WELCOMING DECLARATION FROM G-8 MEETING, FAO CHIEF URGES DONOR COUNTRIES TO INCREASE AID TO AGRICULTURE

welcoming declaration from g-8 meeting, fao chief urges

donor countries to increase aid to agriculture

Investment Said to Be Crucial to Reduce Problem of Hunger

ROME, 14 June (FAO) -- The head of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Dr. Jacques Diouf, has welcomed the declaration from the G-8 meeting of world leaders in Georgia, United States, on ending the cycle of famine in the Horn of Africa, raising agricultural productivity and promoting rural development.

Noting with regret the downward trend in development aid from donor countries to agriculture in many developing nations, Dr. Diouf hailed the declaration as an important step in the fight against hunger and poverty should the G-8 countries elect to match action with the words.

He said it was “encouraging that the leaders of the most industrialized countries had renewed their commitment to achieve the goal of halving by 2015 the number of people who suffer from hunger and poverty”.

“Especially promising”, Dr. Diouf added, “is the focus on Africa, where more than 200 million people remain chronically food insecure. I am confident, that if the new G-8 commitment is translated into immediate concrete action, the number of hungry people could still be reduced by half by 2015, thereby meeting the World Food Summit target and the Millennium Development Goal.”

He said FAO, together with its partners, would continue to work closely with the G-8 countries, other donors and recipient countries to promote agricultural development and offer its expertise and assistance.

The Director-General stressed that investing in agriculture and rural areas, particularly in water control and rural infrastructure, in food insecure countries should be the main priority in the fight against hunger. More than 70 percent of the hungry people lived in rural areas and it was there where hunger needed to be defeated, by production of food for their own consumption and surplus for export, as well as creating employment and income opportunities.

“At the G-8 Summit in Genoa in 2001”, he recalled, “the leading industrialized countries emphasized that support to agriculture was a crucial instrument of official development assistance. Unfortunately, three years on, agriculture in many developing countries is still not receiving the attention and support it urgently needs. In fact, official bilateral development assistance to agriculture from OECD donor countries fell from $4.1 billion in 2001 to $3.8 billion in 2002.”

Dr. Diouf said that if the G-8 countries were serious in their endeavour to reduce hunger, they needed to increase their resources flowing to rural areas in poor countries. The billions of dollars invested today in farmers, in technology and in infrastructure in rural areas, could be saved in the future on food and emergency aid.”

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