Hunger Task Force presents its report to the Taoiseach

Today over 862 million people, including 300 million children, are hungry.

Ireland's Hunger Task Force has presented its report to An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen TD. The presentation was made at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, in the presence of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. Members of the Task Force, including its Chairman Joe Walsh, Bono and Jeffrey Sachs were also present.

Ireland established the Hunger Task Force to identify the contributions that the country can make to international efforts to reduce hunger. The Task Force was called for in the 2006 White Paper on Irish Aid and is part of Ireland’s efforts to the achieve the first Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty and hunger by 2015.

The report makes recommendations in three key areas:

- improving smallholder productivity in Africa;

- enhancing efforts to tackle maternal and infant under-nutrition; and

- delivering on existing commitments and ensuring coherence in the international architecture to address hunger.

The full report is available here

The Task Force had 15 members and including a mixture of national and international experts.