December 16, 1996
World Food Summit Concludes without Firm Government
Commitments
The World Food Summit, convened in Rome by the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO), ended on November 17, 1996,
with governments pledging to reduce the number of
undernourished people worldwide from the current level of 840
million to 400 million by the year 2015. However, delegates
to the Summit did not agree on concrete steps toward meeting
that and other objectives, and, in the end, participating
governments did not sign or officially commit to the Summit
Plan of Action, the final document articulating the goals of
the gathering.
The G77, the organization of governments of developing
countries, decried the Plan of Action as "shameful" for
setting its sights so low that 400 million people will remain
undernourished in the year 2015. Speaking on behalf of the
G77, Cuba's president Fidel Castro stated that of these 400
million, "at least 100 million of them will die of hunger."
Non governmental organizations (NGOs), participating in the
parallel NGO Forum, also criticized the Summit for stressing
trade liberalization and a "new Green Revolution" featuring
increased agricultural production through biotechnology,
rather than equitable distribution and farmer-led approaches
to sustainable agriculture, as the primary means for
achieving food security. The NGO Forum was comprised of
approximately 1,200 representatives of environmental, farmer,
sustainable agriculture, health and other civil society
organizations.
According to representatives of FoodFirst Information Action
Network (FIAN) and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy (IATP), two NGOs that participated in the Summit and
Forum, there were important areas of agreement as well as
disagreement between governments and NGOs at the Summit. For
example, with the exception of the United States, there was
widespread agreement that the international community should
identify freedom from hunger not just as a need but also as a
fundamental human right. The Summit's Plan of Action gives
the UN Commissioner for Human Rights the task of coordinating
a multi-agency program to advance the human right to food. In
addition, the chair of FAO's Food Security Committee stated
that he would work with all relevant UN forums over the next
few years to move the agenda forward, despite U.S. government
opposition.
The U.S. negotiating team stated their concern that an
internationally recognized human right to food would place
the U.S. in violation of international laws due to the recent
U.S. welfare reform legislation. The head of the U.S.
delegation stated that the U.S. believes the human right to
food "is a goal or aspiration to be realized progressively
but does not give rise to any international obligations."
Disagreement on this point, along with U.S. government
refusal to join an international commitment to reduce the
number of undernourished people in the world by half and
refusal to pledge not to use food aid as a weapon, prevented
delegates from reaching consensus; thus the Summit ended
without any governments signing the final Plan of Action
document.
Beyond these conflicts, the main disagreement between NGOs
and governments centered on what to do about hunger and food
shortages. According to many NGOs, many governments approach
hunger as a problem of inadequate production and therefore
recommend strategies they believe will boost production,
including liberalization of food trade and increased
technological inputs such as biotechnology and pesticides.
In contrast, the NGO Forum stressed that food self-
sufficiency should take priority over world market
integration. The NGO Forum issued a declaration, "Profit for
Few or Food for All?" pointing out that economic
globalization and chemical-intensive agriculture are causes
of food insecurity, not solutions.
The NGO Forum also proposed specific international agreements
to advance the right to food, including a Code of Conduct on
the Right to Food, which would govern the activities of those
involved in implementing food security programs, and a
Convention on Sustainable Food Security, which would make
food security, rather than trade liberalization, the highest
priority on the international agenda. FIAN and IATP are
currently working on campaign plans to advance these
proposals.
Weighing in on the need to allocate significant resources to
address world hunger, the President of the World Bank, James
Wolfensohn, outlined the Bank's commitment to reducing rural
poverty, stating that "the private sector should be mobilized
to provide investment capital, production and most
agricultural services." While acknowledging the significance
of financial commitments from both the public and private
sectors, PAN North America expressed concern that the Bank's
heavy reliance on the private sector would encourage
governments to continue to focus on increasing crop yields
through technological quick-fixes, rather than facilitate
local participation in ecologically-based approaches to the
safe production and equitable distribution of food. The NGO
Forum concluded that to reduce world hunger effectively,
governments and major development institutions such as the
World Bank and FAO need to address not only the challenges of
sustainable food production, but also the underlying
political, economic and social causes of poverty.
Sources: FIAN International, P.O. Box 102243, D/69012
Heidelberg, Germany; phone (49-6221) 830-620; fax (49-6221)
830-545; email FIAN-IS@oln.comlink.apc.org; FIAN U.S., c/o
Food First, 398 60th Street, Oakland, CA 94618; phone (510)
654-4400; fax (510) 654-4551; email amittal@igc.org;
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 2105 First Avenue
South, Minneapolis, MN 55404; phone (612) 379-5980; fax (612)
379-5982; PANNA (see below).
Contact: PANNA (see below)
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