06-06-2008, 10:22 AM
âBrutal increase in global pricesâ
ROME: The summit's main message was due to be: "We firmly resolve to use all means to alleviate the suffering caused by the current crisis, to stimulate food production and to increase investment in agriculture." Some question the use of the summit. President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, a sceptic of international attempts to solve hunger and critic of the FAO, said it was a waste of time.
"There's been a brutal rise in prices (of food) and we were told there was a threat hanging over the world and all the heads of state were called to attend. I thought it was going to be to answer the question about what should be done, but it wasn't that at all," Wade said. "It was just a conference like any other and that's why I was disappointed," said Wade, one of more than 40 heads of state and government who attended the Rome summit. British-based poverty campaign group Oxfam was more upbeat.
Although the summit was not meant to produce promises of aid or set new global policies, it has set the tone on food and hunger for more concrete talks in the coming months. Group of Eight leaders meet in Japan in July, by which time a food crisis task force set up by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is due to have issued a concrete action plan. The summit's talks on the potential benefits to poor farmers from new global trade rules will feed into a push to conclude the so-called Doha round of World Trade Organisation talks, which reach a potentially conclusive phase in the coming weeks.
The United States, which is diverting increasing amounts of its maize harvest into automobile fuel, came under attack from some countries and poverty campaigners who have called for a rethink of policies to promote fuel made from foodstuffs. reuters
ROME: The summit's main message was due to be: "We firmly resolve to use all means to alleviate the suffering caused by the current crisis, to stimulate food production and to increase investment in agriculture." Some question the use of the summit. President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, a sceptic of international attempts to solve hunger and critic of the FAO, said it was a waste of time.
"There's been a brutal rise in prices (of food) and we were told there was a threat hanging over the world and all the heads of state were called to attend. I thought it was going to be to answer the question about what should be done, but it wasn't that at all," Wade said. "It was just a conference like any other and that's why I was disappointed," said Wade, one of more than 40 heads of state and government who attended the Rome summit. British-based poverty campaign group Oxfam was more upbeat.
Although the summit was not meant to produce promises of aid or set new global policies, it has set the tone on food and hunger for more concrete talks in the coming months. Group of Eight leaders meet in Japan in July, by which time a food crisis task force set up by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is due to have issued a concrete action plan. The summit's talks on the potential benefits to poor farmers from new global trade rules will feed into a push to conclude the so-called Doha round of World Trade Organisation talks, which reach a potentially conclusive phase in the coming weeks.
The United States, which is diverting increasing amounts of its maize harvest into automobile fuel, came under attack from some countries and poverty campaigners who have called for a rethink of policies to promote fuel made from foodstuffs. reuters