SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS PLIGHT OF REFUGEES IN ZAIRE IS 'ALL-OUT EMERGENCY' NEEDING IMMEDIATE ACTION FROM WORLD COMMUNITY
Press Release
SG/SM/6107
FAO/3642
SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS PLIGHT OF REFUGEES IN ZAIRE IS 'ALL-OUT EMERGENCY' NEEDING IMMEDIATE ACTION FROM WORLD COMMUNITY
19961112 ADVANCE RELEASE World Food Summit Address Highlights 'Intolerable' Situation Of Food Wastage in Some Countries While Millions of Children Elsewhere StarveThis is the text of a speech to be delivered by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to the World Food Summit in Rome on 13 November:
The World Food Summit, which opens today in Rome, must provide the international community as a whole with the opportunity to reaffirm the overriding need to ensure food security for all. I should, therefore, like, at the outset, to congratulate Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), on having urged States to exert renewed efforts and take new initiatives in the context of the Declaration and the Plan of Action which are the subject of this conference.
I should also like to thank the Italian authorities for their hospitality and cooperation. For more than 50 years, Italy has acted as host, in Rome, to the headquarters of FAO. And His Excellency President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro has just reaffirmed, in the clearest possible manner, the commitment of his country to the struggle against hunger.
I should like especially to express my profound gratitude to His Holiness Pope John Paul II. Today, by his presence and by his words, he once again honours the entire United Nations family. And in this way, he recalls that the problem of hunger is not only an economic, social or political issue, but also an ethical and moral one.
For hunger is a direct affront not only to the physical integrity, but also to the very dignity of the human person. Hunger is an insult to the fundamental values of the international community. And we are well aware that a society would be doomed to shame and dishonour if, at the end of the twentieth century, there persisted what His Holiness has so appropriately called "the structures of famine". We are aware that much effort lies before us. For the scandal of hunger still persists. Even today, one person in five suffers from hunger! Eight hundred million people suffer from chronic
malnutrition! And 88 States, almost half of which are situated in sub-Saharan Africa, know the pangs of chronic famine and malnutrition! At this very moment, 200 million children of under five years of age are suffering from malnutrition and food deficiencies. This is inadmissible!
It is totally unacceptable to see certain parts of the world staggering under an abundance of food, while other parts lack essential foodstuffs. It is quite intolerable to see certain countries wasting or destroying food, whereas others cannot provide their children with even elementary needs. The problem of hunger is not only a problem of production. It is also a problem of distribution. It comes as a rude shock to our conception of equality and social justice.
I should, therefore, like to associate myself fully with the initiative taken today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It is my hope that the World Food Summit will provide the occasion for a new and general mobilization against hunger!
In drawing the attention of everyone to the threats posed by hunger and malnutrition to nations and to vast areas of the planet, the World Summit clearly places the problem of hunger among the foremost present and future priorities of the international community. That is the reason why the objectives of this Rome Summit fall entirely within the framework of the great forward-looking actions which the world Organization has been taking, since 1992, concerning the economic and social future of the planet. It is, moreover, striking to note that the great United Nations conferences that have been held since that date have all, without exception, and in their field of competence, placed emphasis on the urgency of finding a remedy for famine and malnutrition.
Thus, in 1992, at Rio, the Conference on Environment and Development emphasized the need to ensure food security at all levels, within the framework of sustainable development, as defined in Agenda 21. The following year, the World Conference on Human Rights, meeting in Vienna, reaffirmed the need to ensure that everyone enjoyed a genuine right to food. In 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo emphasized the linkage between population growth and food production and the need to respond globally to populations' ever-growing food needs. The World Summit for Social Development, meeting in Copenhagen in March 1995, also made a strong commitment to the campaign against hunger by making it a key element of poverty eradication. The Beijing Conference, for its part, rightly drew the attention of the international community to the fundamental role played by women in food production, particularly in rural areas, recalling that women produce over 55 per cent of the world's food and over 80 per cent of Africa's food. Just recently, the Habitat II Conference in Istanbul showed the importance of establishing healthy linkages between rural and urban areas and
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emphasized the role of cities in ensuring proper food distribution and drinking water supply.
So, in a way, this Rome Summit marks the culmination of this process of reflection, and it is only right that FAO should have taken the initiative of organizing it since, according to the FAO constitution, that organization has the essential goal of "ensuring humanity's freedom from hunger". It is from this standpoint that I earnestly hope that this Summit will provide us with the opportunity to persuade the international community to make food security an absolute priority and to draw the necessary conclusions as to future action.
As you know, the idea of food security has been circulating for a long time in the international agencies. As early as 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed that "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food ...". Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights puts it even more succinctly, in 1966, when it affirmed the "right of everyone to be free from hunger". This right to food is even characterized as a "fundamental right". It is the primary economic right of the human person.
In 1973, when FAO first gave the concept of food security a place in the international legal order, we entered a new stage, for that made it possible at the universal level to define food policies, put in place strategies for action, present medium-term plans and establish emergency and crisis mechanisms. Likewise, regional organizations in Asia, Latin America and Africa devised procedures and means of action. Real progress was made, and it is no exaggeration to say that food security progressed on the planet. That only makes the catastrophic situations which we are again facing today, particularly on the African continent, even more intolerable. It was for this reason that I proposed the launching this year of the United Nations System- wide Special Initiative on Africa. One purpose of this Initiative, in which the World Bank and the major United Nations agencies are involved, is to underscore the need to ensure food security and safe water supply in Africa more effectively over the long term. The FAO will be a key partner in this effort.
At the same time, however, we are also confronting extremely urgent situations. As this Summit is taking place, more than a million starving, frightened refugees are wandering helpless in the mountains and forests of eastern Zaire. So, I should like to make a solemn appeal here to the international community to help those men, women and children who have lost everything and who face certain death unless they receive immediate assistance.
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The international community must come to the aid of the refugees in Zaire. We need everyone to help -- the great Powers, the African States, international agencies and humanitarian organizations. This is an all-out emergency, and every day counts!
If, by our concerted, collective efforts, we manage to bring this tragedy under control, we will have given real meaning to the concept of world food security.
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