Food fundamental to human dignity, UN official tells meeting on global hunger

The right to food is fundamental to human existence, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told delegates gathered in Rome today to seek solutions to reduce hunger in the context of national food security.

"The right to food is the right of every fellow human being to live in dignity," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said in a keynote speech at the opening of the two-day "International Conference on the Right to Food and the Costs of Hunger."

During the conference, a panel of experts and politicians is expected to formulate a set of policy recommendations to be submitted to an Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) formed at the World Food Summit held in Rome last year.

Mr. Diouf stressed that hunger reduction strategies should include two major elements: food security programmes that empower poor rural households, most of which depend on agriculture, and social safety nets for those who are unable to produce or buy adequate food.

"We believe, therefore, that getting rid of hunger is not simply a moral imperative and the fulfilment of international legal obligations concerning the right to food but that it also makes economic sense. We also believe strongly that it lies with human capacity to ensure that everyone can enjoy the right to food," Mr. Diouf said.

He regretted the lack of political will to address hunger head-on and the failure to recognize the enormous global cost of not eradicating hunger. "Widespread hunger and malnutrition impair the economic performance not only of individuals and families, but of nations. Studies of selected Asian countries have estimated conservatively that the combined effect of stunting, iodine deficiency and iron deficiency was to reduce GDP by 2 to 4 per cent per year," Mr. Diouf said on the costs of hunger.