Statement to the Conference on the Right to Food and the Costs of Hunger

Rome, 20 June 2003

Your Excellency Mr. Giovanni Alemanno, Minister for Agriculture and Forestry Policies of the Republic of Italy
Professor Roberto Papini, Secretary-General, International Jacques Maritain Institute
Honourable Ministers
Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish, first of all, to express my sincere thanks to His Excellency Mr Giovanni Alemanno, Minister for Agriculture and Forestry of the Republic of Italy, for inviting me to open this Conference on The Right to Food and the Costs of Hunger. I am honoured to be here to speak on a topic that is at the heart of the mission of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen

Let me start by recalling the first paragraph of the Rome Declaration on World Food Security, on the occasion of the World Food Summit in 1996.

“We, the Heads of State and Government, or our representatives... reaffirm the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger.”

So why, if there is such an uncompromising commitment to ensuring the right to adequate food, has the issue of the Right to Food generated so much heated debate over the years that some continue to oppose certain actions to promote this right, and that few countries have committed themselves to approaching food security within a Rights-based framework? Why do 840 million fellow human beings continue to live in chronic hunger, effectively denied that right at a time when the world’s farmers are producing enough for everyone to eat well?

At the WFS:fyl, we focused attention on the inter-related issues of lack of political will and of shortfalls in the allocation of resources for agricultural development and food security.

The lack of political will to address hunger frontally may be partially attributable to the political marginalisation and disenfranchisement of the rural poor in almost every country. It may also be due to a failure to recognise the enormous global cost of not eradicating hunger – in terms of stunted economic growth, conflict, recurrent emergencies, international crime, terrorism, clandestine migration and the premature death of those who are hungry.

But the lack of action seems also to be attributable to excessive faith in the market and the normal processes of economic development and growth to solve the hunger problem.

In FAO, we take the view that:

• Hunger is both a cause and an effect of poverty. Widespread hunger and malnutrition impair the economic performance not only of individuals and families, but also of nations. The combined effect of stunting, iodine deficiency and iron deficiency is considered to reduce GDP by 2 to 4 percent per year. Achieving the WFS goal of reducing the number of undernourished people by half by the year 2015 would yield a value of more than US$120 billion.

• Given the heavy concentration of hunger in the rural populations of developing countries, actions which empower poor rural households to derive employment and income from increased productivity in agriculture will be central to such strategies. Our experience with the Special Programme for Food Security is that almost all rural communities are able to identify viable low-cost opportunities for improving the food security of their members.
  

• But they must be complemented by social safety nets which enable those who are unable to produce or buy adequate food to have enough to eat.
  

• These two major elements of hunger reduction strategies can be mutually reinforcing.

We are convinced, therefore, that getting rid of hunger is not simply a moral imperative and the fulfilment of international legal obligations concerning the right to food, but that it also makes economic sense. We can claim that achievement of a hunger-free world is in almost everyone’s self–interest. We also believe strongly that it is within human capacity to ensure that everyone can enjoy access to food.

The adoption of a Right to Food framework within which to approach food security offers the important advantages of defining goals, accountabilities and obligations, of protecting the consistency of efforts to improve food security over time and of ensuring effective monitoring of progress. A Rights-based approach to food security empowers claim holders and duty bearers alike. Above all, it makes the commitment to get rid of hunger entirely unambiguous.

Most of us have been dismayed by the slow progress made in hunger reduction since 1996. But I believe that at last we are seeing the tide begin to turn. Over the past year, since WFS:fyl, over 20 countries have approached FAO for assistance in the design and implementation of nationwide food security programmes through which they will seek to attain, within their borders, the WFS goal of halving the number of undernourished persons by 2015. Indeed, some of these countries have adopted still more ambitious goals for eradicating hunger within much shorter periods. Many countries with which we are working are financing their national food security programmes entirely with their own domestic resources.

We are also seeing - as you are very much aware - encouraging progress towards the operationalisation of the Right to Food. The Intergovernmental Working Group for Right to Food Guidelines established by the FAO Council following the request of the WFS:fyl, is to elaborate a set of voluntary guidelines for the progressive implementation of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security. The Guidelines will be a practical tool to assist States in implementing their obligations under international law as well as achieving the Millennium Development Goals and the Goal of the World Food Summit. FAO hosts the Secretariat in close cooperation with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and expects the Guidelines to become a reference for policies and legislation at the national level.

The national commitment to the right to food now emerging in several countries, will also strengthen the process of developing the Voluntary Guidelines, as the same principles are being tested and implemented in different countries and different situations, on the basis of actual experience.

I have been particularly encouraged by the outstanding example now being set by Brazil. On his election, H.E. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva committed himself to eradicate hunger in Brazil within his 4-year term of office. The comprehensive Zero Hunger Programme was launched within his first month in office and is now gathering momentum, supported not just by the Government but also by civil society at large. What is already very evident is the President’s and the Government’s full and unwavering commitment to the country’s massive hunger programme.

Hopefully President Lula’s vision, presented to the G-8 Summit earlier this month, of a world in which everyone is able to enjoy their right to adequate food, will quickly become a reality.

It is against this encouraging backdrop, that it gives me great pleasure to declare your meeting open.

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