UN World Food Day theme to stress global alliance against hunger

The theme of this year’s World Food Day will be “International Alliance Against Hunger,” emphasizing the need for global mobilization to create the political will to eradicate hunger, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced today.

"How is it possible in this day and age that so many of our fellow human beings remain hungry?" FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said in announcing the theme of the Day, held each year on 16 October to commemorate the agency’s founding in 1945 in Quebec City, and observed in more than 150 countries. "Nations must turn verbal commitments to fight hunger into practical programmes."

TeleFood, a public-awareness and fund-raising campaign including television shows and other special events organized by FAO, coincides with World Food Day to heighten attention about global hunger and to focus attention on achieving food security for all.

An international alliance against hunger will bring together the strengths of different groups all over the world to gain momentum to achieve the common goal of eliminating hunger in all its forms, FAO said.

It would include all partners such as food producers, consumers, international organizations, governments, private firms, scientists, academics, individuals, religious groups and non-governmental organizations working in concert, as well as donors and policy-makers from both rich and poor countries.

At the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, representatives of 185 nations and the European Community set a goal of cutting the number of hungry people by half by 2015. Some 840 million people still suffer from hunger and malnutrition in a world of plenty. Hunger causes illness and death, robs people of their potential to work and cripples children's learning capacity.