Keynote Address – Check against Delivery
“Harnessing Comprehensive Common Action to Fight Hunger”
Minister of State for Overseas Development, Mr. Peter Power T.D.
Monday 17th May, Grand Hotel, Malahide, Co. Dublin
Welcoming Remarks
Thank you Tom, for your introduction.
I must say that I am very pleased to be here with you today to open this very important meeting of civil society, the private sector, Government, international organisations and the UN Community.
If we work together we can ensure that the ever-deepening global food security crisis remains firmly on the international agenda and, critically, that real and tangible progress is made in reducing hunger. That must be our over-riding priority. To do this we must all work together.
Today we welcome you, important stakeholders and representatives from Asia, Southern Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Central and Southern America, North America and Europe , to Ireland.
I thank you all for travelling to Dublin for this dialogue. And, I encourage you all to contribute your important experience and voice as a representatives of farmers, women, children, men, local government, national government, regional organisations. I know that David and his High Level Task Force colleagues, Tom and his colleagues at Concern and my own officials are looking forward to your input into our deliberations.
Ireland’s Role & Contribution
I am very pleased that Ireland is able to facilitate this important dialogue.
The pain and destructive impact of hunger is firmly registered in the consciousness of all Irish people. It is this empathy with the hungry, born of our historical experience of famine, that inspired the Irish Government to make the eradication of hunger a key development priority and a key component of our foreign policy. As a Government we have committed to work with others to take concrete steps to reduce, and ultimately to eliminate, global hunger.
It is two years since we had our own dialogue in Ireland, with the Irish Government Hunger Task Force.
Some of you in this room served on the Task Force. And indeed, I would like to thank Tom Arnold, Justin Kilcullen, and our Special Envoy Kevin Farrell, then of the World Food Programme, who are here today for their contribution to that task force.
Together, with our international partners, they recommended a series of actions to help Ireland to maximise its role in the fight against hunger. Specifically, the report recognised that improving the productivity of smallholder farmers especially women, focus on improving maternal and child malnutrition, and maintaining political commitment and action on hunger are the three most important actions that Ireland can take to combat hunger.
Since the launch of the report, we have worked together to develop a national alliance of partners to maximise our impact: from school teachers to research scientists, from civil society to Government departments, and from public to private sector. We have sought to bring the fight against hunger to the fore of our international action.
We have different perspectives on many areas, yet we agree that together we can play a pivotal role in the global fight against hunger.
Representing different voices in this dialogue, we all have our role to play.
The Comprehensive Framework for Action
Translating this dialogue into action is our primary goal. I know that this is a role that Special Representative David Nabarro takes very seriously.
I would sincerely like to thank David and his team for their steadfast commitment and the central role that they continue to play in addressing comprehensively the problem of global food and nutrition insecurity.
In January this year, David invited us all to support the work of the United Nations High Level Task Force in their updating of the Comprehensive Framework for Action.
As Chair of the Task Force, David invited submissions from representatives of civil society, private sector, Government and regional organisations to engage in this dialogue.
In Ireland, we recognise the important contribution that the United Nations High Level Task Force, the Comprehensive Framework and the Special Representative have as a catalyst for change and action on hunger.
The Comprehensive Framework for Action is the guiding document of the United Nations system. And the framework fully recognises hunger as a chief development challenge facing us in the world.
Ladies and gentleman, I know that you will agree with me that beyond this important function, the Comprehensive Framework for Action has the potential for even greater significance.
The revised and updated CFA can serve as a roadmap for all of us; by providing a renewed framework for action that is rooted in both immediate practical needs and – all importantly—longer term, strategic actions to reduce hunger and improve nutrition.
Recent Progress in Fighting Hunger
I would like to talk a little about the recent progress that we have made in fighting hunger.
We estimate that today one-in-six people are unable to produce, trade or buy enough food for their families. Many more families live without access to the basic information and education to make the best choices about how they can feed and care for their children. The World Bank estimated that in 2008 alone, the food price crisis increased the number of children suffering permanent cognitive and physical injury due to malnutrition by 44 million.
We must ask ourselves the hard question, what have we achieved so far?
Great commitments and promises have been made to fight hunger, and I know that many of you in this room have worked tirelessly to develop these national and international initiatives.
At an international level, great leadership has been shown through the development of the Rome principles and the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative. And, I must thank the representatives of the United States, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany and Brazil for the efforts that they made in developing L’Aquila.
The African Union too has been an inspiration. The leadership that the AU and Governments have shown through the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme is a prominent example of how national compacts can serve as national frameworks for agriculture-led growth. I acknowledge the work of the Governments of Rwanda, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Tanzania among others in this regard.
We have done a lot, and we know that there is a lot more to do. We know too well that one sixth of the world’s population are suffering from chronic hunger.
I stand here today driven by this knowledge and motivated by our common awareness that we need to do more.
We must improve availability and access to food. We must improve people’s ability to use food. And, we must ensure this over time. Indeed, I have become more and more convinced that while we must focus on immediate needs we need to also develop long-term responses to improve national and local productive capacity.
The Need to Focus on the Future Risks
We need to keep a focus on the future. The number of people suffering from chronic hunger is expected to increase further and it has been increasing since the millennium.
