OPINION:Ireland is hosting a vital international meeting on food security against a backdrop of worst recession since 1930s, writes PETER POWER, DAVID NABARROand TOM ARNOLD
THE WORLD produced record quantities of cereals last year. Yet one-sixth of its people are hungry. What is wrong, and what can we do to mend it? Some 200 representatives of governments, UN agencies and civil society from across the globe gather in Dublin today to tackle this question.
Irish Aid, the Government’s programme for overseas development, the UN high-level task force (HLTF) on global food security, and Concern are co-sponsoring a vital meeting to update the comprehensive framework for action (CFA) on global food security. This is a set of policy and action recommendations first developed in 2008 for responding to the food price crisis earlier that year. It was a real crisis, pushing millions of people into hunger and sparking riots in more than 30 countries.
High prices affect the quality and quantity of food that poor people can afford. While food prices, generally, have dropped from their peak in early 2008, the price of some commodities spiked once again last year. At the same time, the world is enduring the worst global recession since the 1930s and climate change is reducing the ability of many vulnerable communities, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, to produce food.
These factors have combined to increase the number of hungry people from about 860 million in 2008 to over one billion today. Furthermore, the world’s population is projected to increase to nine billion people by 2050. Feeding these extra billions of people will be a huge global challenge this century.
A global food crisis still haunts the people of our world. We are working together within communities and nations, and speaking out at summits of world leaders. We are giving top priority to the fight against global hunger. We know how to cut the numbers who suffer from hunger. We know how to help them face an uncertain future. We are determined to turn this knowledge into results.
Within sub-Saharan Africa, a growing number of countries are committed to implementing the comprehensive Africa agriculture development programme (CAADP), a set of measures adopted by the African Union in 2003 to increase economic growth through agricultural development.
At international level there is commitment to providing the reformed committee on food security (CFS), based in Rome, with the mandate and resources to oversee individual countries’ plans to promote their own food and nutrition security.
The Obama administration has followed on from the president’s pledge in his inaugural address to the people of poor nations to “work alongside you to make your farms flourish”. President Obama was crucial in prioritising agriculture and food security at the L’Aquila summit in July 2009. $20 billion was pledged by G8 members.
Ireland and the US are building a strategic partnership to tackle the ongoing scandal of world hunger, a foreign policy priority of both governments. Next September, the US and Ireland will co-host a high-level event during the millennium development goals summit in New York, bringing together world leaders to highlight the importance of agriculture in reducing hunger and improving nutrition.
The Irish and US governments have signed a three-year partnership to co-operate on combating hunger in Malawi, prioritising support to small farmers, efforts to increase soil fertility and adapt to climate change.
The Irish Government is playing a strong role in the fight against global hunger. The report of the Government’s hunger taskforce called for action in three core areas: increasing the productivity of smallholder farmers, many of whom are women; improving maternal and infant nutrition; and ensuring political commitment to give hunger the priority it deserves. The Government has committed to spending 20 per cent of the Irish Aid budget on hunger reduction by 2012 and appointed a special envoy for hunger, Kevin Farrell, to assist and advise. Hosting today’s meeting is an example of how the people of Ireland, through Government and civil society, play a leadership role in working with the international community on hunger.
Hunger is a worldwide problem that requires a co-ordinated international response, but it can only be addressed through action at national and local levels. We will support development that is led and owned by developing countries. We will make sure that civil society groups are centrally involved, as governments cannot do this on their own. We know from the history of agricultural and rural development in Ireland that it is critical to develop research and educational institutions; create new markets; improve infrastructure; and develop the social capital in rural areas. Each food insecure developing country will have to go through similar development paths, locally adapted.
The civil society groupings attending the meeting come from varied backgrounds and regions. Organisations representing fishing communities, smallholder farmers and agricultural workers will be present, as well as those interested in nutrition, gender and the right to food. The groups will provide a variety of perspectives on issues such as how the private sector can improve nutrition, ways to make trade work for poor countries and the importance of land rights and tenure.
During our two-day meeting, we will listen to these views and seek to agree on what community groups can contribute to their own food and nutrition security. The most positive contribution we can make is to sustain the global commitment for policies that we know will reduce the number of hungry people in the world.
The food riots of 2008 provided a wake-up call, highlighting the political and economic importance of people having enough to eat. The future security of humankind, as well as basic social justice, requires us all to act now.
Peter Power is Minister of State for Overseas Development; David Nabarro, is special representative of the UN secretary general for food security and nutrition and HLTF co- ordinator; and Tom Arnold is chief executive of Concern Worldwide. Arnold is also a governor of the Irish Times Trust. The conference takes place today and tomorrow in Malahide