Let's end World Hunger - Maybe Later

Disappointment abounded in Rome on Thursday. A group of more than 700 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) strongly criticized the UN-sponsored World Food Summit, which ended after four days of discussions.

"The summit was a setback for the starving," the German humanitarian aid organization Welthungerhilfe commented.

The World Food Summit was marked by four days of bickering and fruitless debates. Some 80 world leaders attended the summit, but hardly any heads of highly industrialized countries came to Rome for the meeting. This led to charges that Western nations were indifferent
to the plight of the hungry.


"The entire leadership of Western Europe and North America was here in Rome two weeks ago to discuss NATO. They all came without exception, but they don't come now," South African President Thabo Mbeki said. "I suppose that's because they don't think the problem of 800 million people going hungry in the world is important."

"The time for making promises is over"

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called on international governments to commit themselves to ending world hunger now. "In a world of plenty, ending hunger is within our grasp. Failure to reach this goal should fill every one of us with shame," Kofi Annan said. "The time for making promises is over. It is time to act."

At the summit's closing session, Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi said that the defeat of global hunger was to everyone's benefit. "The problem of hungry people in the world is, after terrorism, or indeed alongside terrorism, the most serious problem facing the international community."

Berlusconi added that a starving man was a desperate man, perhaps even a dangerous one. "The ideologies of terror spring up precisely where you find hunger, misery and poverty."

24,000 die every day

The figures relating to world hunger are sobering - and yet we've all learned to live with them. Some 800 million people around the globe are starving. Every day, an estimated 24,000 people die of hunger.

Six years ago, governments pledged to halve the number of hungry people in the world by 2015. But since then, the number of starving people has hardly gone down. At the Rome World Food Summit, representatives from 180 countries once again pledged to halt the scourge of hunger. But almost no one is optimistic that their renewed pledge will have much of an effect.

Germany's Welthungerhilfe called the outcome of the World Food Summit "bitterly disappointing".

No tangible results

Against the backdrop of looming famine in Africa, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said an additional 25.4 billion euro ($ 24 billion) was needed each year in agricultural development aid.

But the United States and the European Union met the suggestion with stony silence at the Rome summit. EU Aid Commissioner Poul Nielson argued conflicts were at the root of most hunger crises and these could not be solved by cash calls.

NGOs also accused the industrialized nations of protectionism and policies which increased hunger in the world. They said strategies of economic liberalization pursued by the World Bank and the world's richest countries was devastating for the Third World. "The effect is a polarization between rich and poor, between North and South," said Sarojeni Rengam of the Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN).

French rebel farmer Jose Bove said Europe and the United States didn't care about a more just world economy. "What they want is to sell more food to the southern countries, they don't want these people to have their own agriculture to feed their own population."

The secretary-general of the Commonwealth, Don McKinnon echoed these critical statements. He stressed the need for politicians to make agriculture and rural development a top priority of international organizations and to ensure implementation of land reforms.

McKinnon said the world had the resources to end the "scandal" of thousands of starvation deaths every day but lacked the will to do it.

He added that summits like the World Food Summit in Rome did not deliver results - in the words of the Commonwealth chief, they only fed more summits.