Critics: UN summit ends with ‘crumbs’ in bid to reduce hunger in world with food for all

UN food summit ends with ‘crumbs’ in hunger fight

ROME — The head of a U.N. food agency expressed regret Wednesday that an anti-hunger summit failed to result in precise promises of funding, and critics said the meeting had only thrown crumbs to the world’s 1 billion people without enough to eat.

The three-day summit at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters in Rome ended with little new headway in efforts for a new strategy to help farmers in poor countries produce enough to feed their people.

The summit was quickly labeled a failure at the outset Monday when delegates from 192 nations rejected U.N. appeals to commit themselves to $44 billion annually in agricultural development aid.

As the summit closed, the international aid agency Oxfam denounced the gathering as a “lackluster” effort that wound up offering what it called “crumbs” for the world’s hungry, estimated at one of every six people on Earth.

Jacques Diouf, the director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, said in his closing speech that countries had taken “important steps” by pledging in the final summit declaration to increase aid to agriculture.

But, “alas, I note that this declaration does not contain any quantified objectives, nor any precise deadline,” said Diouf shortly before a final news conference. The United Nations had hoped the summit would commit to eradicating hunger by 2025.

Oxfam joined a loud chorus of critics who questioned the value of the summit’s outcome.

“A single meeting can’t solve world hunger, but we certainly expected far more than this,” said Oxfam spokesman Gawain Kripke.

Apart from Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who chaired the opening session, no other Group of Eight leaders attended.

“The near total absence of rich country leaders sent a poor message from the beginning. The summit offered few solid accomplishments,” said Kripke.

Although the summit endorsed a strategy shift to put the emphasis on making developing countries self-sufficient in agriculture, factors such as wars, droughts and flooding, as well as the global financial crisis, still mean emergency food aid is needed.

On the summit sidelines Wednesday, U.N. officials said such factors have made the Horn of Africa one of the world’s most critical hunger areas, with some 23 million people short of food.

The World Food Program will need $1 billion to provide food aid in the next six months in the region that includes Ethiopia, Somalia and other countries. More than half of those hungry are in Ethiopia, and include some 4 million to 5 million children under five.

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AP reporter Ariel David contributed to this report.