FAO AND ITALIAN BROADCASTING COMPANY RAI LAUNCH TELEFOOD GLOBAL TELECAST; SIXTY COUNTRIES TO LINK ON 'FOOD FOR ALL' THEME
Press Release
FAO/3647
FAO AND ITALIAN BROADCASTING COMPANY RAI LAUNCH TELEFOOD GLOBAL TELECAST; SIXTY COUNTRIES TO LINK ON 'FOOD FOR ALL' THEME
19970930 Celebrities Join FAO's 'Appeal against World Hunger'ROME, 30 September (FAO) - Television stations in 60 countries are expected to link up on 19 October for the first TeleFood global telecast dedicated to the theme of "food for all". Organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in collaboration with the Italian broadcasting company RAI, TeleFood aims to involve people everywhere in the fight against hunger.
FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who held a press conference today at FAO's Rome headquarters to discuss the initiative, said "TeleFood has one major objective: to raise awareness of the scale of the problem and encourage solidarity in the fight against hunger. In addition, we will also try to mobilize resources in a few countries for practical projects and programmes to do something about it".
TeleFood is one of several initiatives by FAO taking place in October to mobilize world public opinion in the war on hunger. Others include concerts and an "Appeal against World Hunger" signed by prominent personalities from the art, entertainment, literary, sports and political worlds. Signatories 27553include Harrison Ford, Placido Domingo, John le Carre, Franco Zeffirelli, Riccardo Muti, Jeremy Irons, Pele, Ken Follett, Gina Lollobrigida, Isabelle Adjani and many others.
At the heart of TeleFood will be 8.5 hours of broadcasting on the RAI 2 channel which will be available for relay by television stations around the world via the RAI International satellite. The first part of the programme will include film reports from developing countries on the kind of projects which could benefit from TeleFood, celebrity endorsements of the TeleFood initiative, sport and light entertainment aimed at a younger audience.
The second half of the transmission will be dedicated to a gala concert at the Sala Nervi in the Vatican, with a star cast headed by Italian singer Andrea Bocelli and including a contribution from fame Spanish tenor Jose Carreras. The concert will be followed by a half-hour discussion programme on food security issues.
The TeleFood initiative was launched to coincide with World Food Day as part of FAO's follow-up to the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, at which Heads of State and Government and senior officials from 186 countries agreed that today's total of more than 800 million hungry and malnourished people in the world, 200 million of them children under five, is intolerable and unacceptable. The Summit's Rome Declaration pledged to cut this total by half by the year 2015.
Mr. Diouf has pledged that every dollar raised by the TeleFood appeal will go to providing practical support to rural people in developing countries both through FAO's Special Programme for Food Security or similar grassroots projects designed to help them grow more food and to protect themselves better against the vagaries of nature.
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