UN Hunger Summit Vows “Urgent Action”; No New Money

The United Nations "Hunger Summit" on Monday vowed “urgent action” to combat food shortages but drew fire for failing to pledge new funds or set a timetable to beat the scourge affecting more than 1 billion people.

As Pope Benedict XVI slammed the “greed” of grain speculators, participants at the summit in Rome declared hunger was “an unacceptable blight on the lives, livelihoods and dignity of one-sixth of the world’s population.”

Their joint final declaration, which was rolled out on the first day of the threeday summit, also outlined five “principles” including “direct action” to help the most vulnerable.

However, no new financial commitments were contained in the document, which calls on wealthy nations to honor pledges of $20 billion in aid over the next three years made at a Group of Eight leading nations summit in July.

The final declaration also omitted any mention of a U.N. 2025 deadline for the eradication of world hunger, prompting an angry response from campaigners.

Matt Grainger, of the humanitarian group Oxfam, slammed the declaration as “completely uncosted, unfunded and unaccountable.”

“They really had a chance here to come up with some[thing] really concrete,” Grainger told AFP, calling the summit a “massive wasted opportunity.”

Some 60 heads of state and government are attending the World Summit on Food Security at the headquarters of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organizsation in Rome, but leaders of the world’s wealthiest countries are conspicuous by their absence.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe are among the participants.

The summit delegates said they “commit to substantially increase” the percentage of development aid spent on agriculture and food security.

They vowed a “twin-track approach” to food security comprising direct action for the most vulnerable and sustainable “medium and long-term programs to eliminate the root causes of hunger and poverty.”

Source; CME Group