UN Food Summit a “Missed Opportunity”

Despite an increased commitment to support smallholder farmers and agriculture, this year’s World Food Summit failed to present new timelines or funds to fulfill this promise.

On November 16, the first day of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s three-day World Food Summit conference, 192 leaders and representatives made their final declaration. The statement offered no new funds towards eradicating world hunger. However, it did reaffirm its Millennium Development Goal to halve world hunger by 2012, even with the recent rise to 1.02 billion hungry.

“The summit was a missed opportunity,” said Matt Stenson, a CHF program officer for Africa. “The big issue is a lack of specifics in terms of cost and timeframes, and no funding commitments from donors to support the summit’s recommendations, which was the whole point of the conference.”

The conference discussed newer methods of how to tackle world hunger. Some of the key issues discussed include support for farmers and agriculture, effective mechanisms for early reactions to food crises and support for adapting to climate change.

“The declaration does have some positives,” continued Stenson. “It acknowledges the need for focusing on smallholder farmers, developing country ownership and supporting rural livelihoods as the building blocks of food security.

“Attention to these issues reflects the UN’s growing shift from food relief to sustainable food security in developing countries,” Stenson adds.

• Learn more about the summit here.

• CHF interviewed by Toronto Star about the World Food Summit

IIRD: Reaching the Ultra-Poor in Bangladesh

According to the World Bank, 75% of the world’s poor live in rural areas. These areas have limited access to government aid and services, thus making it difficult to alleviate chronic poverty. CHF and IIRD share a similar goal: to bring sustainable development to communities in rural and often underserved areas.

Since 2006, CHF has partnered with the Institute for Integrated Rural Development (IIRD) in the Chandpur District of Bangladesh, where they are helping some of the most chronically poor communities. Together, they are working to diversify income-generating activities and to increase the communities’ coping mechanisms. By encouraging sustainable livelihoods, CHF and IIRD hope to reduce the economic and social vulnerability of these communities.

“Working with local partners allows our projects to be as effective as possible,” explains Karim Alibhai, CHF’s Project Manager for Asia. “In Bangladesh, for example, IIRD facilitated our outreach to the marginalized ultra-poor communities.”

Like CHF, IIRD was founded to help rural communities achieve sustainability that is both socially and environmentally sound. Established in India in 1987, it has become one of Asia’s most recognizable development organizations.

• Learn more about IIRD, here.

• Read about CHF’s project, here.

Gifts That Matter

Now that Gifts That Matter’s holiday campaign is in full swing, it’s fun to reminisce about the joy it has generated in Canada and around the globe.

“I have bought Christmas gifts for my Dad for the past three years — first a donkey, then a goat, next some chicks, and now the Holiday Hamper. That blingy goat photo caught my eye as a CHF donor from the first, so when I got your leaflet in the mail I decided to get my CHF Christmas shopping done early.”

-Sharon Aaltonen, Canada

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