Statement delivered at the World Food Day
Ceremony
Rome, Italy, 15 October 1999
Your Excellency, President of the Slovak Republic,
Your Excellency, Prime Minister of the Republic of
Guinea-Bissau,
Your Excellency, Minister of Agricultural Policy of the
Italian Republic,
Your Excellency, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to
FAO,
Excellencies Ladies and Gentlemen,
One of the main messages of the World Food Summit held
in Rome in November 1996 was that the fight against
hunger and malnutrition is not only a matter for
governments. Without wishing to exonerate political
leaders from their responsibilities in this regard, civil
society must quite clearly be fully engaged if food
security programmes are to be successful. And of all the
constituents of civil society, youth are without doubt
the most dynamic, the most innovatory and, at the same
time, the least likely to tolerate the unacceptable
persistence of hunger as we enter the 21st century.
While the world produces enough globally to feed its
six billion inhabitants, hunger still persists, with 790
million people in the developing countries who are
without access to sufficient food. Yet substantial
progress has been made in recent years, with the number
of chronically undernourished in developing countries
falling by 40 million between 1990 and 1997, in spite of
a rise in the world's population. While there is every
reason to rejoice over this reduction, we also have to
note that this was due to the combined efforts of just 37
countries, which collectively managed to reduce their
undernourished populations by 100 million. Regrettably,
the number increased by 60 million elsewhere. Unless
significant steps are taken to improve global and
national food supplies and overcome such disparities,
undernutrition could affect 30 percent of the population
of some countries in 2015.
The situation is worrying even in the developed
countries. For the first time, the Organization has
aggregate statistics for these countries which indicate
that 34 million people are undernourished.
If we are to achieve the objective of the World Food
Summit to reduce the number of undernourished to 400
million by the year 2015, more accelerated progress is
required, mustering all our collective energies. This is
precisely where the more than one billion young people
aged 15 to 24 come in, for they constitute a force, a
potentially huge source of energy that must on all
accounts be tapped and mobilized to ensure sustainable
development, especially in the agricultural sector. By
dedicating this World Food Day to youth, FAO has sought
to draw attention to their pivotal role in the fight
against hunger.
National leaders and international development
strategists need to be made aware that resources invested
in youth today will pay short- and long-term dividends,
and that the general concern to find urgent solutions to
immediate problems of national development should not
overshadow the role of youth in the future. These people
are active members of society, who should be given the
opportunity and the means to express their views on the
major issues that weigh on our consciences.
Youth of all social circumstances and in all countries
should and must play a part in the fight against hunger.
They can overturn the existing state of affairs if
informed of all the aspects and consequences of hunger
and malnutrition. A large proportion of young people are
more than willing to devote their energy and attention to
local, national and global efforts to overcome hunger.
This was quite apparent at the International Youth Forum,
which brought together 500 young people from 130
different countries on the occasion of the World Food
Summit in Rome in 1996. Today, the network linking these
young delegates in some 80 countries testifies to their
determination to enhance world food security, as set out
in the Summit's Plan of Action.
In the developing countries, many of the 250 million
working children and adolescents aged between 5 and 15
are employed in agriculture, helping directly to tend the
fields, the kitchen gardens and the livestock. Their
efforts and sacrifices need to be recognized and
highlighted, so that they can be alleviated without in
any way undermining household food security.
We need to draw more deeply upon the intrinsic
idealism, creativity and energy of youth. For more than
30 years, FAO has focused its support on rural youth in
the developing world and has achieved notable successes,
although there is still much to be done.
An estimated 472 million young people aged between 15
and 24 live in the rural areas of developing countries
&endash; young people who have much to contribute towards
the objective of the World Food Summit.
But enlisting such support is hampered by the
adversities facing too many young people: unemployment,
disease, alcohol and drug abuse, violence, social
exclusion, criminality and the breakdown of families are
just some of the serious aggressions they suffer. And
rural youth are no longer isolated from such problems,
which had hitherto been largely confined to urban and
peri-urban areas.
Another worrying trend is the large and growing
migration of rural youth in developing countries to urban
areas and to other countries in search of a better life.
Rural food security is seriously compromised by their
desertion, by this exodus that drains the countryside and
often deprives local communities of their most energetic,
capable and gifted inhabitants &endash; the very human
resources that are so desperately needed to safeguard and
improve food production systems.
Surveys confirm that young people are not only
attracted by the "city lights" but that they also hold
agriculture in low esteem as an activity and way of life.
