No firm targets at world food talks

17/11/2009| IslamWeb

World leaders at a United Nations summit have drawn criticism for not signing on to a declaration aimed at eradicating hunger by the year 2025.

The meeting of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, brought together leaders from more than 200 countries.

But many ignored a UN call to commit billions of dollars to a new strategy that seeks to help the developing world decrease its dependence on foreign food aid.

While a final declaration - presented on the first day of the three-day summit - vowed "urgent action" to boost food security, Jacques Diouf, the FAO director general, said on Monday that he regretted the absence of concrete targets.

"I am not satisfied with the fact that there is no commitment regarding the calendar, amounts and conditions," Diouf said.

In particular, Dioouf said he regretted the "absence of a deadline for the total eradication of hunger in the world", referring to the UN Millennium Development Goal deadline of 2025.

Pope Benedict XVI, the Roman Catholic pontiff, criticized the "greed which causes speculation to rear its head even in the marketing of cereals, as if food were to be treated just like any other commodity".

'Wasted opportunity'

Matt Grainger of Oxfam was among many activists who criticized the outcome, calling it "completely uncosted, unfunded and unaccountable".

"They really had a chance here to come up with something really concrete," Grainger told the AFP news agency, calling the summit a "massive wasted opportunity".

Some 60 heads of state and government were attending the World Summit on Food Security, but leaders of most of the world's wealthiest countries were absent.

Monday's declaration outlined five "principles" including "direct action" to help the most vulnerable.

But no new financial commitments were contained in the document, which calls on wealthy nations to honor pledges of $20bn in aid over the next three years made at a Group of Eight summit in July.

Opening the summit, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said "the food crisis of today is a wake-up call for tomorrow".

By the time the world population reaches some nine billion in 2050, "we know we will need to grow 70 per cent more food, yet weather is becoming more extreme and more unpredictable", he said.

The UN chief added that the issues of climate change and food security are interlinked.

PHOTO CAPTION

Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations delivers his speech during the inaugural ceremony of the World Summit on Food Security at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization FAO headquarters, in Rome, Monday, Nov. 16, 2009.

Al-Jazeera