UN Chief Warns More Could Go Hungry In Crisis Year
Country: SPAIN
Author: Martin Roberts
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon delivers a speech during the
close of the High Level Meeting on Food Security for All in Madrid January
27, 2009.
Photo: Andrea Comas
MADRID - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Tuesday said rich nations had to do more to prevent the economic crisis from adding to an already intolerable 1 billion people going hungry in the world.
Food prices had come down for the time being but the number of hungry people was set to rise again, Ban told the High Level Meeting on Food Security for All in Madrid.
"Continuing hunger is a deep stain on our world. The time has come to remove it forever. We have the wealth and know-how to do so," Ban said.
"We worked hard to bring food assistance to those who needed it in 2008. I expect we will need to work harder in 2009, this year of recession," he said.
The two-day Madrid meeting sponsored by the United Nations and other international organizations such as the World Bank followed a summit held in Rome last year at which donors pledged $22 billion in agriculture and food aid.
Aid groups say few of the promised funds have been disbursed. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization head Jacques Diouf told Reuters about $2 billion had been received to date, but more was due in coming years.
"A billion people are suffering from extreme hunger, so it's obvious the currently existing systems aren't doing their job," said Oxfam spokesman Alexander Woollcombe. "There needs to be demonstrative progress for these meetings to have any meaning."
Conference host and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said his government would spend 1 billion euros in farm aid and food security over the next five years.
The FAO said the number of hungry people increased by 40 million last year but investing $30 billion a year in infrastructure and agricultural production could eliminate the root causes of hunger by 2025.
FAO's Diouf noted at the meeting that $30 billion was just eight percent of the support to agriculture by OECD countries, and dwarfed by financial stimulus packages and world military spending of some $1.2 trillion a year.
Diouf has asked U.S. President Barack Obama to host a summit meeting this year to find ways and means of raising the money.
The FAO estimates 30-40 percent of food production is lost in many poor countries due to lack of storage facilities. Bad or non-existent roads also prevent food from reaching people.
Crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa are also low because just four percent of arable land is irrigated, compared with 38 percent in Asia. Similarly, just three percent of renewable water reserves are used in Africa, far below 18 percent in Asia.
(Editing by Jon Boyle)
