OUR PLEDGE

This issue of Working together is timed to coincide with the World Food Summit: five years later, or WFS:fyl. In November this year, government leaders and representatives of many institutions concerned with the eradication of hunger and poverty are expected to reaffirm their commitment, made here in Rome in 1996, to cut the number of undernourished people in the world by half, by the year 2015.

From left to right: Catherine A.Bertini, Executive Director, WFP; Jacques Diouf, Director-General, FAO; Lennart Båge, President, IFAD - FAO/11894/L.Spaventa

For us, as heads of the three Rome-based food agencies, WFS:fyl is the occasion to reaffirm our commitment to working together in ways that make the most of our complementary mandates, skills and experience. We pledge to redouble our efforts to ensure that, as our member countries strive to meet the Summit goal, they can be confident of the strongest possible support from their partners in Rome.

This and earlier issues of Working together portray the many ways in which our agencies collaborate in the pursuit of common goals. This joint publication reflects our shared conviction that a world without hunger is within our grasp and that we have a central role to play in its creation. This is particularly so because hunger and poverty bite deepest in the rural areas of developing countries, where our work is mainly focused.

In working together to eradicate hunger, we share a number of fundamental beliefs that guide our joint actions:

• We believe that, in spite of initially slow progress, it is still possible to achieve the WFS target by 2015.
• We subscribe to the principles of the "Right to food" endorsed by UN member states and seek to take them into account in designing the programmes and activities of our institutions.
• We see hunger largely as a problem created by people, but also solvable by people. Most of the solutions are well understood and can be implemented in every country, provided there is sufficient political will on the part of all concerned.
• We see hunger as both a cause and an effect of deep poverty: we believe that unless both hunger and poverty are banished, we cannot lay strong foundations for sustainable and broad-based economic development.
• We believe that action to counter hunger must also reach down to the household level and should focus on engaging women who bear the major responsibility for family food security.
• We believe that eradicating hunger is a moral imperative, and we are also convinced that it will generate important economic benefits at national and global levels.
• We are deeply concerned that, if we do not make rapid progress towards eradicating hunger, global political and economic stability will be threatened, together with the sustainable use of the natural resources on which future world food supplies depend.
• We believe that solutions to the hunger problem are readily affordable.
• We deplore the lack of resources committed to reducing food insecurity and other manifestations of poverty, and the widening gap between rich and poor within and between nations.

Jacques Diouf, Director-General, FAO

Lennart Båge, President, IFAD

Catherine A.Bertini, Executive Director, WFP