Address to the
Parliamentarians' Day on the occasion of the World Food
Summit
Rome, Italy, 15 November 1996
Honourable President of the Italian
Senate,
Honourable President of the Italian Chamber of
Deputies,
Honourable President of the Inter-Parliamentary
Union,
Distinguished Parliamentarians,
Yesterday in Beijing, today in Rome,
parliamentarians from the world over have come to
solemnly lend their support to the World
Food Summit and favour it with
the benefit of their reflection. I can only commend such
an initiative and express mydeep gratitude to the Italian
Parliament and the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
You are well aware of the gravity of
the problem of world food insecurity and the threat it
poses to peace and international stability.
You are also familiar with the
appalling statistics of continuing hunger and
malnutrition in the world and of the intolerable
injustice thus inflicted, particularly on women and
children.
As the representatives of the people,
you understand better than anyone the magnitude of the
problem of hunger and poverty. You have very rightly
assessed the disastrous national and international
consequences and have used your insight and expertise to
outline the main political, economic and social
orientations that are needed to attain the objective of
sustainable food security for all. This is clearly borne
out in the resolution adopted by consensus on 20
September 1996 in Beijing by the 96th Session of the
Inter- Parliamentary Conference.
This resolution is exemplary on
account of its comprehensive scope, for it embraces the
most crucial aspects of the complex issue of food
insecurity and identifies priority lines of action in the
most critical areas. I hope that each of you has done,
and will continue to do, your best to bring this
resolution to the notice of as broad an audience as
possible in your respective countries thereby providing
opportunities for debate in society and the media, so
that the issues particularly relevant to your national
context can be examined in depth.
The declaration that you are about to
present to the Summit will undoubtedly reflect the spirit
of the Beijing resolution. While supporting the Rome
Declaration and the Summit Plan of Action, you will no
doubt wish to emphasize the special contribution that
parliamentarians intend to make to this initiative. After
all, you are the representatives of that civil society
whose participation is so strongly advocated in the Plan
of Action.
Your declaration will stand alongside
that of the Heads of State and Government and will
represent civil society's readiness to be closely
associated in the implementation of the Plan of Action.
However, that will be just the
beginning; you will then have to push forward in this
direction with diligence and determination. For nothing
would be more futile than to unite briefly behind a
formal declaration at a world summit and then to promptly
ignore it. It would be highly irresponsible on our part
to fail to look into the mechanisms and procedures that
are needed to follow up the Summit and monitor
results.The commitments made must be turned into tangible
national, regional and international actions.
Each country is asked to draw up a
national plan. Not a plan prepared by experts and
bureaucrats and summarily endorsed by policy- makers,
without real consultation at the grassroots, but a plan
conceived with all the stakeholders, including as far as
possible the people most affected by poverty and food
insecurity.
Sustainable food security for all
calls for a radical reordering of political, economic and
social priorities, for without altering the existing
balances of power and without questioning the present
distribution of resources, there can be no meaningful
change and we shall not be able to attain our objective
of halving the malnourished population by the year 2015.
Parliamentarians can legitimately
promote bolder and more open debate among the various
interest groups. They can also make sure that the people
are involved and empowered, and pave the way for various
initiatives to achieve the target of food security.
In almost every country, region,
province and even district there are many food security
initiatives. These may differ widely in structure and
impact, but the important point is to acknowledge their
existence and help them move forward.
The "Food for All" campaign, to which
specific reference is made in commitment seven of the
World Food Summit Plan ofAction, can only achieve its
goal if it is conducted together with all the partners in
civil society.
At this very moment some 600
non-governmental organizations are participating in the
Summit and have presented a joint declaration drawn up
with the help of the many participants at the NGO Forum
convened by the Italian organizations.
Similarly, an International Youth
Forum is underway here in Rome, testifying to the desire
of the world's young to contribute their energy and
imagination to the fight against hunger and poverty.
For their part, representatives of the
private sector participated yesterday in a seminar on
food safety and processing, while other discussions
involving the scientific community have taken place
elsewhere.
So, what we see taking shape are the
national fora of tomorrow and what will subsequently be
an international forum for sustainable food security for
all. Governments, United Nations organizations,
international, intergovernmental andnon-governmental
organizations, parliaments, academic and research
institutions, youth associations, the private sector...
the pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place and
dialogue has already begun on the texts adopted by the
Summit.
FAO will foster such exchanges and
provide the information and know-how needed for these
national and international fora to become effective
instruments for the implementation and monitoring of the
World Food Summit Plan of Action, in accordance with the
clearly expressed wishes of the Heads of State and
Government.
I depend on your ideas and suggestions
to help FAO better define the mechanisms and means needed
so that it can play its catalytic role and we can
together launch the "Food for All" campaign that will
finally overcome the greatest of injustices: that of
hunger and malnutrition.
Thank you.
