"Global Food Security in the International Agenda"
Lecture by Dr. Jacques Diouf, Director-General
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Golden Series of Lectures by Outstanding Political and Public Figures
Foreign Policy and Relation Journal "International Affairs"
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
Moscow, Russian Federation, 5 June 2009
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,
It is a great honour for me to be with you today in the global city of Moscow to address this prestigious gathering on such an important topic - "Global Food Security".
I first wish to thank the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russia Federation, the Deputy Minister Mr. Sergey Ryabkov and the Editorial Board of the "International Affairs" journal for their kind invitation. I am indeed honoured to take part in this great lecture series.
Russia is a founding father of the United Nations. It is an immense country which plays a vital role in the global and rural economy.
Russia is hosting tomorrow and after tomorrow the "World Grain Forum" in Saint Petersburg. This event is taking place at a crucial time for world affairs.
The economic and financial crisis has followed and worsened the food crisis of 2007-2008.
Russia, which has become a major player in the global grain economy with stable export markets and geographical proximity to buyers in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia, has an important role to play in the fight against global hunger. Russia with 2.1 percent of world population (in 2008) exported 21.2 million tonnes of cereals in 2008/2009, representing 8 percent of the world's total cereal exports.
State of World Food Insecurity
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The triple 'food, fuel and financial' crisis threatens global food and nutrition security and the achievement of the 1996 World Food Summit targets and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
In only two years, 2007 and 2008, mainly because of high food prices, the number of hungry people in the world soared by 115 million. Preliminary results of studies conducted by FAO show that the financial and economic crisis could, in 2009, drag more than 100 million persons into chronic hunger. In other words, the world has today about one billion people suffering from hunger and malnourishment.
In addition, as of last month, 31 countries are in a situation of food crisis requiring emergency assistance. Of these, 20 countries are in Africa, nine in Asia and the Near East and two in Central America and the Caribbean.
This cannot be acceptable in a world of abundance and when trillions of US dollars are being spent to deal with the present financial crisis.
Unfortunately, the global food insecurity is the chronicle of a disaster foretold. Five years after the World Food Summit of 1996, we already had to convene a summit in 2002 to draw the international community's attention to the fact that resources to finance agricultural programmes in developing countries were falling, instead of increasing. Under such conditions, the target of halving world hunger by 2015 would not be reached. Indeed, under prevailing trends at the time, that target would only be realized in 2150.
The food crisis and the difficulty to face it is the result of 20 years of under-investment in agriculture and negligence of the sector. The share of agriculture in official development assistance fell from 17 percent in 1980 to 3.8 percent in 2006 and international and regional financial institutions saw a drastic reduction in the resources allocated to the activity.
Yet, agriculture provides the livelihood for 70 percent of the world's poor. It contributes about 10 percent of GDP and accounts for more than half of total employment in developing countries. In countries where more than one third of the population suffers from hunger, agriculture represents 21 percent of the GDP.
Programmes and Initiatives
In December 2007, in response to the rapid hikes in food prices, FAO launched the "Initiative on Soaring Food Prices" with the aim to quickly boost food production in the affected countries and prevent further deterioration of food insecurity, by facilitating small farmers' access to essential inputs like seeds and fertilizers and also assisting governments in designing appropriate policy and response measures.
Under this initiative, FAO has to date mobilized 240 million US dollars and provided technical and policy assistance to 96 countries, following official requests by governments. FAO very much values the decision by the European Union to mobilize one billion euros under its "Food Facility" initiative for support to small farmers in the developing world.
FAO organized from 3 to 5 June 2008, in Rome, a High-Level Conference on World Food Security to discuss the impact of soaring food prices and the emerging issues of climate change and bioenergy. The event was attended by representatives of 181 countries, with 43 Heads of State and Government and more than 100 ministers. The Conference Declaration, which was adopted by acclamation, underlined the need to increase food production, particularly in low-income and food deficit countries, to boost investments in agriculture and to make effectively available the necessary funding required.
