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Summit Goal to Cut Hunger by Half Achievable Only in 2030 By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Apr (IPS) - The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is disappointed that an international commitment to reduce the world's hungry by half by 2015 has fallen far short of its target. ''The rate at which progress is being made is not sufficient. This is not acceptable,'' complains FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf of Senegal. If the current rate of reducing the world's hungry - about 8 million a year - continues into the next decade, the goal set by the World Food Summit would only be achieved by 2030, not 2015, he told reporters. The target set by the summit, which was held at the FAO headquarters in Rome in 1996, was to reduce the number of hungry people by half by 2015, from 824 million to 412 million. The summit also adopted a Rome Declaration and a Plan of Action to resolve the food crisis. But Diouf says that in a world with plenty of resources - and an increase in affluence amongst the rich - there are still 790 million people in developing nations and 34 million in industrial nations who still do not have adequate access to food. The issue, he argues, is one of political will and resources - both of which are in short supply, precipitating the ongoing food crisis. The FAO is planning a follow-up to the World Food Summit, also in Rome, Nov.5-9. The proposed meeting - to be attended by heads of state and government - is not intended to re-open discussions or re-negotiate the summit's goals. But it will address the lack of political will and the shortage of resources to achieve the target, Diouf said. Two years ago, Ambassador Francesco Paolo Fulci of Italy, then president of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), singled out the World Food Summit as an ''illuminating example'' of a UN talk-fest long on pledges but short on action. Fulci said the tragedy of most UN conferences is that despite all their ballyhoo and fanfare, they keep failing to meet their targets or to implement their highly ambitious action plans. ''But what has happened, is that the total number of chronically undernourished people in developing countries has not decreased, but increased, '' he added. ''What we need now is more concrete action and less talking,'' he added. Diouf said that in sub-Saharan Africa alone, about 34 percent of the population are undernourished compared with 18 percent for developing nations. He singled out agriculture as a key element of African economies. The share of agriculture in gross domestic product (GDP) was 29 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, and agriculture also accounted for 33 percent of all exports from these countries. But Africa continues to have problems with productivity due to shortages of water and minimal use of fertiliser. Additionally, it was having grave problems with pests and diseases, as well as with access to markets, in the context of growing globalisation. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 28 million people in 21 countries were facing ''serious food shortages'', Diouf said. All of these factors were of great concern, particularly for achieving the goals of the food summit. While food aid was important and necessary, he said, this was not a long-term solution to the problem. The solution would be to help countries, particularly those in Africa, with increased food production and access to food. In 1990, Africa received about 30 percent of official development assistance (ODA) going to agriculture, but by 1998 this figure declined to 21 percent. Referring to globalisation, Diouf said: ''The hopes and promises attached to rapid liberalisation of trade and finance have not so far been fulfilled in many African countries. '' The mobilisation of resources - public, private, domestic and international - to increase the productive capacity of agriculture was critical for alleviating extreme poverty and reducing malnutrition, he added. Meanwhile, food shortages and emergencies are expected to affect many countries in all regions of the world because projected food supplies will fall short of demand. In eastern Africa, some 18 million people still rely on food assistance, following severe droughts last year, coupled with ongoing military conflicts in the region. Kenya, Sudan and Eritrea account for about 16 million, or 89 percent of the total. In Latin America and the Caribbean, nearly 1.5 million people continue to receive food assistance, mainly due to weather-induced crop losses. In Asia, severe winter weather earlier this year has exacerbated an already difficult food situation in North Korea and Mongolia. In both countries, large numbers of livestock, which provide an important source of livelihood and income for a large section of the population, have died. At the same time, successive droughts in parts of north west India and Pakistan have resulted in reduced harvests and exposed large numbers of people to food shortages. In
the drought-affected, low-income food deficit countries of Central
Asia, some four million people continue to survive on international
donor assistance, particularly in Armenia, Georgia, Tajikistan and
Azerbaijan. (END/IPS)
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