UN agency looks to team with Brazil on global campaign to fight hunger

The head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is in Brazil for talks with top officials on strengthening the agency's partnership with the Government to help energize a global initiative to fight hunger.

Executive Director James Morris met in Brasilia today with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, members of Congress and other top ministers to discuss the World Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, which President Lula had proposed last year at the G-8 Summit in France as a way to create new financing mechanisms to accelerate progress on eradicating poverty and hunger.

One of the objectives of the Alliance is to create a fund against hunger - dubbed the "Lula Fund" - which would be replenished with levies imposed on arms deals, international financial operations or other financial mechanisms. Donor countries and the private sector would also participate with voluntary contributions.

Mr. Morris praised President Lula's strong leadership and drive "to raise international awareness of the plight of the hungry" as well as Brazil's concrete action to fight the scourge at home. He said WFP hoped to join forces with Brazil to find new ways to fight hunger across the globe and to create a level playing field for the world's farmers to help encourage food production in the developing world.

In January at a meeting in Geneva, President Lula signed a joint declaration with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chilean President Ricardo Lagos on the establishment of a working group under the Alliance responsible for finding ways to raise $50 billion a year to combat hunger.

The Alliance aims to present a proposal to the UN General Assembly in September on how to reduce world hunger by 2015, which is one of the main Millennium Development Goals adopted by world leaders in 2000.