In April 2008, the UN Secretary-General established the High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis, bringing together the United Nations system, the Bretton Woods institutions and other international organizations, to develop a unified response to the food crisis. I had the honour to be appointed the Vice-Chairman of this Task Force.
The Task Force prepared the "Comprehensive Framework for Action" (CFA) which defines the common position of its members on actions to be implemented in the short, medium and long terms to deal with the crisis and to improve food and nutritional security at national, regional and global levels. The CFA was presented by the Secretary-General to the G8 Summit in Japan and to the United Nations General Assembly last September.
The Way Forward
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The global financial crisis has shattered the triumphant certainties of deregulation of the international economic system. Calling for a recasting of the international financial order, the G20 leaders have already met twice since last November and a third meeting is foreseen in the next fall.
The food crisis requires no less attention for, in addition to its economic, social and ethical ramifications, it has also proven to be a serious threat to world peace and security.
We must secure the food security of one billion hungry people, and also double food production to feed a world population projected to reach 9.2 billion in 2050. This will need to be achieved in the face of several challenges, including demographic and dietary changes, climate change, bioenergy development and increasingly scarce natural resources.
Plans, strategies and programmes to defeat hunger and malnutrition in the world do exist, even though they may need further refinement and updating. As part of the preparations for the High-Level Conference on "How to Feed the World in 2050", which will be held in Rome in October 2009, FAO is updating the Anti-Hunger Programme which was prepared in 2002 and is addressing all related issues.
World leaders and the international community need to reach a broad consensus on the total eradication of hunger from the planet in conformity with the Guidelines on the Right to Food and to follow up with the required actions to achieve these goals by 2025, objective already set for Latin America and the Caribbean countries by the Iberoamerican Summit of 2006 and endorsed by the Latin America and Caribbean Summit of 2008.
However, what lacks are the means and the right setting to achieve the target. What we need is a 'new world food order'. Recently, different fora, including the FAO High-Level Conference in June 2008, the G8 Summit in July in Japan and the Special Session of the FAO Conference last November, called for strengthening the governance of world food security, with the aim to ensure greater coherence and coordination in the fight against hunger.
The present international agricultural system that has resulted in increased hunger and poverty needs to be corrected to meet the hopes of the founding fathers who wanted it to be fairer and more considerate of the hungry, when they created FAO in 1945. We need to strengthen the Committee on World Food Security which is universal as it is made up of Member Nations of FAO and Member States of the UN and reports to ECOSOC.
Farmers in both developed and developing countries should have an income comparable to those earned by workers in the secondary and tertiary sectors of their respective countries. Appropriate policies need to be developed together with rules and mechanisms that will ensure not only free but also equitable international agricultural trade.
The structural solution to the problem of food insecurity in the world lies in increasing production and productivity in low income food deficit countries within the difficult constraints of climate change. We have to allocate proper funding for agriculture in developing countries for investment in rural infrastructures and to ensure access to modern inputs with the assistance of adequate institutions for small farmers. But, in addition to having nutritious food we need to guarantee its safety and quality. And at a time of global movement of people and goods we have also to address preventively new threats of transboundary pests and diseases of plants and animals.
The problem of food security is a political one. It is a question of the priorities set by governments on the international agenda in the face of the most fundamental of human needs, which will determine the allocation of resources to the sectors of the economy and the categories of workers in the population.
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,
Several countries have realized remarkable progress toward the achievement of the set goals of hunger reduction, including in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Therefore we can improve world food security if we build on these experiences.
We should not let hunger defeat us. With concerted efforts, political leadership, determination and effective financial resources, we surely can do it.
The momentum for change that we are currently witnessing will soon lead to concrete and effective actions relegating hunger to history. It is an issue of peace and security in the world. That is why the World Food Summit of the Heads of State and Government that I propose for November 2009, which will be the third after the 1996 and 2002 events, is so important.
I thank you for your kind attention.