United Nations (New York)
16 November 2009
document
The following are the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's opening remarks as delivered before an audience at the World Food Summit hosted in Italy by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
His Excellency Renato Schifani, President of the Italian Senate
His Excellency, Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy
Distinguished Heads of State and Government,
The Honourable Giovanni Alemanno, Mayor of Rome
The Honourable Mr. Jacques Diouf, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization,
The Honourable Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki, President of the United Nations General Assembly,
Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,
(In French)
This day, more than 17,000 children will die of hunger. One every five seconds. Six million children a year.
The world has more than enough food. Yet, today, more than one billion people are hungry. This is unacceptable.
Last week Mr. Diouf called for a day of fasting.
I fasted yesterday. It was not easy.
But, for too many people, going without food is a daily reality.
(In English)
Ladies and gentlemen,
I welcome the opportunity to address you at this important event.
I would like to acknowledge the presence here today of Ms. Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the World Food Programme and Mr. Kanayo Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Their organizations are central to our work for food security.
Food is a basic right.
Food and nutritional security are the foundations of a decent life, a sound education and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Over the past year, we have witnessed a chain reaction ... a chain reaction that threatens the very foundations of life for millions of the world's people.
Rising energy prices drove up the cost of food and ate away the savings that people otherwise would have spent on health care or education.
It is a vicious cycle that impoverishes not only its immediate victims but all people.
The human cost of the food crisis has been enormous. Millions of families have been pushed into poverty and hunger.
Suffering on this scale spills over borders.
It sets back development and undercuts social order, as we well know. Over the past year and a half, food insecurity led to political unrest in some 30 countries.
The world responded with the greatest-ever food assistance operation.
WFP led the international effort, feeding more than 100 million people a day.
Much potential damage was averted.
Yet because the underlying problems persist, we will continue to experience such crises, again and again -- unless we act now.
That is why we are here today.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
The food crisis of today is a wake-up call for tomorrow.
By 2050, our planet may be home to 9.1 billion people, over two billion more than today.
At a time when the global population is growing, our global climate is changing.
By 2050 we know we will need to grow 70 per cent more food.
Yet, weather is becoming more extreme and unpredictable.
In many parts of the world water supplies are declining. Agricultural land is drying out.
Food security and climate change are deeply interconnected.
If the glaciers of the Himalaya melt, it will affect the livelihoods and survival of three hundred million people in China and up to a billion people throughout Asia.
Africa's small farmers, who produce most of the continent's food and depend mostly on rain, could see harvests drop by 50 per cent by 2020.
We must make significant changes to feed ourselves? and, most especially, to safeguard the poorest and most vulnerable.
We must ensure safety nets for those who cannot afford food.
We must transform agricultural development, markets and how food is distributed. We must do so based on a thorough understanding of the issues.
That is the only way we can meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 ? not just MDG One, to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, but all the MDGs.
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
The past year has seen some progress. Nations have put food security high on the global agenda.
There have been courageous efforts to mobilize more financial resources, improve policies, build partnerships and agree on the need to reform how global agriculture is governed.
The G8 Summit in Toyako, Japan, last year was one highlight. There, leaders committed to reverse declines in food aid and investment in agriculture.
The President of the European Commission has established a 1 billion euro European Food Facility.
Earlier this year in Madrid, a high-level meeting organized by Spain and the UN embraced the concept of a Global Partnership on Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition.
At the July G8 Summit in L'Aquila, Italy, 26 nations and 14 international organizations pledged $20 billion to implement national food security plans across the developing world.
I appreciate the leadership of U.S. President Obama and Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy on this initiative.
We must ensure this money is gathered and disbursed promptly.
The L'Aquila Summit established that our approach must be comprehensive, well-coordinated, with a strong role for the multilateral system and, most importantly, country-led.
Many countries, including Brazil, have shown us how we can do this effectively.
In the short-term we must continue to respond to the most urgent needs.
Our emergency food response must be sustained, well-funded and we must ensure it will not be hampered by export restrictions or by taxes.
Longer-term, we need predictable increases in funding to develop sustainable food systems that can withstand shocks such as an economic crisis or climate change.
The UN's High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis has moved substantially in both these areas.
We have mobilized resources. We have carried out assessments and responded to immediate and longer-term needs, providing food assistance, safety nets and social protection.
We have increased investments in agricultural development, working with the private sector and civil society, farmers groups and research organizations.
