Health InsuranceWorld Food Programme Commends G8 Leaders' Focus On Food Security; Urges Support For Hunger Needs Of World's Poorest
As leaders at the G8 summit in L"Aquila gather to discuss global
food security, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is urging a
twin-track approach to food security, supporting long-term agricultural
production with continued support for immediate hunger assistance.
"We applaud the G8 focus on food security," said Josette Sheeran,
Executive
Director of the World Food Programme, headquartered in Rome. "We learned a
lesson last year when rising food prices caused an epidemic of hunger
leading to food riots in more than 30 countries. Without food people
revolt, migrate or die. None of these are acceptable options."
In figures released two weeks ago by the UN"s Food and Agriculture
Organization the number of hungry people is now projected to top 1.02
billion, and with the global economic crisis compounding the ongoing food
price crisis in the developing world, causing loss of jobs, remittances
and
slowed exports and investment, this number is expected to climb further.
This reverses a four-decade trend where the number of hungry has declined.
At the same time, global food aid supplies last year were at a 34 year low
and 18 percent lower than in 2005. Food aid has dropped 35 percent since
1995.
"We cannot afford to lose a generation to malnutrition, starvation and
despair," said Sheeran. "Addressing immediate hunger needs is a critical
long-term investment in healthy, stable societies."
WFP depends entirely on voluntary donations, and has raised less than one
quarter of its US$6.4 billion budget for 2009 at the halfway point of the
year.
"WFP is the safety net for the most vulnerable people in the world,"
Sheeran said. "It"s a false logic for the world to say that we will either
invest in tomorrow"s agriculture or today"s urgent food needs. There is no
question that we must do both."
World Food Programme