Africa： Trading Food Aid for Food Security.docVIP

Africa: Trading Food Aid for Food Security NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug. 24 (IPS) — In a visit to the Horn of Africa this week, the head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) expressed frustration with the world bodys efforts to eliminate hunger. Today, in an age of stunning technological achievements, it is socially, economically and politically unacceptable that 790 million people in developing countries suffer from chronic hunger, said FAO chief Jacques Diouf. The world produces enough food to feed all the people who inhabit it — and it could produce even more. Diouf stressed that while universal food security will not happen overnight, it is an eminently achievable goal. In a report presented in May at the Millennium Forum, Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on the organizations members to share in a renewed sense of mission to identify and face the challenges of the 21st century, ahead of the Millennium Summit planned for Sept. 6-8 in New York. He proposed reshaping the United Nations into a body that makes a real and measurable difference to peoples lives in the new century. Extreme poverty and recurrent famine in Africa are pressing issues that will be given special consideration at the summit. Annan has emphasized the need for new agricultural strategies to replace the regions dependence on yearly food aid from abroad. We decided to go beyond emergency aid and look at long-term food security, Diouf told journalists here. We need to address the basic root causes of the problems in these parts of the world. This is the message of hope that Diouf, whose organization coordinates agricultural initiatives around the world, brought with him to the Horn of Africa when he toured the region this week, as part of a U.N. multi-agency task force appointed to develop a new strategy for food security in the region. Some 180 million people, a quarter of the worlds hungry, live in Africa. However, future prospects for food security in the region remain fairly b