The agencies say governments were at risk of throwing away a great chance to sto p more than one billion people going hungry, and pointed out that the current declaration finalized on Tuesday said nothing or little new.
"The declaration is just a rehash of old platitudes, Francisco Sarmento, ActionA id's food rights coordinator, said in a statement.
It says hunger will be halved by 2015 but it will fail to commit any new resourc es to achieve this or provide any way of holding governments to account through the UN Committee on Food Security.
"ActionAid appreciates Pope Benedict XVI's attendance at the Summit but frankly he needs to pray for a miracle if the G8 can only find US$ 3 billion in new money to solve hunger in the world," said Sarmento.
Oxfam spokesperson Frederic Mousseau said currently many rich countries seemed intent on trying to increase food production by simply pushing for more chemical fertilizers and new technologies, particularly in Africa.
This, he said, could offer some poor farmers short-term relief but it is not the answer to the structural problems behind world hunger, nor is it sustainable.
"It will simply condemn the developing world to a future of repetitive food crises and more environmental degradation," said Mousseau, who charged that the summit was also largely ignoring other vulnerable groups, such as landless farmers an d the urban poor who are in desperate need of long-term social protection and live lihood support as an alternative to short-term food aid.
"Rich countries are failing to show enough interest and urgency. At the G8 in Italy this summer they pledged US$ 20 billion for agriculture over three years, so they believe they have done enough. They haven't and the US$ 20 billion is a mirage. Less than a quarter of this money is new.
The UN itself says that US$ 25-US$ 40 billion in public spending is needed each year just to keep up progress towards achieving the first Millennium Development Goal to halve hunger by 2015, said Mousseau.
The agencies say that developing countries must also play a bigger role in the summit by committing to spend 10 per cent of their agricultural budgets and focus their plans to reach the poor and hungry. Oxfam and ActionAid say at the minimum, the UN World Food Summit in Italy must, among other things, agree to at least a US$ 40-billion-a-year rescue of the Millennium Development Goal to halve global hunger and turn it into country-specific commitments, with proper plans and resources for food security and rural development focusing particularly on smallholder farmers.
The two agencies also said the summit must endorse and fund a reformed UN Committee on World Food Security as the central high level political platform for food security.
Lusaka - 12/11/2009
Pana
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|