The head of the UN food agency, Jacques Diouf, on Monday lamented the absence of concrete targets from a final declaration issued by the Hunger Summit in Rome. "I am not satisfied with the fact that there is no commitment regarding the calendar, amounts and conditions" in the declaration, Diouf told a news conference after the first day of talks.
In particular, the head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation said he regretted the "absence of a deadline for the total eradication of hunger in the world." In 2000, the United Nations set a target of halving world hunger by 2015 and ending it by 2025.
Referring to these Millennium Development Goals, Diouf said: "A deadline had already been approved" but negotiations ahead of the three-day food security summit here failed to reach a consensus on the eradication of hunger, he said. "I regret it," Diouf added.
The declaration issued on the first day of the three-day meeting vowed "urgent action" to combat the scourge affecting more than one billion people. It outlined five "principles" including "direct action" to help the most vulnerable.
But no new financial commitments were contained in the document, which calls on wealthy nations to honour pledges of 20 billion dollars (13.3 billion euros) in aid over the next three years made at a Group of Eight summit in July. Matt Grainger of the humanitarian group Oxfam earlier slammed the declaration as "completely uncosted, unfunded and unaccountable."
"They really had a chance here to come up with some 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, but leaders of the world's wealthiest countries are conspicuous by their absence.