In a recent discussion I had with the Thoraya Obeid of UNFPA, I was struck by the potential impact that future population growth will have on global food security. It is estimated that global food supplies must increase by an estimated 50 percent to meet expected demand in the next twenty years. What’s more, the world’s population is projected to grow to 9 billion by 2050. If we are to feed ourselves, we will need to see huge gains in agricultural productivity and output.
We are also faced with new risks. Climate change has far-reaching, disastrous consequences for our farmers. Formerly productive land is being destroyed. Changes in rainfall patterns, and catastrophic natural disasters are affecting the planting seasons. Environmental degradation is contributing to poor soils and even greater water scarcity.
The Need for Coordinated, Comprehensive Action
To address the range of problems that cause food and nutrition insecurity we must work in a comprehensive and coordinated way.
Governments, civil society and the private sector must support communities to support themselves through food production and the ability to buy food. Local and national authorties must be supported to develop a supporting environment for productive approaches.
Improving national and local productive capacity can empower and have a long-term effect to reduce hunger and improve nutrition.
Real Life Examples
To illustrate this, I would like to share with you two recent experiences I had.
In Malawi, I was visiting a farmer who had told me of the difficulties he had faced all of his life in feeding his children. He described to me how it hurt him to see his children malnourished, unable to grow to their full healthy potential. He described how it hurt him to see his children suffer from malnutrition that he knew could be prevented if he had access to food. He knew that there was a solution to his family’s problems.
Through his family’s participation in an inland aquaculture programme supported by civil society, the Government of Malawi and Irish Aid, he could make a change. I asked the farmer how this had impacted his life. He told me that he could now see his children grow and their faces fatten, and he walked over to his pond, put his hands in it, and picked out two fish. He held the fish in his hand and told me, this is how I can feed my children and earn money for my family.
What an example this is. This shows how through the adoption of local technology and science a family can proactively improve household access to food.
In Tanzania, I again witnessed first hand the investments made to help the small farmers of Tanzania. Irish Aid is working with the Government of Tanzania to provide seeds, fertilisers and local training officers to help local farmers improve the quantity and quality of their produce. In the village of Dakawa, I met with farmers who are today producing 60 bags of rice each season, increased from a production of only five bags. At a local level, this example shows productive contributions can assist farmers to build their own families lives and invest in the farms. Across the world, we can see the impact of real, effective support to locally-owned solutions.
With new methods, farmers are able to significantly improve the yields from their fields. I noticed a challenge. While the farmers had more rice, they faced difficulty in bringing that rice to market with poor local access roads. I told myself, we must not forget the “last mile of the rural development.”
This programme and similar projects that we support with the Government of Tanzania and other developing countries are enabling district and village councils to effectively respond to the challenges of improving agricultural yields and productivity. We can expect to see these long-term improvements replicated around the developing world as a result of the increased investment coming on stream, for CAADP and other mechanisms supporting country-led sustainble solutions to hunger.
Guidance on Way-Forward
Why are these examples relevant you ask? Well, I ask you here today to remember that while hunger is a global problem that requires a global response, we must respond in way that supports coordinated local and national action.
Firstly, successful global action on food and nutrition security and hunger are dependent on supporting national and local frameworks and capacity. We as civil society, donor or international actors must support local partners in Government, civil and private sectors.
Secondly, our response to hunger must be more than reactive. I am firmly of the view that it is only by dealing with the full range of issues underlying food insecurity that we will make any real progress. Our response must be a coordinated, comprehensive and country-owned response that addresses the underlying causes of hunger in addition to preventing humanitarian crises.
In agriculture, this comprehensive action includes the need to promote and support the intensification of smallholder agriculture; the need to increase farmers’ access markets; and the need to improve the access of women farmers to land and credit. In research, we must invest in innovative appropriate research and ensure the benefits are made available to all. In health, food security, private and civil sectors there are many more examples.
Thirdly, we must continue to place particular emphasis on the issue of nutrition. This is because we know that only a few months of poor and inadequate nutrition can have long term debilitating effects on a child. The spiral of malnutrition, leads to greater health problems, incapacity and inability to work. It has long term consequences for individuals that affect their ability to lead a productive life. Particular focus must be given to maternal and child nutrition. I would urge all of us to ensure that nutrition is given the focus and attention it deserves.
Finally, we must improve our monitoring and results focus. At an international level we must continue to highlight a focus on nutrition outcomes; To see our aid and programmes being judged on their ability to improve nutrition outcomes. It is without doubt that all of our work, in all sectors, should have the ultimate objective of improving nutrition outcomes, the ultimate measure of our success.
Closing Statement
The Comprehensive Framework for Action can provide us with a roadmap to harness opportunities and innovation.
We have the opportunity to innovate in every sector we work in, whether this be in our agriculture, our research, our health responses, our nutrition programming. There are many problems. Yet, there are even more solutions.
We must work together to ensure that our solutions are truly country owned and coordinated. By taking a comprehensive approach to dealing with hunger, I hope that in a few years time we will be able to meet again in a forum such as this and reflect on real progress being made to combat hunger.
In your deliberations over the next two days, I ask you to think about how we can support people locally to harness all their capacity to make food available and accessible and to conquer food insecurity.
Coordinated Comprehensive Common Action is required. Together let us walk the last mile.
End.
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