And we have worked to help smallholder farmers, especially women.
These smallholder farmers are the heart and soul of food security and poverty reduction.
They need seeds and extension services. They need secure water supplies and they need land.
They also need to benefit from the higher productivity this will bring.
They need better market access and fairer trade.
We must resist protectionism and end subsidies that distort markets.
This, ladies and gentlemen, lies at the core of food security. Our job is not just to feed the hungry, but to empower the hungry to feed themselves.
To do this, we need a comprehensive approach.
We must support national food security strategies, such those being implemented under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme.
We value the efforts underway to revitalize the Committee on World Food Security.
We expect to see member states, civil society and the private sector fully involved in its workings.
For our part, FAO, IFAD, WFP, the World Bank and the rest of the UN system will do what we can to make it effective.
We must work together to build trust. We need joint investment planning? predictable resources? mutual accountability.
Together, we must ensure that food is available and affordable -- for all.
This is at the core of the right to food.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
Today's event is critical. So is the climate change conference in Copenhagen next month.
There can be no food security without climate security.
That is why, next month in Copenhagen, we need a comprehensive agreement that will provide a firm foundation for a legally binding treaty on climate change.
We must reduce the emissions that are causing climate change.
We must keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius.
We must help the most vulnerable to adapt.
At the summit on climate change that I convened in September in New York, world leaders signalled their determination to reach a deal in Copenhagen.
Since then we have continued to see engagement and growing support from the highest levels of government.
I welcome Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen's invitation for world leaders to come to Copenhagen. I sincerely hope they will participate themselves to demonstrate global leadership at this important gathering.
Now more than ever, we need the leadership of Heads of State and Government to resolve the key political issues at the heart of a global deal.
Distinguished Heads of State,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Next year the General Assembly will measure our progress towards the MDGs.
The MDGs, food security and climate change are all linked.
This week's Food Security Summit, next month's climate change meeting in Copenhagen and the MDG Summit next September must craft a single global vision.
And they must produce results. Real results for people in real need.
Results for the one billion people who are hungry today.
Real results so millions more will not have to suffer when the next shock hits.
The world is impatient for us to make a difference.
I, too, am impatient. And I am committed.
You can count on me to support your efforts.
Thank you.
Read comments. Write your own.
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BY PEACE SHALL Many Be deceived (Daniel 8:25) .
Does The Term “ PEACEKEEPERS ” ring a bell ?
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OBAMA DECEPTIONS
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#3
BY PEACE SHALL Many Be deceived (Daniel 8:25) .
DOES THE TERM PEACEKEEPERS ring a Bell ?
Ask the people in Rwanda (who survived that Peace-keeping) about the
United Nations PEACEKEEPERS .
President Obama’s UNITED NATIONS AMBASSADOR SUSAN RICE cut her teeth on
the RWANDA MASSACRE…. OOOPs!!! She said.
(Here’s a Search Link To Many Witnesses To THE NEW U.N. RICE MONSTER)
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In his piece entitled “ White Collar War Crimes, Black African Fall Guys,”
investigative journalist Keith Snow writes:
First note that the ICC can now be viewed as a tool of hegemonic U.S. foreign policy,
where the weapons deployed by the U.S. and its allies include the accusations of, and
indictments for, human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
To understand this, we can ask WHY NO WHITE MAN HAS YET BEEN CHARGED
with these or other offenses at the ICC (International Criminal Court) which now holds
five black African warlords and seeks to incarcerate and bring to trial another black man,
also an Arab, Omar Bashir.
Why hasn’t George W. Bush been indicted ? Or what about Donald Rumsfeld ?
Dick Cheney? Henry Kissinger? Ehud Olmert? Tony Blair?
The sad fact is that the International Criminal Court has become terribly
politicized, as has the entire international justice apparatus.
The ICC has issued indictments, for the first time in history, against a sitting head of
state. Meanwhile, according to Snow, an Israeli weapons dealer, also a reputed Mossad
operative, is revealed to be shipping weapons into Sudan with Pentagon support.
And Belgium changed its law rather than prosecute Ariel Sharon for war crimes.
The double standard cries out to us.
One country in the West, however, increasingly stands out as a place where
justice can be found?and that is Spain. With its landmark indictment of
Pinochet and its current consideration of Israeli war crimes in Lebanon and
U.S. torture in Guantanamo, we increasingly look to the Spanish Courts with
hope. It was the Spanish courts that returned indictments against Rwandan
soldiers for genocide even as the world coddles U.S. proxy Rwanda and its
leader, Paul Kagame.
