Food Security Challenges Demand Multilateral Commitment, Creativity, Leadership,

Secretary-General Tells Event on Food, Economic Crises in Post-Conflict Nations

With more than 1 billion people hungry in the world for the first time in history, the challenges of food security demanded multilateral commitment, creativity and leadership, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said this afternoon at a special ceremony to mark World Food Day.

“At this time of crisis, I encourage all nations to pursue coordinated and comprehensive strategies for agricultural development and effective social protection,” he said at the event, which was organized by the United Nations Liaison Office of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

Joining Mr. Ban were Ali Abdussalam Treki ( Libya), President of the General Assembly; Sylvie Lucas ( Luxembourg), President of the Economic and Social Council; Jacques Diouf, FAO Director-General; FAO Goodwill Ambassadors, athlete Carl Lewis and singer Dionne Warwick; and others. 

The theme for World Food Day 2009, which had been observed on 16 October, was “Achieving Food Security in Times of Crisis”.  Today’s ceremony followed a joint special event of the Economic and Social Council and the Peacebuilding Commission, in partnership with the World Food Programme, “Food and economic crises in post-conflict countries”.

Mr. Ban pointed out that the volatile food prices of the past two years, the economic crisis, climate change and conflict had led to the historic rise in hunger, severely hampering efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

International action so far, he noted, had included the United Nations High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis, which he had set up last year, along with a Comprehensive Framework for Action intended to provide safety nets and assistance for smallholder farmers and to support longer-term agricultural productivity and resilience, social protection, market access and fair trade.

Ms. Lucas said that further steps towards increased investment in agriculture had been made at the Madrid high-level meeting held earlier this year and at the Group of Eight (G-8) summit in L’Aquila, Italy, with dialogue on the issue to continue at the upcoming FAO World Summit on Food Security, in Rome, in November.

She added that the food crisis had been a focus of the Council’s 2009 Ministerial Review on Global Public Health.  “Hunger and malnutrition constitute, indeed, the number one risk to health worldwide -- a greater risk than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined,” she said, promising that the Economic and Social Council’s commitment to the attainment of food security would remain paramount on its agenda.

Mr. Treki said that the challenge was not only to increase world food production, but to increase the supply to those who needed it most, and for that reason, there must be a focus on assistance to smallholder farmers, including women.  For the good of future and present generations, he called for adequate political and financial support to the sector.

In the keynote address, Mr. Diouf stressed that the structural factors that had caused the first crisis in 2007-2008 were still present, with agricultural productivity still low and the population growth rate still high in many of the most food-insecure countries, while water availability and land tenure continued to pose significant problems and the frequency of floods and droughts remained above long-term averages.  “We need to take action immediately,” he urged.

In the short term, he said, safety nets and social protection programmes must reach the most vulnerable populations.  Options included targeted food distribution programmes, cash transfer schemes, school feeding and mother-and-child nutrition programmes, as well as employment schemes.  Small-scale farmers must be given access to high-quality seeds, fertilizers, farming tools and equipment to ensure their own consumption.  In the medium and long term, it was necessary to increase investment and productivity.

FAO, he said, had mobilized a total of $389 million for projects in 93 countries, under the Initiative on Soaring Food Prices, launched in December 2007.  Approximately $285 million had been funded by the European Union under the Food Facility Programme.

He expressed hope that next month’s summit could reach a broad consensus on the rapid elimination of hunger in the world, that it could put in place effective governance of world food security and that it could agree on restoring the share of agriculture in total development aid to the level of 1980, when it had been at 17 per cent, falling to around 5 per cent at present.

“Crisis or no crisis, we have the know-how to do something about hunger,” Ms. Warwick said.  “So let us work together on this critical crisis and solve it.”  Mr. Lewis, who was recently named as Goodwill Ambassador, thanked FAO for giving him “a new race to run” and a new goal to pursue by joining the effort to end hunger, noting that, unfortunately, “a hunger-free world was still a dream”.

The Choir Academy of Harlem opened and closed the occasion, which also featured an FAO video programme on the food crisis and welcome remarks by Lila Hanitra Ratsifandrihamanana, Director of the FAO Liaison Office, who invited those present to “imagine the right to food becoming a priority”.

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For information media • not an official record