Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Hebert Zharare
14 November 2009
Harare — PRESIDENT Mugabe left Harare last night for Rome, Italy, to attend the world summit on food security organised by the United Nations' agency, the Food and Agriculture Organisation.
World leaders are expected to thrash out solutions to the global hunger problem at the summit which begins on Monday and ends on Wednesday.
Effects of the sharp spike in food prices last year are still being felt and the leaders are expected to come up with a set of measures to cushion the vulnerable against the added hardships brought by the global economic crisis.
President Mugabe and his counterparts will discuss ways to curb rising global hunger not only by boosting funding, but also by improving co-ordination between governments, multilateral agencies and non-governmental organisations.
In a statement earlier this week, FAO director-general Mr Jacques Diouf called for the setting aside of US$44 billion a year in official development assistance to be invested in agriculture.
He said developing countries needed international help to raise agricultural output given that conditions were still ripe for another food crisis.
Mr Diouf said more aid was needed to curb the increasing number of hungry people in the world, which had topped the one billion mark for the first time this year.
The President is accompanied by Agriculture Minister Joseph Made and his Foreign Affairs counterpart Simbarashe Mumbengegwi.
Commenting on the global food supply situation, Mr Diouf said there was lack of priority in fighting hunger and poverty at the highest political level, not only in developed countries, but in some developing countries as well.
"The fundamentals that led to the crisis in 2007-2008 are almost all still there, except for oil prices," he said, citing climate change shocks like droughts in Africa and strong population growth.
He also said the increasing allocation of land use to crops for biofuel rather than food was also dangerous.
"We are now in the paradoxical situation where in developed countries 2-4 percent of the population feeds the whole population, while in developing countries 60-80 percent of the population is not able to do so," Mr Diouf said.
Central to the latest push is reform of the 124-nation UN Committee on Food Security to give it a monitoring role to ensure aid money is channelled to agriculture.
Recalling the food riots of 2007 and 2008 in 22 countries, Mr Diouf said: "Remember, hungry people are also rightly angry people.
"Ending hunger may seem to some people a daunting, possibly a Utopian, task . . . (but) there is no country that is not capable in the Third World in general and in Africa in particular of ensuring its food security in five years."
Some of the personalities expected at the summit are Pope Benedict XVI and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The 193-member FAO is active in land and water development, plant and animal production, forestry, fisheries, economic and social policy, investment, nutrition, food standards and commodities and trade.
It also plays a major role in dealing with food and agricultural emergencies.
A specific priority of the organisation is encouraging sustainable agriculture and rural development, a long-term strategy for the conservation and management of natural resources.
It aims to meet the needs of both present and future generations through programmes that do not degrade the environment and are technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable.
Zimbabwe has implemented a number of homegrown measures to boost food security.
After giving land to about 300 000 families, Government came up with a massive agriculture mechanisation programme, where new farmers were given tractors, combine harvesters, ox-drawn ploughs, disc harrows, motorcycles, and electricity generators to boost productivity on farms.
The President is accompanied by Agriculture Minister Joseph Made and his Foreign Affairs counterpart Simbarashe Mumbengegwi.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 The Herald. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
