Hunger Task Force report launched in Rome

The Hunger Task Force of the UN Millennium Development Project launched its report in Rome as part of the overall Millennium Project Report, launched the day before in New York, with support from the three Rome-based food agencies IFAD, FAO and WFP and the International Alliance against Hunger.

The report, commissioned by the UN Secretary General and supported by the UN Development Group, sets out priorities for addressing the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing hunger by half by 2015. The Task Force on Hunger of the Millennium Development Project is composed of about 30 experts acting in their personal capacities but also drawing from the research and expertise of many institutions engaged in hunger-related issues. The report will serve as a milestone for the preparation of MDGs implementation review scheduled to begin in September 2005.

The three Rome-based UN agencies, made a joint statement calling for immediate action by developed and developing countries to ensure that the goals of the 2000 Millennium Summit are achieved.

"We believe that there is no choice but to meet the goals. The cost of not taking urgent action - in terms of lives ruined, economic growth foregone, and natural resources irretrievably depleted - is simply too high. More than 1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty today: one in every five of the world's citizens. Over 850 million people in the world are chronically hungry," read the statement.

The Hunger Task Force Report highlights the need for a strategic approach to reducing hunger and the crucial need to move from political commitment to action. It also stressed the need to reform policy and create an enabling environment for hunger reduction; increase productivity of food-insecure farmers, improve nutrition for chronically hungry vulnerable groups, reduce vulnerability of the acutely hungry through productive safety nets, increase incomes and make markets for the poor, and restore and conserve natural resources essential for food security.

To download the full Hunger Task Force report please click here. To download the overview please click here.