is a sustained manner to ensure that the farmers, in particular rural women and young have access to know-how and means of production, including land and credit.
Close to 800 million people suffered from chronic under nutrition in 1996, when the FAO hosted the previous World Food Summit.
At that time almost 200 million children, under five, suffered from protein and energy deficiencies. Now, after thirteen years, the situation has further aggravated. Unless matching steps are taken urgently, hunger and food insecurity could worsen dramatically in some regions of the world. Poverty, the root cause of food insecurity, must be eradicated to attain the avowed goal of food for all.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina drew the attention of the leaders of rich countries to the worsening global food situation, particularly for the developing countries. She asked, if trillions of dollars could be spent to save financial markets from collapse, why a similar urgency was not felt to feed the world's hungry? She called for a sustainable food policy and mobilisation of global funds for it. She made strong pleas for an equitable food governance system to fight hunger across the world. She spoke for a preferential treatment of the least developed countries (LDCs) in transfer of technology and fair trade practices. President Luiz Iacio Lula da Silva of Brazil described hunger as a devastating weapon of mass destruction.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation called the summit with the expectation that the rich countries would raise official aid to agriculture to 17 per cent from 5.0 per cent. But the summit declaration remained vague, making a general promise to pour more money for agricultural aid, with no time frame for action. There was no pledge to eliminate malnutrition by 2025. Anti-poverty campaigners wrote the summit off as a missed opportunity, with most Group of Eight (G-8) leaders staying away. A sense of skepticism had already taken overtaken the gathering.
Africa, Asia and Latin America expect farm output to fall by between 20 and 40 per cent if the world's temperature rises by more than 2.0 degree celsius. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be the hardest hit by global warming as its agriculture is almost entirely rain-fed. Climate and food security are issues of great concern for Bangladesh as well. The threat to food security seems to be much greater than before. The spectre of sudden food scarcity of 2007-08, causing an unprecedented price spiral, haunts the developing economies.
Prime Minster Sheikh Hasina raised the crucial issues and the picture is cruel for one-sixth of global population facing the spectre of hunger. A vast majority of the poor, facing food shortage, negation of development gains and erosion of Millennium Development Goals, she said, reside in the LDCs. Output alone cannot guarantee food security, unless the marginalised and the vulnerable can access available food, she said. For this, a fair and an equitable food governance system is required at national as well as international levels.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called for a sustainable agricultural policy, transfer of technology equitable and fair trade rules for food and agricultural products with special preferential treatment of LDCs. She described as insufficient a recent G-8 decision to mobilise $20 billion in three years for small farmers in food deficit developing countries. Additional funds, she suggested, could be available only if the developed countries fulfil their official development assistance commitment of providing 7.0 per cent of their gross national income and two per cent more to the LDCs by 2010 as committed under the Brussels programme of action. The world leaders must be at one with her comments and invitations to present a really hunger free globe.
...............................................
(A senior manager with BRAC Education Programme, PACE the writer can be reached at: email: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com)