C 2005/LIM/20

Conference

We, Representatives of the Member Nations of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), gathered in Rome at the 33^rd Session of the FAO Conference,

Declare

1. That this the 60^th year of the founding of the United Nations and of FAO constitutes a milestone that serves to reaffirm our belief in the multilateral system which resulted from the free will of the people of the world meeting in San Francisco and Quebec City, respectively, in 1945. FAO was born, as was the United Nations itself, of the determination to create a better world in peace.

2. We reaffirm the mandate of FAO, the first United Nations Specialized Agency, and the far-sighted vision of its founders, captured in the Preamble to the Constitution, which commits all Members to take separate and collective action for the purpose of “contributing towards an expanding world economy and ensuring humanity’s freedom from hunger”.

3. We reaffirm that FAO’s work to promote rural development and achieve food security is integral to our efforts to attain sustainable development in its social, economic and environmental aspects, within the overarching framework of United Nations System activities. Rural and agricultural development should be an integral part of national and international development policies.

4. In this year when we celebrate the 60th Anniversary, we CALL ON FAO to redouble its efforts to translate the vision of its founders into further actions to ensure humanity’s freedom from poverty and hunger in ways that strengthen sustainable development and conserve the world’s critical resources for future generations.

5. We INVITE FAO, its Members and all institutions and persons who subscribe to this vision to:

• Take further concrete actions to eradicate hunger in the world, beginning by meeting the target of the World Food Summit and the Millennium Development Goal to reduce hunger in the world by half by 2015, in line with the concept of the Progressive Realisation of the Right to Adequate Food.
• Promote healthy and environmentally-sustainable food production and consumption patterns that provide for adequate and wholesome nutrition, avoiding shortages, excesses and waste, acknowledging national sovereignty and respecting indigenous knowledge and internationally-recognized human rights.
• Promote the adoption of national and international policies, including those governing trade between countries, to enhance global, national and household food security.
• Accelerate processes of science-based innovation and facilitate transfer of technologies on mutually agreed terms in order to raise agricultural output in developing countries to meet expanding world food needs while contributing to development and poverty reduction and minimising environmental stresses resulting from food production, processing and distribution.
• Promote international cooperation, including South-South cooperation, recognizing that the mobilization of financial resources for development and the effective use of those resources in developing countries and countries with economies in transition are central to a global partnership for development in support of the achievement of the internationally-agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals.
• Encourage current efforts to identify innovative financing mechanisms from public, private, domestic and external sources that can play an important role to increase and supplement traditional sources of financing for development.
• Ensure the sustainable and responsible management of soils, water, forests, fishery resources and biodiversity in order to enhance, optimize and maintain their social, economic and environmental functions and benefits.
• Promote adequate investment in agriculture, fisheries, forestry and other renewable natural resources as well as the safety of food, including in the creation, as appropriate, and implementation of international conventions and codes of conduct, with the aim of guiding development so that it benefits all humankind and minimises the risks of conflict.