The Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean has listened to and reflected with great interest upon the interventions and proposals made under Item 6 of the Agenda, proposals to intensify the fight against hunger, social exclusion, poverty in the world and especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, in the framework of the Millennium Development Goals.
Considering that a general consensus currently exists in Latin America and the Caribbean on the need to broaden to a national scale initiatives to fight hunger, if the countries are to achieve MDG 1. This will require further insight into upscaling methodologies, a strengthening of national institutions, the promotion of exchange of successful experiences and lessons learned between countries and the retention of the fight against hunger as a priority on the policy agenda of the countries and of the Region as a whole.
In this context there is clearly a need to study coordinated projects of integrated rural development that are interdisciplinary, participatory, inclusive and sustainable and that include innovative financing mechanisms. The Conference has considered it important to develop the following components, among others: production systems, territorial areas, local economies, including local, regional and national markets, associative mechanisms of community participation and organization, the mapping and identification of particularly affected geographical areas, priority populations from a socio-economic perspective, identification of government institutions, civil society, social organizations, the private sector, etc.
Considering in particular the attached proposal presented by Venezuela to this Conference and the need for governments to promote internal consultations on their terms (Appendix F-1).
Considering that the "Latin America and the Caribbean without Hunger 2025" initiative is at an advanced stage of formulation and preparation for its implementation, that it is supported by the Director-General of FAO and that there is interest on the part of third party countries in providing the initial resources for its financing;
Considering the interest and benefits of examining, aligning or integrating other initiatives existing at local, national and regional level and international cooperation, the Conference has asked that FAO, through its Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, provide technical support to the establishment and functioning of two complementary and coordinated working bodies:
a) A Technical Committee to analyse initiatives against hunger and facilitate their convergence, open to the Member Nations of FAO in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will meet in July 2006 in Caracas, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
b) A Working Group which will initially meet in Guatemala, composed in principle of two (2) representatives of the Caribbean countries, two (2) of Central America and four (4) of South America, chosen from among the members of the Technical Committee, to undertake the possible convergence and integration of the projects previously identified by the Committee.
In the exercise of its support to the work of the Technical Committee and the Working Group, the FAO Regional Office in Santiago will periodically report on progress made to the Permanent Representatives of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean accredited to FAO (GRULAC) and to the Committee on World Food Security.
The Conference recommends that the Committee on World Food Security include the follow-up of this proposal as a standing item on its agenda.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in the search for concrete agreements that will consolidate the important conceptual definitions of our declarations and in the face of the present situation of exclusion, poverty and hunger that affects the world and especially our region, proposes:
a) To promote the incorporation within our models of exchange, mechanisms that will ensure the creation of new relations of production and integration that are socially-oriented and human. These will help lay the ground for the construction of a food security system for Latin America and the Caribbean which, in its initial stage, could comprise two phases. The first would involve the raising of solidarity-based cooperation through assistance in the form of goods and services to our countries in which there is greater exclusion and poverty, these being preferably acquired from family farming in order to promote development. The second would involve the establishment of interlocking Integrated Rural Development projects and their coordination through a conjugation of networks between State agencies and social movements, always within the framework of respect of unity within diversity and the laws of each country.
b) To study the adoption of coordinated Integrated Rural Development projects that are interdisciplinary, participatory, inclusive and sustainable, and that include innovative, socially-oriented and liberating financial mechanisms. These would develop the following components, among others: systems of production, improvement of local economies and associative mechanisms of community participation and organization, all directed towards the concrete realization of Territorial Areas of Local Integrated Development.
c) To examine and integrate potentially compatible existing initiatives to address the problems of hunger in the region, such as "Latin America and the Caribbean without Hunger 2025" and other contributions from multilateral organizations, in order to ensure the interlinkage, complementarity, solidarity and self-determination of our peoples, avoiding the overlapping of programmes for Integrated Rural Development and Food Security; hence the importance of integrating this initiative in perfect symbiosis as a rapid means of addressing the challenges that we always evoked at international meetings, the latest being the Twenty-ninth FAO Regional Conference.
d) To establish a Technical Committee made up of a representative of each country participating at this Twenty-ninth FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, and a Working Group responsible for presenting a detailed proposal for the functioning of the Committee and for a socially-oriented voluntary Fund of Nutritional Agricultural Goods that will be gradually built up to deal with emerging situations. To achieve this objective, the delegations will enter into consultations with their respective governments over this initiative. To this end, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela proposes to hold the First Meeting of the Technical Committee in July 2006.
e) To employ as the basis of this initiative in the Technical Committee the document that will be presented by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela entitled "Proposal for Cooperation on Rural Development and Food Security".
