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Prime minister Sheikh Hasina asked world leaders gathered in Rome on Monday, if trillions of dollars could be spent to save collapsing financial markets, why a similar duty was not felt to feed the world's hungry.
Hasina called on the leaders to adopt sustainable food policies, mobilise global funds and stressed the need for an equitable food governance system to fight world hunger.
She also argued for preferential treatment for LDCs in transfer of technology and fair trade rules, in her address to the World Summit on Food Security.
Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told the summit hunger was "the most devastating weapon of mass destruction on our planet".
With the number of hungry people in the world topping 1 billion for the first time, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation called the summit in the hope leaders would commit to raising the share of official aid spent on agriculture to 17 percent of the total (its 1980 level) from 5 percent now.
Declaration disappoints
But the Summit Declaration adopted on Monday included only a general promise to pour more money into agricultural aid, with no target or timeframe for action.
A pledge to eliminate malnutrition by 2025, one of the early aims of the summit, was also missing from the Declaration, which merely stated that world leaders commit to eradicate hunger "at the earliest possible date".
Anti-poverty campaigners were writing the summit off as a missed opportunity, with most G-8 leaders skipping the event.
The sense of scepticism had already taken hold ahead of the gathering as US president Barack Obama and other leaders backed delaying a legally binding climate pact until 2010 or even later.
Meanwhile, the United Nations opened the two-day conference by saying that a climate change deal in Copenhagen next month is crucial to fighting global hunger as rising temperatures threaten farm output in poor countries.
Food, climate link
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said there could be "no food security without climate security".
"Next month in Copenhagen, we need a comprehensive agreement that will provide a firm foundation for a legally binding treaty on climate change," he said.
Africa, Asia and Latin America could see a decline of between 20 and 40 percent in potential agricultural productivity if temperatures rise more than 2 degrees Celsius, the U.N. says.
Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be the hardest hit from global warming as its agriculture is almost entirely rain-fed.
Pressing issues for Bangladesh
Both climate and food security are immense issues for Bangladesh.
"The threat to food security seems now to be more than ever before, in the backdrop of sudden scarcity of food and its price spiral in 2007-2008, the recent worldwide financial meltdown and the looming impacts of climate change," Hasina said in her address.
"The picture we see now is a cruel one for a world where one-sixth of its population, or over a billion, are faced with the spectre of hunger."
She said the vast majority of these people reside in Least Developed Countries facing food shortage, negation of development gains, and erosion of Millennium Development Goals.
Only production of food alone cannot guarantee food security, said the prime minister.
"Available food must be accessible, particularly to the marginalised and the vulnerable. For which a fair and an equitable food governance system is required at both, national and international level."
Mentioning the Summit Declaration, adopted earlier in the day, Hasina said it provided all scope to strengthen global governance on food security, including enhanced role of the Committee on Food Security.
She stressed provisions for sustainable agricultural policies, transfer of technology, equitable and fair trade rules for food and agricultural products "with special and preferential treatment for LDCs".
'Funds needed'
She said implementing the provisions of the Declaration would require substantial funds.
"If developed countries could provide trillions of dollars to save collapsed financial markets, should they not feel any obligation to feed the starving millions?"
She welcomed a recent G-8 decision to mobilise $20 billion over three years for small farmers in food deficit developing countries. But she said the amount was insufficient.
She said additional funds would be available if only the developed countries fulfilled their ODA commitment of 0.7% of their Gross National Income to developing countries, and 0.2% to the LDCs by 2010, as affirmed in the Brussels Program of Action.
Hasina said food security was also directly related to climate change.
"Bangladesh stands out as a stark example where agricultural production has become hostage to frequent and erratic natural disasters, thereby, adversely affecting food production," sahe said.
"Significantly, the demands for meeting the adverse effects of climate change is diverting funds has also severely affecting sensitive social sectors as health, education, energy etc."
"Shortage of fund has also severely restricted our research efforts in agriculture, particularly in food production."
She said her new government, on assuming power in January, had been confronted with all these challenges.
She said agricultural policies were being put in place again, which helped Bangladesh attain food autarky once before.
These include cutting production costs, striving for fair prices for farmers, and removing bottlenecks in the marketing chain, she said.
It meant resurrecting agricultural research to find flood, drought, and salinity resistant food and cash crops, access for small farmers to sustainable technologies, social entrepreneurship, and financial credit.
'How to feed the world'
FAO has convened the Nov 16-18 Summit in a bid to marshal political will behind increased investment in agriculture and a reinvigorated international effort to combat hunger.
Three important events in October prepared the ground for the Summit, says FAO.
A High-Level Expert Forum on How to Feed the World in 2050 examined policy options that governments should consider adopting to ensure that the world population can be fed when it nears its peak of nearly 9.2 billion people in the middle of this century.
The Committee on World Food Security considered reforms that will enable it to play a much more effective role in the global governance of food security.
The theme of World Food Day (Oct 16) this year was how to ensure food security in times of crisis.
Source: bdnews24.com
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