By Soraya Rodriguez
MADRID, Jan 14 2009 (IPS)

Food security is one of the major challenges we face in the world economic crisis. Now more than ever it is urgent that we not relegate the Millennium Development Goals to the back burner but rather fulfil this commitment to fight against extreme hunger and poverty that was signed by all UN member nations in 2000. The last UN report states that the increase in food prices has left another 100 million people in extreme poverty, to join the almost one billion who suffer from hunger. Then there are the more than two billion that suffer from “hidden” hunger, meaning they live on a diet that lacks essential vitamins and minerals.

The international high-level meeting on food security, which will be held in Madrid January 26-27, supported and attended by UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon, will seek to provide a co-ordinated response to the fight against hunger and raise more financial resources. It is unacceptable that the poor suffer the most from the global crisis. The initiative is framed by Spain’s commitment to continue increasing aid to the less fortunate countries. The Madrid meeting, which builds on that organised by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome in 2008, should serve to establish a road map with concrete mechanisms to advance the Millennium Goals by the target date of 2015.

Spain remains firm in its commitment to reach the 0.7 percent GDP goal for Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2012. This goal should reached for all developed countries by no later than 2015 in fulfilment of the MDGs. Disgracefully, since 2005 there has been a noticeable decline in aid from various donor nations. At the Doha Summit on development financing held last December, we endorsed the argument that there is no lack of resources, only a lack of political will. We hold that it is important to link the UN to the debate on the economic crisis and the reform of the international financial architecture, because paradoxically the current grave situation is opening certain opportunities: the reduction of poverty and the achievement of the MDGs are also appropriate policies to address the crisis because they will make the world more just, solidary, peaceful, and safe.

The world food crisis has not disappeared. The FAO index of grain prices for October 2008 remains 80 percent higher than 2005 levels. The price spike especially hurts small farmers, who have to pay more for fertiliser and seeds, as well as those who must spend more of their income on food. The shortage of food damages the ability to obtain basic goods and services like education and healthcare. In addition, food insecurity accentuates inequalities in access to jobs, the massive migration from the countryside to urban areas, and pressure on natural resources. Many countries have eliminated aid to agriculture, dismantling public institutions in the sector in the expectation that the private agricultural sector will develop.

We are aware of the support needed by small farmers in both donor countries and recipient countries in all facets of production. Agricultural aid as a percentage of total ODA has dropped from 18 percent in the 1980s to 4 percent today. It is clear that the donor countries must make a commitment to direct more ODA to the first of the MDGs: the eradication of hunger and extreme poverty. We also know that the coherence of development policy is key to bringing about the integration of impoverished countries into the systems of global and regional trade. This is the reason for the urgency for finally concluding the Doha round of world trade negotiations.

In the international meeting on food security to be held in Madrid, participants will seek not only to draw a roadmap to guarantee achievement of the MDGs and the commitments made last year in Rome but also to focus discussion on co-ordinating agricultural policy in each country, to back agricultural research, and to work with the private sector as well as civil society.

Moreover, it is time to advance the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food. In Madrid the developed countries will have a golden opportunity to demonstrate the extent of their commitment to the fight against hunger and poverty and to helping the least well off. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Soraya Rodriguez is Spain’s secretary of state for international co-operation.

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