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Rich countries absent from UN summit on hunger

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-11-17 14:19

ROME: When world leaders gathered here on Monday to seek a global solution to hunger, some big names of rich countries were absent from the event.

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The majority attendees to the world summit on food security hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) came from African, Latin American and Asian countries, among them Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and their Libyan counterpart Muammar Gaddafi.

By contrast, only a handful of rich countries had sent their heads of state or government to the summit. Apart from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, all leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) skipped it.

To show solidarity with over 1 billion people in the world who still suffer hunger, and draw attention to the summit, FAO's Director-General Jacques Diouf had tried hard to persuade more leaders to attend the summit. He even went on a 24-hour hunger strike on Friday, and sleep on a makeshift mattress of foam blocs, but still the unusual move failed to win over rich countries.

The absence of leaders from the world's wealthiest nations triggered fire among international aid groups.

"Sixty leaders are coming from around the world to this important UN summit, but where are the leaders from all the G8 countries?" asked international anti-poverty agency ActionAid. "This does not signal they are serious about finding global solutions to hunger."

The global food security situation has worsened in recent years, with food prices remaining stubbornly high in developing countries and number of people suffering from hunger growing relentlessly. Moreover, the global economic crisis is aggravating the situation by affecting jobs and deepening poverty.

FAO estimated that 1.02 billion people in the world are suffering hunger and malnutrition this year, more than any other time, and a child dies of malnutrition every six seconds.

FAO blames the worsening situation on underinvestment in agriculture in developing countries for years, calling on rich nations to provide $44 billion every year to help poor countries increase agricultural investment.

Figures showed official development assistance going to agriculture actually dropped from 19 percent in 1980 to about 5 percent presently.

In line with their absence from the summit, rich countries were reluctant to make new financial contribution.

A summit declaration adopted Monday has not mentioned concrete figures, only reaffirmed some vague commitments, saying governments would reinforce all their efforts to meet the target of halving the hungry population by 2015, and eradicating hunger around the world by 2025.

"I am satisfied with the consensus reached on the declaration and by the commitment taken by leaders to reverse the negative trend of reduced agriculture funding," Diouf said. "But unfortunately I must say to be disappointed by the fact that no real dates and figures for action were decided upon."

The international aid group Oxfam said although the sentiment is honorable, that alone does not put food on a billion empty plates.