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Life Is A Game. Have Fun . Luke 18:17 - Isaiah 11:6
INDEPENDENT FARMERS’ UNION IDEA
I'm an entrepreneurial sort of person and I got an idea along those lines that I believe many of us who are grassroots thinkers have been overlooking.
So here goes my idea :
a) We have all kinds of Farmers and Farms that are struggling to make a profit. I believe that they are struggling because they are farming under a kind of Third World system that advantages the persons who convert what farmers produce.
b) In most Third World countries , the First & Second World countries will only build enough infrastructure to allow shipment of RAW MATERIALS from their source(s) to the modes of shipping transportation used to transport the RAW MATERIALS to those First & Second World countries that will turn the RAW MATERIALS into processed goods.
* For example - They will build a railroad line of tracks from some Third World country's gold and diamond mines ( e.g. Zaire ) to the Giant Ships docked and waiting to carry them to processors and sellers such as De Beers, Coca-Cola , Cadbury's etc..
c) What kinds of RAW MATERIALS do Farmers produce and/or have access to :
* Gold - Rice , Cocoa ,Mangos, etc…
d) Major Problems stopping small farmers from taking advantage of the possibility of turning your products into a profitable business : LACK OF TIME
e) Solution - My Idea : Form an Independent Union Of Farmers . Having a Coop is great, but it’s only a way of further enriching the processors of our RAW MATERIALS.
* How would this work ?
1) Each Region would represent a chapter of this Independent Farmers Union
2) Generally speaking, each farmer would retain all of their rights ; just as they had before they joined the Independent Farmers Union .
3) The Independent Farmers Union would be finance collectively by individual members paying dues.
4) These dues which would be used to set-up business ventures in each Independent Farmers Union's Region.
Some Examples Of Businesses That could be set up
* Chicken Processing Plant, and restaurants that would sell the chickens could be supplied right their in each Independent Farmers Union's Region.
* Produce Markets
* Dairies
* Ice Cream Parlors (using fresh milk)
* Fast Food and/or Restaurants - featuring meat from various farm animals
* Supermarkets
* Chocolate Processors – instead of giving your cocoa to companies like Cadbury’s. What do companies like DeBeers, Coca Cola,Cadbury’s and others have that entitles them to get rich off of our Natural wealth ? NOTHING.. We empower them by our economic laziness !!!
5) The Independent Farmers Union's would need persons with expertise in areas concerning the setting up and running of these businesses on behalf of the Independent Farmers Union's.
WE ARE MAKING HUNDREDS WHILE GIVING AWAY BILLIONS TO OUR ECONOMIC SLAVE MASTERS !!!
THERE IS NO REASON WHY WE CAN'T TAKE CONTROL OF OUR OWN COUNTRY !
- FEED YOURSELVES SUGGESTION -
NEIGHBORHOOD COOP GREENHOUSES
ANOTHER SUGGESTION IS FOR THOSE LIVING IN THE CITY TO POOL
THEIR RESOURCES TOGETHER AND MAKE NEIGHBORHOOD COOP
GREENHOUSES . HERE YOU CAN GROW SOME KIND OF FOODS AND NOT
BE TOTALLY DEPENDENT ON GROCERY STORES.
HERE’S SOME EXAMPLES OF WHAT BLACK AFRICANS HAVE DONE :
BLACK AFRICAN INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS
The type of Invention is capitalized (e.g. TRAFFIC SIGNAL, MOTOR, etc..)
We Black Africans Can Be Self-Sufficient . Here are some major Black Africans who have had an impact on the world With their initiative These are INVENTORS .
This Listing includes The Inventor’s Name, Their Invention and in some cases the date the invention was recognized and the invention’s U.S. patent number.
