President of France receives heads of UN Rome-Based food agencies and highlights political efforts to fight hunger and rural poverty

French president Jacques Chirac and the heads of the Rome-based food agencies: Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP), met in Paris on 1 March, 2004 to discuss concrete initiatives to be made to support national efforts towards the fight against hunger and poverty.

This meeting is a follow-up to the Joint Declaration made by the French President, Jacques Chirac, Brazilian President, Lula Ignacio Da Silva, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan on 30 January, 2004 in Geneva. The Declaration focused on a proposal to create a working group to identify financing mechanisms and mobilize political will to accelerate progress on eradicating poverty and hunger.

Among the concrete proposals, presented in conjunction by the heads of the Rome-based food agencies to encourage national efforts in the fight hunger, were agriculture production, land and water management, rural infrastructure, community based livelihoods programmes, nutrition programmes and safety nets, including school feeding programmes.

When focusing on financing mechanisms, the Joint Declaration presented by FAO, IFAD and WFP recalled the joint paper prepared for the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey in 2002 (Read article in April 2002 Network Website Update) and highlights a 'twin track approach' which includes "(…) emergency assistance in food aid to prevent lasting damage from malnutrition and investments in the rural sector and agricultural production to enable the poorest and most vulnerable people to feed themselves and build sustainable livelihoods."

The UN Rome-based food agencies already collaborate in an International Alliance against Hunger that acts as a platform for global action to combat hunger and rural poverty, while mobilizing political will and resources from the public and private sectors to support the creation or strengthening of national alliances.

In this sense, the UN food agencies are willing to increase support towards governments in development activities as the French Government underlines the need for improved coordination between UN agencies and increased resources for the eradication of hunger and rural poverty.

To read the Declaration signed in Geneva by the Brazilian, Chilean and French Presidents and UN Secretary General in French, please click here.

Click here to read the joint declaration: Joining Forces to End Hunger and Poverty: a Statement of the Rome UN Agencies.

For more information on the International Alliance against Hunger, please click here.