World Food Council Ministers review global food and hunger problems affecting millions.

World Food Council Ministers review global food and hunger problems affecting millions

The future of millions of human beings in developing countries depends on the collective resolve of World Food Council (WFC) members to eradicate hunger and malnutrition from the face of this earth, French President Francois Mitterrand declared at the opening of the Council's eleventh ministerial session, held in Paris from 10 to 13 June.

The Council was meeting at a time of "increasing international concern about the severity of the African food crisis". Public attention had been mobilized, resulting in the dispatch of an enormous quantity of emergency food supplies to drought-stricken areas of Ethiopia and Sudan, he said.

The Council, at its annual ministerial meeting, reviewed world food and hunger problems, giving priority attention to the African situation. It also discussed two other major global food issues: policies and programmes for achieving the eradication of hunger by the year 2000; and international economic constraints of developing countries' food production performance and the subsequent impact on the nutritional status of their citizens.

At its conclusion, the Council adopted a communique containing conclusions and recommendations, which stated that Africa's continuing economic and food crisis affecting millions remained at the centre of world attention, and extraordinary and sustained international support would be required to rebuild all sectors of Africa's national economies with priority attention given to domestic food production.

Deep concern was also expressed at the limited progress in other developing regions in tackling the growing crisis of hunger and malnutrition, a crisis exacerbated by global economic difficulties. Many Council members felt that the solution to the world food problem could be found only by restructuring international economic relations and establishing a new international economic order.

External assistance, while indispensable, could not substitute for an improved international economic, trade and financial environment with provisions to reduce trade protectionism and resolve debt problems of developing countries, it stated. The importance of strengthening the relationship among peace, security and disarmament was also stressed.

The Council elected new officers to serve two-year terms: President, Henri Nallet, French Minister of Agriculture; and Vice-Presidents, Gilles Laubhouet-Valy, Minister of Rural Development, Ivory Coast; Qazi Abdul Majid, Pakistan's Minister of Food and Agriculture; Lucio Reca, Argentina's Secretary of State for Agriculture and Livestock; and Youtcho Roussev, Vice-President of the National Agro-Industrial Union, Bulgaria.

President Nallet said the Council should encourage the training of African experts in food policy and agriculture and should facilitate the exchange of experience between countries with different traditions, such as those in Africa and Asia.

The 36-member World Food Council was established in December 1974 to promote and co-ordinate the political action necessary to carry out General Assembly resolutions concerning food. It monitors the world food situation, mobilizes support, and strives to ensure the coherence of overall policy efforts of Governments and international agencies to solve world food problems.

Council members in 1985 are: Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burundi, Canada, Central African Republic, Chile, China, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Finland, France, German Democratic Republic, Federal Republic of Germany, Ghana, Hungary, Iraq, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Venezuela, and Zambia.

Crisis in Africa: The Council's document called for emergency relief to Africa to be paralleled by stepped-up rehabilitation and long-term development. A six-part food and economic recovery programme was outlined, including:

* redoubled efforts to implement food policies and strategies to establish priorities, co-ordinate investment, apply improved technology and integrate emergency and development assistance as part of long-term economic plans and programmes;

* policies and reforms related to: improved incentives for producers, especially small farmers and herders; more balanced food-crop and export crop policies; intensified investment in small-scale irrigation; and adjustment of national priorities to deal more broadly with rural poverty.

* human resource building, including upgrading of technical and managerial skills;

* strengthening of African institutions and administration;

* population issues; and

* reform and African pricing and marketing policies to increase food production. (At least $1 billion more annually in concessionary aid, over and above the World Bank's $1.2 billion special fund, would be needed until trade earnings recover).

The Council stated that declining net external resources to Africa annually were not consistent with the need for recovery of its food sectors and national economies, yet this was the situation affecting Sub-Saharian Africa as a result of steadily rising debt service payments.

Other concerns

In other areas, the Council, in discussing effectiveness of aid in support of food strategies, stated its deliberations had "shown sometimes differing perspectives of donors and recipients". It believed that aid could be more effective in eradicating hunger when used to supplement national programmes to increase domestic food production and alleviate poverty, particularly in rural areas.

It also:

* commended the work of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and called on parties concerned to conclude its second replenishment negotiations;

* suggested the strengthening of United Nations co-ordination mechanisms to give priority to national food plans and strategies in relation to investments needed to reach the social and economic objectives of national development plans.

On improving access to food by the undernourished, the Council recommended that political determination be focused on four specific objectives: famine prevention, reduction of infant mortality, halting growing hunger during the 1980s and significant reduction in the number of undernourished people in the 1990s.

On external economic constraints to meeting food objectives, the Council recommended that:

* adjustment programmes for resolution of debt problems be phased to take account of developing country food and social needs on a long-term basis;

* the International Wheat Council (IWC) continue to consider elements of a new agreement to include provisions for essential developing-country imports; and continue to explore raising the Food Aid Convention's minimum overall commitment towards 10 million tons; and

* the WFC Executive Director actively review the origins of and possible solutions to present conflicts in international food trade.

The Council also reaffirmed, within the context of observing the United Nations 40th anniversary, that access to adequate food was a fundamental human right, and that food should not be used as an instrument of political and economic pressures.

"Food represents an essential element of the world's economic, social and political development process", the Council stated. "It should therefore be treated with the highest priority by all Governments in their rededication to the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter and reinvigorated international co-operation".

Reports

The Council Ministers reviewed a number of documents.

One (WFC/1985/2) on progress in implementation of food plans and strategies in Africa, examined specific ways to expedite the implementation of national food strategies or plans. It noted that in many countries increased priority for food production was not yet being pursued vigorously enough, judging by the volume of public expenditures going into the agricultural sector.

A report on improving access to food by the undernourished (WFC/1985/4) was prepared in response to concerns raised at the Council's 1984 session about the limited progress made since the 1974 World Food Conference in reducing the numbers of the hungry.

Despite significant gains in increasing global food production, the report stated that the total number of hungry people in the world was larger than at any time since the 1974 world food crisis.

The report--premised on the belief that, in the light of the poor progress made to date in eliminating hunger and malnutrition, just "doing more of the same same" would not achieve substantial reductions in the numbers of undernourished--recommended a four-phased approach to the global policy objective of eliminating hunger: prevention of recurrence of famine; drastic reduction in infant deaths from malnutrition; halting and reversing the trend of increasing world hunger in the next few years; reformulating and adopting strategies of development which would substantially reduce chronic hunger and malnutrition in the 1990s.