Madrid World Food Conference: FIAN demands policy revision instead of lip service
Governments discuss road map for the elimination of hunger Heidelberg 23/01/2009 - At the world food conference on January 26th and 27th in Madrid, FIAN will advocate for a basic examination and reorientation of international food and agriculture policy. "The number of hungry people has risen to nearly one billion in the last year. If Governments don't finally take their obligations regarding the human right to food seriously, the catastrophe will escalate", warns Flavio Valente, General Secretary of FIAN International.
He will take part in a roundtable with FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, Josette Sheeran, Director of the World Food Programme, and EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel.
UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon and the Spanish Prime Minister, Rodriguez Zapatero invited Governments from all over the world to the High Level Meeting on Food Security for All. In their public announcement they explained that the human right to food would serve as starting point for the meeting and the resulting strategies. The official goal of the summit is to produce a “timetable for the elimination of hunger and food security for all”. At the suggestion of the G8 a “Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security” will be initiated, which should coordinate the efforts to fight hunger.
“The human right to food must be the guiding principle of the international road map to fight hunger, says Flavio Valente, “The hungry are mostly small-scale farmers, agricultural laborers, indigenous people, and inhabitants of slums who are systematically discriminated against in trade, agricultural, social and development policies.
The human right to food imposes clear obligations on States and international organizations in order to stop such discrimination. A reformed international food and agriculture architecture must, above all, grant those disadvantaged populations more opportunities to participate and more mechanisms for complaint.