24/11/2004

UN sets out plans to halve world hunger

The UN has set out plans to achieve its goal of halving the numbers of people suffering from malnutrition in the world.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has adopted a set of "voluntary guidelines" designed to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of slashing the number of the world’s hungry in half by 2015.

According to latest agency figures there are more than 840 million people who currently live in conditions of extreme hunger.

Human rights principles – including equality and non-discrimination, inclusion, accountability and the rule of law as well as the principle that all human rights are universal, indivisible and inter-related – are central to the guidelines, adopted yesterday by the FAO Council.

“They cover the full range of actions that need to be taken at the national level to construct an enabling environment for people to feed themselves in dignity and to establish appropriate safety nets for those who cannot. This landmark event signifies universal acceptance of what the right to food really means,” FAO Assistant Director-General of the Economic and Social Department Hartwig de Haen said.

The goal on hunger was one of eight goals adopted by the UN Millennium Summit of 2000 aimed at halving some of the world’s most significant ills such as poverty and lack of access to health care.

(gmcg/mb)

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