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FAO and UNDP Announce Joint Activities to Promote Sustainable
Food Security
November 7, 1994
In September 1994, the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP)
announced that the two organizations will collaborate on a
global drive to promote sustainable food security,
particularly in low-income food-deficit countries where the
margin between persistent hunger and starvation is narrowing.
"Food security means access by all people at all times to the
food needed for a healthy life. Sustainable food security
aims to achieve this goal without compromising the productive
capacity of natural resources, the integrity of biological
systems or environmental quality," FAO Director-General
Jacques Diouf and UNDP Administrator James Gustave Speth said
in a joint declaration announcing cooperative activities.
The declaration also announced the establishment of a special
FAO/UNDP Sustainable Food Security Task Force to implement
and monitor their efforts.
The joint declaration states that despite increases in per
capita food production globally, food supplies are not
equitably distributed either across countries or within
countries, and that food insecurity, poverty and
environmental degradation go hand in hand. It also notes
that policy reform addressing the directly related issues of
access, gender and equity is essential to improving food
security. In low-income food-deficit countries, where the
bulk of the world's poor live and which will be the focus of
the joint FAO/UNDP initiative, particular attention will be
given to local food production and related problems including
gender issues, human skills development and natural resource
management capacity. "In these countries, improvements in
food production and productivity must be the engine of
equitable and sustainable development," according to the
joint FAO/UNDP declaration.
The joint declaration states that achieving increased food
security requires changes in four areas and outlines plans of
action within each: targeting efforts and investments toward
sustainable food security; building essential capacities;
creating an enabling policy environment; and enhancing
awareness of food security situations and trends. It
emphasizes the pressing need for more resilient farming and
agro-forestry systems that can support higher yields without
accelerating resource degradation; and gains in productivity
that result from adoption of agro-ecological methods that
enhance soil fertility, in combination with improved water
management, integrated pest management, appropriate seeds,
and improved technologies, "including indigenous knowledge
where applicable."
FAO and UNDP said that their cooperation could bring "more
focused and higher impact, better managed and better funded
programs in support of sustainable food security," and
invited others, including national governments, non-
governmental organizations and concerned citizens to join the
effort. FAO and UNDP cooperation will focus on:
--increasing the relative importance of joint food security-
related activities and projects, mobilizing additional
resources and making more efficient use of the resources;
-- developing cooperative activities in support of FAO's
Special Programme on Food Production in Support of Food
Security for Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries;
-- strengthening the policy dialogue between the two
institutions and their efforts to create a policy environment
favorable to sustainable food security; and
-- increasing coordination of technical cooperation.
Source: FAO/UNDP Press Release, September 21, 1994;
"Cooperative Action to Promote Sustainable Food Security: A
Joint Declaration by the Heads of FAO and UNDP," September
21, 1994.
Contact: Peter Gall, UNDP, New York, phone (212) 906-5312;
Richard Lydiker, FAO, Rome, Italy, phone (39-6) 5225 3510.
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