* Sarah Boone - IRONING BOARD - April 26, 1892
* John A. Burr - LAWN MOWER
* Marie V. Brittan Brown - HOME SECURITY SYSTEM - Dec 2, 1969
* Buridge & Marshman - TYPEWRITER
* George Carruthers - X-RAY MACHINE
* George Washington Carver - PEANUT BUTTER - PAINTS – PAINT STAINS – ETC
* John Clark - TRACK ATHLETE TRAINER
* W.A. Dietz - SHOE
* Joseph Dickinson - PLAYER PIANO - ARM FOR RECORD PLAYER
* P.B. Downing - POSTAL LETTER BOX
* Charles R. Drew - BLOOD PLASMA STORAGE SYSTEM
* T. Elkins - TOILET (COMMODE)
* Robert Flemming Jr. - GUITAR
* Cathleen McCoy Garrett SIREN - HORN LIGHT INDICATOR
* George F. Grant - GOLF TEE
* J. Gregory - MOTOR
* Joanna Hardin - KEYBOARD STAND - Feb 23, 1993
* Michael Harney - LANTERN
* Solomon Harper - THERMO(HEATED) HAIR CURLERS
* Augustus Jackson - ICE CREAM
* B.F. Jackson - GAS BURNER
* H.A. Jackson - KITCHEN TABLE
* Ruane Jeter - DIGITAL TOASTER - April 14, 1987
* Isaac R. Johnson - BICYCLE FRAME
* John A. Johnson - WRENCH
* Lonnie Johnson - SUPER SOAKER WATERGUN
* P. Johnson - EYE PROTECTOR (GOGGLES)
* W. Johnson - EGG BEATER
* Frederick M. Jones - DEFROSTER - REFRIGERATION CONTROLS – AIR CONDITIONER
* Jones & Long - BOTTLE CAPS
* John H. Jordan - CLOTHES DRESSER
* Mary B. Kenner - SANITARY BELT (TAMPONS) - May 15, 1956
* Mary B. Kenner - SANITARY BELT (WATERPROOF) - April 14, 1959
* Mary B. Kenner - BATHROOM TISSUE HOLDER - Nov 19, 1982
* Mary B. Kenner - BACKWASHER ( BATHTUB OR SHOWER MOUNTED) - July 29,1987
* Lewis Latimer & Nichols - ELECTIC LAMP
* W.A. Lavalette - PRINTING PRESS
* F.W. Leslie - ENVELOPE SEAL
* Maurice W. Lee PRESSURE COOKER
* A.L. Lewis - WINDOW CLEANER
* John L. Love - PENCIL SHARPENER
* Tony J. Marshall - FIRE EXTINGUISHER
* Alexander Miles - ELEVATOR
* Jan E. Matzeliger - SHOE LASTING MACHINE
* W.A. Martin - LOCK
* Garrett A. Morgan - GAS MASK - Traffic Signal
* Lydia Newman - HAIR BRUSH - Nov 15, 1898
* Alice H. Parker - HEATING FURNACE - Dec 23, 1919
* J.F. Pickering - AIR SHIP (BLIMP)
* Purdy & Sadgwar - FOLDING CHAIR
* W.B. Purvis - FOUNTAIN PEN
* L.P. Ray - DUST PAN
* W.H. Richardson - BABY BUGGY
* Walter Sammons - PRESSING COMB
* G.T. Sampson - CLOTHES DRYER
* Dewey Sanderson - URINALYSIS MACHINE
* Ralph Sanderson - HYDRAULIC SHOCK ABSORBER
* S.R. Scottron - CURTAIN ROD
* Adolph Shamms - MULTI -STAGE ROCKET
* .W. Smith - LAWN SPRINKLER
* Richard B. Spikes - AUTOMATIC GEAR SHIFT
* J. Standard - REFRIGERATOR
* T.W. Stewart - MOP
* Maxine Snowden - RAIN HAT - 1983
* Theora Stephens - PRESSING & CURLING IRON
* Rufus J. Weaver - STAIR -CLIMBING WHEELCHAIR
* Paul E. Williams - HELICOPTER
* J.B. Winters - FIRE ESCAPE LADDER
* Granville T. Woods - Telephone System Apparatus Oct 11, 1887 – Patent # 371, 241
* Granville T. Woods - Roller Coaster
* Granville T. Woods - Auto Air Brake - June 10, 1902 - Patent # 701, 98
* Granville T. Woods - Telegraph Transmission Devices - Dec 2, 1884 Patents # - 308, 816 (7)
* Thanks to The Black Inventors Museum *
* Address : P.O. Box 76128 - Los Angeles , Calif. (90076)
* Phone (310) 859-4602)
* Director : Ghanaian Mr. Hamza Salifa
* Major Contributor of Information : SEESTAH Imahkus Nzinga Okofo
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Life Is A Game. Have Fun . Luke 18:17 - Isaiah 11:6
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Active Discussions: UN World Food Summit Focuses on Food Insecurity