The Speaker of the National Assembly, Madam Elizabeth F.Y. Renner, recently returned from Madrid, Spain, where she attended the launch and first meeting of the networking group on empowerment, equality and womenÂ's rights held in the Spanish Ministry of Equality from the 3rd to 4th November.

She also attended a two-day forum of African and Spanish women parliamentarians held from the 5th - 6th November, 2009, hosted by the Spanish vice prime minister. The networking meeting according to a release issued by the National Assembly,was organised by the African-Spanish Women Parliamentary Network, aimed to catalyse the experience of Network members, key womenÂ's organisations which are not yet affiliated to the Network and other relevant international governmental partners on issues related to empowerment, equality and womenÂ's political rights in Africa and Spain.

The meeting, the release added came up with the following recommendations:

To clear understanding of the mandate of the working group within the framework of the Network; to concretise plans of actions and to clearly outline priorities as well as a commonly agreed timetable for the implementation of the proposed activities; to intensify enhanced collaboration among Network members and other relevant partners actively working in the field of women empowerment, equality and rights.

Contributing to the two-day meeting, the Hon Speaker thanked the first vice prime minister of the Kingdom of Spain, H.E Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega and the Spanish government for organising such a forum. She told the members of the Network to follow up the conclusions and recommendations that were derived from the meeting which according to her will be of immense benefit and will further contribute to the promotion and advancement of women both in terms of employment, equality and rights.

Hon Renner told her fellow participants the importance the parliament and government of The Gambia attach to the forum and shared with them The GambiaÂ's achievements as well as the challenges in the area of womenÂ's empowerment, equality and rights in all sectors, particularly in health, education and in decision making and leadership positions. She also informed the meeting that the Gambian leader, His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya AJJ?Jammeh, has since 1994 appointed women in various positions of responsibilities notably the vice president and several cabinet portfolios among others. The forum praised President Jammeh for this laudable achievement and urged other world leaders to follow suit.

The meeting was sponsored and organised by UNIFEM, the Network Secretariat with funding from the Spanish government. Conclusions and recommendations at the meeting were presented at the forum of African and Spanish Wownen Parliamentarians. Discussion at this forum mapped out the way forward for the summit to be held in Valencia, the Kingdom of Spain in March 2010.

In another official engagement, speaker Renner, accompanied by the deputy clerk, Momodou A Sise also attended the Inter-Parliamentary Session on world food security and the UN World Summit on food security jointly organised by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the Italian parliament held from 13th - 18th November 2009.

In his welcoming address, the president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Gianfranco Fini, expressed gratitude to delegates for attending in large numbers such an important meeting. He said that the current situation of the world food crisis was unbearable and unacceptable. He therefore called for more investment, research, a fairer trading system, better procedure and coordinated efforts within the UN System.

Franco Franttini, minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy, emphasised the need for global appropriate policy action to ensure adequate food for a world population that will reach about nine billion in 2050. The president of the IPU, Theo-Ben Gurirab, declared that everyone has the right to a certain standard of living and that food security is not a charity but fundamental human rights. He urged parliamentarians to legislate for well funded food security programmes. The director general of the FAO gave a synopsis of the situation on the current world food crisis and explained that the number of people suffering from chronic hunger has increased by 75 million and is estimated to have furthered by 40 million, bringing the number of hungry people to almost 1 billion and that is 15 per cent of the worldÂ's population. He warned parliamentarians that food production must be doubled if we are to ensure adequate food availability for the worldÂ's population envisaged in 2050.

Antonio Martino, president of the Italian IPU group echoed the sentiments of the previous speakers and observed that millions of people are starving throughout the world despite more technological development. The vice president of the Italian Senate, Vannino Chiti, called for collective efforts and the identification of common goals to effectively address globalisation.

Kanayo F Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) told parliamentarians that hunger and poverty are inhuman and should not and cannot be tolerated. He attributed the cause of food insecurity to the stagnation of development in Agriculture, lack of empowerment of women farmers (who form 60% of small holder farmers) and reduction of financial aid and the low percentage of the national budget allocation to agriculture by individual states. The meeting also witnessed presentations on the topic: Â"The road to halving hunger by 2015: What is needed on the roadmapÂ"? This topic the release added attracted heated debate among delegates.

Mr. liver de Schutter, United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, argued that hunger is not due to lack of food but to lack of access to food and the purchasing power of the people. Cecilia Rocha, director of the Â"School of Nutrition and the Centre for Studies in Food SecurityÂ" Ryerson University, Canada, gave the gathering Brazil as a case study model for food security. She however noted as challenges, the inaccessibility of the project to remote farmers and the institutionalisation of the right to food participatory model of governance with civil society.

Contributing to the debate after both presentations, the Hon Speaker Madam Elizabeth FY Renner, said The Gambia like many African countries has put in place policies and projects to address agricultural development but pointed out that the main reason for the slow achievement in developing countries is the absence of national financial institution to support agriculture, and stated that committing 10% or more of a countryÂ's budget will help but may not necessarily be adequate to combat food insecurity.

The Gambian Speaker seized the opportunity to highlight the success story of The Gambia in the agriculture sector and cited in particular the simplified Â"Back to the landÂ" policy initiated by the Gambian leader, His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Yahya AJJ Jammeh, which all Gambians have hailed and responded to positively. This, the Speaker explained, resulted in bumper harvests in cereals and maize but especially in rice in 2008 and 2009. Consequently there was a very minimal impact of the Global food crisis on The Gambia, and so, she noted, the country was able to escape from the political upheavals that affected several developing countries in 2008 because of the impact of the global food crisis on these countries. The Hon Speaker emphasised the need for more funds to be made available for agricultural development which would include the development of the infrastructure, supporting good processing facilities and providing accessible markets for the produce.

Hon Elizabeth FY Renner was appointed with acclamation to chair the second session of the Inter-Parliamentary Session on world food security, the highlights of which was the statement by Mr Paul Larsen representing Mr Josette Sheeran, the executive director of the World Food Programme and the debate which followed.

The Hon Speaker also attended the UN World Summit on Food Security from the 16th - 18th November, which has the following objectives:

Clarification of differences in the impacts of food security crises on small holder farmers and of other affected population groups. Identification of possible adjustments required in existing global response mechanisms to permit faster and more effective reaction that is specific to the needs of each affected population group when a crisis occurs, and guidance on how to accelerate investment responses, within the context of the Accra Agenda for Action, in small holder agriculture in time of food security crisis. The parliamentary delegation returned to Banjul on Thursday, November,19th 2009 the release concludes.