Most rural youth would appear to equate agriculture with
hard work, low income and poor employment opportunities.
Even those who would otherwise have liked to stay find
themselves leaving because of inadequate access to land,
water, inputs, credit and agricultural extension
services. There is an urgent need to intensify programmes
aimed at improving conditions of life for rural youth,
especially young women and men without schooling.
This is the mission that FAO has set itself. These
programmes are essentially based on direct training in
agricultural techniques, enabling the young to acquire
the skills they need and reinforcing family and community
ties, thereby helping to build the sustainable
agriculture and socio-economic framework that are so
vital to the balanced development of a country.
One of the key features of programmes for the
advancement and fulfilment of youth is the promotion of
actions to help rural populations master and apply modern
technologies, to enhance agricultural productivity in a
sustainable manner.
Another important dimension is the identification and
mobilization of resources allocated directly to the young
to finance such activities. With this in mind, the young
need to be taught to identify and formulate their
requirements in such a way that these are taken into
account by the public authorities. Acquired communication
and leadership skills will also enable them to play a
decisive role in vitalizing community groups.
Finally, programmes aimed at young people in rural
areas seek to foster inspirational activity and the
satisfaction of personal and collective objectives, so
that they may be driven by that most formidable of human
motivations: hope.
These programmes can also strengthen family ties as
they offer a natural role to all family members. Parents
often set the example or volunteer to lead groups that
include their children. The experience of grandparents is
passed on to their grandchildren at training sessions,
focusing on the transfer of irreplaceable traditional
know-how, particularly as related to the ecological and
social environment, and to ancestral &endash; but often
still contemporary - agricultural practices.
At the same time, training these young people in a
rural environment can help change attitudes and modes of
behaviour towards the rural world and its components and,
in particular, strengthen the status and role of girls
and young women in the community, which is another
significant contribution to food security.
The young are generally more willing than adults to
accept and promote environmentally sound practices and
have shown their willingness and ability to exercise
considerable influence in this area. Youth educational
programmes on ecology should therefore lead on to
large-scale practical applications.
These same programmes also familiarize the young with
strategic planning so that they can have a clear idea of
the objectives to be achieved if their performance in
agricultural production and food security and that of the
community as a whole is to be enhanced. Thanks to
communication and exchange networks and to the
reinforcement and dissemination of such programmes, the
young will be better able to express their aspirations
and engage in constructive dialogue with local and
national authorities.
Programmes targeting rural youth in developing
countries can therefore have a notable impact and can
provide many young people with the chance to contribute
significantly to the national objectives of food
security.
In addition, rural youth networks should be actively
encouraged and supported as a way of facilitating
cooperation and the exchange of information and
experience among the young of an entire country, an
entire continent and our entire planet.
FAO, for its part, is doing its utmost to develop
these networks and its collaboration with international
and regional organizations for the realization of the
full potential of rural youth, in support of world food
security. The Organization is an active member of the
United Nations Inter-Agency Working Group on Youth, a
partner of the World Youth Forum of the United Nations
System and a contributor to implementation of the
System's World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year
2000 and Beyond.
The Organization's Medium-Term Plan for the period
2000-2005 places greater emphasis on rural youth. This
additional thrust will bolster activities of technical
support to governmental and non-governmental
organizations working with rural youth. Such activities
involve strategic planning, formulation of policy
guidelines, establishment of partnerships, vocational and
volunteer training, and technical assistance in areas of
FAO's mandate.
The launching of the "Food for All Campaign" in follow
up to the World Food Summit provides an effective vehicle
for closer dialogue between government and the different
sectors of civil society to identify appropriate actions
against hunger and poverty. In this regard, I want youth
organizations to know that FAO is determined to support
any initiative in this direction and strongly encourages
the creation and/or reinforcement of national committees
by civil society itself to increase its influence, and
especially that of youth, in decisions that relate to the
fight against food insecurity.
Let us hope that the young will identify with the
theme of this year's World Food Day and make themselves
heard through their own means of expression, that many
talented young people of all opinions and cultures will
participate actively in the TeleFood concerts and share
their enthusiasm and hopes with millions of their peers
through the universal language of music. May the theme
"Youth against Hunger" of this last World Food Day of the
20th Century serve as a renewed opportunity for youth in
the developed and developing world to reaffirm their
common desire to see a new millennium free from
hunger.
Thank you.
