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19 December 2003, Rome -- Prime
Minister Helen Clark has received the Ceres Medal, struck in her
honour by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in
recognition of her commitment to promoting international
partnership and food security towards a safe and just world, the
UN agency announced today.
Since 1971 the
Ceres Medal, named after the Roman goddess of agriculture, has
been awarded to distinguished women who have contributed to the
fight against hunger. Recipients have included, Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso
and former Brazilian First Lady Ruth Cardoso, as well as the
late Mother Teresa.
During the ceremony,
which took place in the country's capital on Thursday, FAO
Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf said the medal was a token of
the Organization's esteem and respect for Ms. Clark's
role in promoting poverty eradication as the key objective of
the country's development assistance programme.
Poverty eradication, of which the fight against hunger
is an essential component, is one of the UN Millennium
Development Goals and during the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit
on Sustainable Development, Prime Minister Clark urged the
international community to create and meet achievable targets
for poverty reduction, access to clean water, renewable energy,
conserving fisheries, maintaining biodiversity and phasing out
export subsidies.
The Millennium
Development Goals call for reducing the proportion of people
living on less than one dollar a day to half the 1990 level by
2015-from 28.3 percent of all people in low and middle income
economies to 14.2 percent. The Goals also call for halving the
proportion of people who suffer from hunger between 1990 and
2015.
Dr. Diouf complimented Ms. Clark on
her belief that sustainable development cannot be achieved by
one country alone and her recognition of the fact that it is
through partnerships with others - countries, financial and
technical institutions and regional and multilateral
organizations - that shared goals can be
achieved.
Contact:
Stephanie Holmes
Information Officer, FAO
stephanie.holmes@fao.org
(+39) 06 570
56350
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