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13149
Sun, 07/20/2008 - 17:23
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https://oananews.org//node/13149
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U.N. chief sees up to $40 billion per year to fight global food crisis
NEW YORK, July 18 Kyodo - U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said Friday that between $25 billion to $40 billion may be needed annually for the world to respond to the food crisis that has squeezed individuals around the globe as prices have jumped dramatically over the last year.
The U.N. chief made the appeal in a speech delivered to a special session convened by the U.N. General Assembly to discuss the global food and energy crisis.
The U.N. session took up the so-called Comprehensive Framework for Action -- a set of response measures against soaring food prices around the world, which were devised by Ban's high-level task force created in April.
The framework is intended to provide countries and governments with ''a menu of actions'' to enable them to formulate food security strategies.
''To achieve the CFA's goals, estimates suggest that between 25 and 40 billion dollars annually may be needed,'' Ban said.
''We have to reverse years of under-investment in agriculture and change the policies that have magnified the challenges,'' he said, calling for 192 member states to work to scale up their public spending in order to alleviate the suffering of the world's hungry people.
It was ''high time to reverse the dramatic and deplorable downward trend in agriculture's share in official development assistance,'' Ban said, explaining that the portion of official development assistance earmarked for agriculture has plunged from 18 percent two decades ago to just around 3 per cent at present.
Ban said he had urged the leaders of the Group of Eight major powers --Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States --to raise the farm portion of their ODA outlays to at least 10 percent, when he met with them for the G-8 summit at the Lake Toya resort in Hokkaido in early July.
Ban also urged the international community to ''reassess subsidies and tariff protection for bio-fuel production.''
While acknowledging that bio-fuels need to ''remain a part of the equation'' in the fight against climate change, he also said that an international consensus and agreed policy guidelines were needed to balance the ''development of bio-fuels with food production priorities.''
The international community should ''act immediately'' to boost agricultural output, he said, referring to the plight of small-scale farmers in the world, who need seeds and fertilizers for the upcoming planting seasons.
Ban said the ''cost of inaction'' could result in over 100 million more people sliding into hunger.
Energy costs and food prices soared 50 percent in the past year alone, Ban said. He added even before the surge, nearly 10,000 children were dying daily from malnutrition and at least 800 million people were going to bed hungry each night.
''Addressing the global food and fuel crisis swiftly and responsibly, with the necessary sense of urgency and lasting commitment, will be one of the generational challenges that impact our collective future,'' he said.
The U.N. chief made the appeal in a speech delivered to a special session convened by the U.N. General Assembly to discuss the global food and energy crisis.
The U.N. session took up the so-called Comprehensive Framework for Action -- a set of response measures against soaring food prices around the world, which were devised by Ban's high-level task force created in April.
The framework is intended to provide countries and governments with ''a menu of actions'' to enable them to formulate food security strategies.
''To achieve the CFA's goals, estimates suggest that between 25 and 40 billion dollars annually may be needed,'' Ban said.
''We have to reverse years of under-investment in agriculture and change the policies that have magnified the challenges,'' he said, calling for 192 member states to work to scale up their public spending in order to alleviate the suffering of the world's hungry people.
It was ''high time to reverse the dramatic and deplorable downward trend in agriculture's share in official development assistance,'' Ban said, explaining that the portion of official development assistance earmarked for agriculture has plunged from 18 percent two decades ago to just around 3 per cent at present.
Ban said he had urged the leaders of the Group of Eight major powers --Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States --to raise the farm portion of their ODA outlays to at least 10 percent, when he met with them for the G-8 summit at the Lake Toya resort in Hokkaido in early July.
Ban also urged the international community to ''reassess subsidies and tariff protection for bio-fuel production.''
While acknowledging that bio-fuels need to ''remain a part of the equation'' in the fight against climate change, he also said that an international consensus and agreed policy guidelines were needed to balance the ''development of bio-fuels with food production priorities.''
The international community should ''act immediately'' to boost agricultural output, he said, referring to the plight of small-scale farmers in the world, who need seeds and fertilizers for the upcoming planting seasons.
Ban said the ''cost of inaction'' could result in over 100 million more people sliding into hunger.
Energy costs and food prices soared 50 percent in the past year alone, Ban said. He added even before the surge, nearly 10,000 children were dying daily from malnutrition and at least 800 million people were going to bed hungry each night.
''Addressing the global food and fuel crisis swiftly and responsibly, with the necessary sense of urgency and lasting commitment, will be one of the generational challenges that impact our collective future,'' he said.
