FAO’s contribution to achievement of the development goals of the United Nations Millennium Declaration

1. At the World Food Summit in Rome in 1996, the international community set the goal of cutting by half the number of hungry children, women and men by 2015. This Summit also agreed on an indicative roadmap for how this goal might be achieved: the WFS Plan of Action. At the Millennium Summit in New York in September 2000, world leaders reaffirmed their commitment to this goal. Fighting hunger has also been included in the Millennium Development Goals as a key component of poverty reduction and social development efforts.

2. FAO has emphasized that there are close causal linkages between reducing hunger and the sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems. With world population expected to reach 8 billion by 2030, pressure on the environment will continue to mount. The challenge of the coming years is to produce enough food to meet the needs of an additional 2 billion people while preserving the natural resource base upon which the well-being of present and future generations depends. Reducing hunger and meeting basic needs of the poor will also widen their options, increase their chances for a healthier and longer life, use opportunities for education and allow them to pursue more sustainable production practices. The co-location of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation underline their linkages and the need for more multidimensional strategies for their lasting reduction.

3. FAO sees merit in a coherent strategic approach to the MDGs by the UN system. Apart from the obvious political benefits of the perception of the UN system working together on a common agenda, benefits are also likely to accrue from coherent methodologies for monitoring and costing the MDGs. Such a coherent strategy could also provide a useful framework for collaborative work on cross-cutting linkages among the goals and the implications of these linkages for the construction of more mutually supportive strategies, country-level programmes, as well as the sequencing of investment and other forms of support. Therefore, the full involvement of UN system organizations with relevant competence is fundamental to the success of the millennium campaign.

4. Since the World Food Summit (WFS), and more recently during the preparations for the WFS-fyl, FAO has undertaken a number of steps to monitor regularly progress in halving the number of hungry and has supported countries and regions with implementation of the WFS Plan of Action. The following paragraphs describe those actions of the Organisation that have direct relevance to the three basic initiatives of the proposed UN strategy for achieving the MDGs: Monitoring, Analysis and a public outreach Campaign.

5. Monitoring of MDGs: As part of its major functions FAO has been regularly monitoring progress towards halving the number of hungry. For example, findings are published in the annual FAO publication The State of Food Insecurity in the World, The results of this continuous effort are being integrated into the UN co-ordinated system for reporting progress on the MDGs. Similarly, FAO is also contributing to this UN global monitoring system, with regard to MDG environmental goals. FAO has the responsibility to produce and provide a key indicator relating to changes in the forest cover. At the country level, FAO is assisting countries in implementing the provisions of the World Food Summit Plan of Action that fall within its mandate, as well as in monitoring progress in achieving the Summit's goals. In order to provide adequate information tools to country policy and decision makers, FAO is actively supporting an inter-agency initiative aimed at facilitating the implementation of Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems (FIVIMS). FAO, in close collaboration with IFAD and WFP, also provides a secretariat for the UN System Network on Rural Development and Food Security which acts as the country-level coordination mechanism for follow-up to the World Food Summit (1996). Set up in 1997, the Network builds partnerships at the national and international level to fight food insecurity and rural poverty. It has a two-tiered structure. At the country level, there are 70 National Thematic Groups of development partners to work together on rural development and food security issues. At the international level 20 UN organizations support these national Thematic Groups.

6. The Millennium Project: A major element in FAO’s current work programme is the preparation of the WFS Mid-Term Review to be held in 2006. The WFS mandated the FAO Committee of Food Security (CFS) to undertake in 2006 an in-depth review of progress towards the 2015 target of halving the undernourished. The preparatory work consists of a series of studies and reports that analyse the basic determinants of hunger and poverty and factors behind progress or lack thereof. FAO has compiled existing evidence on the macro-economic benefits of hunger eradication and has presented it at various fora both internal and external. It has also initiated analytical work on the linkages between hunger, poverty and overall development. The basic concept underpinning such efforts is “fight hunger to promote economic growth as well as reduce poverty”. In order to ensure that the indicators of the extent of hunger used by FAO are in line with the most recent scientific evidence and methodological development, in October 2001 FAO conducted jointly with WHO and UNU an “Expert Consultation on Human Energy Needs” and sponsored an “International Scientific Symposium on Measurement and Assessment of Food Deprivation and Under-Nutrition” in June 2002. At the WFS-fyl, FAO explored with all stakeholders programmatic elements for a renewed attack on hunger. It has prepared a background document Anti-Hunger Programme: Reducing hunger through agriculture and rural development and wider access to food for discussion during the WFS-fyl which will be further revised based on the comments received and serve as an input to the hunger-related activities of the Millennium Project. Finally, FAO has been proposed as the anchor agency for the hunger goal within the Millennium Project. Under the project a major analytical report on meeting the MDG Hunger target will be produced. The report will draw heavily upon existing analytical work carried out by FAO, including background documentation for the WFS:fyl, while tapping related work by a broad range of experts. It will make a comprehensive case for the strategy and levels of financing to meet the hunger MDG.

7. Milennium Campaign: FAO monitoring has shown that the goal set in 1996 of halving the number of undernourished people between 1990 and 2015 could not be achieved unless urgent and concerted action was taken. The World Food Summit: five years later held in Rome from 10 to 13 June 2002 was a response to this need to move beyond a business-as-usual scenario and mobilize political will and resources for such action, based on the multidimensional approach of the WFS Rome Declaration and Plan of Action of 1996. The Summit was an occasion to stress the underlying unity of the WFS and Millennium Development Goals on hunger and the need to move forward boldly in mobilizing the necessary financial and human resources of all concerned stakeholders, in order to halve hunger by 2015. The Heads of State and Government or representatives, assembled in Rome at the World Food Summit: five years later at the invitation of FAO acknowledging the considerable efforts which have been made in many countries to reduce poverty and improve food security, and recognizing the commitment of the international community to assisting this effort as expressed in the United Nations Millennium Declaration; renewed their global commitments made in the Rome Declaration at the World Food Summit in 1996 in particular to halve the number of hungry in the world no later than 2015, as reaffirmed in the United Nations Millennium of the Declaration. We resolve to accelerate the implementation of the WFS Plan of Action.

8. The WFS-fyl was therefore an important contribution to broader UN system efforts to achieve the development agenda embodied in the Millennium Development Goals. FAO will work in close cooperation with WFP, IFAD and other relevant organizations inside and outside the UN system in mobilizing efforts and in facilitating broader partnerships and alliances for the achievement of the Millennium Development hunger goal. The challenge faced, however, should not be reduced only to meeting a numerical, time-bound target but rather to alleviating the suffering of the more than 800 million people – some 300 million of whom are children – who suffer daily the gnawing pain of hunger, hunger-related illnesses, hunger-related learning disabilities, and many, eventually hunger-related deaths. These millions of people are a stinging reminder of why there can be no delay in halving hunger by 2015.