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http://www.iisd.ca/media/sustainable_devt2008.htm#un

UN AGENCIES ANNOUNCE PLANS TO ADDRESS FOOD CRISIS
The UN has announced its agencies’ plans to address the food crisis. Following the semi-annual meeting of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with the UN’s agency heads on 28 and 29 April 2008, Ban announced plans to develop a comprehensive strategy to address the global food crisis. A task force will be coordinated by Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes and UN System Avian and Human Influenza Coordinator David Nabarro. The task force will seek to develop an action plan by the beginning of June, when UN agencies will discuss it at a meeting in Rome, Italy. Ban will chair the task force, which will also include the heads of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Food Programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and World Trade Organization (WTO). Additional organizations will also be invited to join the group.

The UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has announced that it will provide US$ 200 million for poor farmers during the upcoming cropping season. Lennart Båge, IFAD President, highlighted that “poor rural farmers are central to any solution to today’s global food crisis and the long-term problems of hunger and poverty.” He called for a three-pronged strategy: providing emergency food aid to feed the hungry today; supporting, in the short term, smallholder farmers to plan next season’s crops; and longer-term investment in agriculture to ensure food security, nutrition and rural development.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has announced plans to provide approximately 10,000 farmers in five African countries with low-cost rain gauge equipment and seminars by agricultural experts. With the Government of Spain, WMO will work with volunteer farmers in Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal, training them to use rainfall data to plan sowing, fertilizer application and harvesting.
The UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) has emphasized the role that drought and unsustainable water management have played in the current problem, and will play in resolving the food crisis. Director of the UN/ISDR Secretariat Sálvano Briceño, highlighted the need for “a genuine mindset and policy shift towards the ethos that prevention is better than cure, and serious political and economic commitment to saving harvests and lives on a global economic level.”

Meanwhile, World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Josette Sheeran has warned that soaring food prices across the globe are threatening WFP’s efforts to feed the world’s hungry.

Links to further information
UN News Center, 25 April 2008 (IFAD story)
UN News Center, 25 April 2008 (UN/ISDR)
UN News Center, 28 April 2008 (WMO)
UN News Center, 30 April 2008 (Task Force)