World Food Summit in Rome 2009

Welthungerhilfe welcomes the quick agreement, but has individual points of criticism

Poor children in India. © Weische(16.11.2009). Welthungerhilfe welcomes the quick agreement on a final declaration at the World Food Summit in Rome, but criticises its non-binding nature. "Now actions must also quickly follow on from the declaration - when a billion people are starving we must not waste more time with declarations of intent", says Dr. Rafael Schneider, Welthungerhilfe's world food expert attending the summit meeting in Rome.

To be viewed positively are:

•    The decision to reform the Committee for Global Food Security. "We hope this will make it a powerful body which coordinates the worldwide fight against hunger effectively", says Schneider, adding that no time must now be wasted, and that the committee must start its work with a clear mandate.   
•    The fact that non-governmental organisations also participate in the committee: "This must involve taking account of the interests of small-scale farmers: they need access to appropriate seeds, agricultural advice and improved rural infrastructure, since two thirds of starving people live in rural areas" Schneider emphasises.
•    The fact that the right to food is expressly named in the final declaration. This imposes on the governments a legally binding commitment to initiate verifiable measures to combat hunger on a sustainable basis. "This is an important step towards greater accountability of governments, both of the donor countries as well as of the countries affected by hunger," said Schneider, welcoming the final communiqué. Up to now there have only been Voluntary Guidelines based on the UN social covenant. The right to food means that hunger is a breach of a human right.   

The points of criticism include:

•    There is no target date for consigning hunger to history, only the “earliest possible point in time". The first Millennium Goal, halving the proportion of the world's population suffering from hunger by 2015, is being missed – decisive action must at last be taken to turn this around.
•    There is no clear undertaking to increase the proportion of international government development aid allocated to rural development. There is no timeframe or mention of an amount.  Currently the share is only 5%. "That's too little," Schneider says. "The proportion should be about 20 percent."