Wednesday wrapped up the World Summit on Food Security in Rome. Just to recap in case you missed the last post, the Summit was intended to bring together heads of state and food security institutions, like the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP), to further the global agenda on eradicating hunger and pursuing global food security.

The Summit attendees released a declaration that reinforces their commitment to fully realizing the first Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger and poverty by 2015. The declaration also commits to promoting better coordination of food security efforts at local, regional, and national levels, as well as reversing the decline in funding for food security, and addressing the challenges of climate change as they impact food security, including adaptation of and mitigation in the agriculture sector. The declaration did not adopt the FAO’s ask of $44 billion annually for food security initiatives, or the goal of eradicating global hunger by 2025.

The group did use the communiqué to outline the Five Rome Principles for Sustainable Global Food Security which form a basis for this work. The principles reflect the five principles proposed by the U.S. at the L’Aquila G8 Summit, which were reiterated by the leaders of the G20 at their meeting in Pittsburgh in September. If implemented, the principles—investing in country-owned, country-led plans; coordinating at national, regional, and global levels; investing in short-, medium-, and long-term initiatives to address hunger and food insecurity; providing a role for the multilateral system; and ensuring sustained and substantial commitments—will go a long way to ensuring that development assistance for agriculture and food security is effective.

Two countries did take forward steps at the Summit as well: Canada reiterated their commitments to the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative and their country plan which will coordinate Canada’s food security strategy. If you missed our post about Canada’s announcement, you can read it here. Germany also publicly announced their share of L’Aquila commitment: they will provide €700 million or about $1 billion over three years for food security initiatives. $300 million will be new money that is not already in the pipeline, and this pledge does not include emergency assistance. These clarifications are important next steps in constructing a global system that works for food security. We are eager to see further clarification of funding from these and other countries.

As you know, the FAO World Food Summit ended yesterday in Rome. Check out the articles below to see a variety of reactions to the Summit:

World leaders’ low turnout hits UN food summit (Reuters Africa)
The absence of world leaders at this week’s World Food Summit presented a challenge from the start. The Summit’s final declaration did not result in additional financial commitments; some have attributed this lack of progress to the lackluster attendance by heads of state. Less than a third of the 192 heads of states and governments invited by the FAO attended the Summit. Many sent their agriculture ministers instead.

What is the point of the world food summit on food security? (The Guardian Blog)
Despite criticism that the World Food Summit did not result in substantial increases in aid for agriculture, the president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Kanayo Nwanze, expressed that the point of the Summit was not to gather pledges, but to encourage the leaders of developing countries to commit themselves to making agriculture and food security top priorities.

Food security – collective race against crises (This Day; allAfrica.com)
At the three-day summit in Rome, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon declared that food and nutritional security are the foundations for a healthy life for all people. He called for immediate action against food insecurity and hunger and laid out a comprehensive list of measures to combat food insecurity, which, he said, will be exacerbated by population growth and climate change.

Declaring a vision for world hunger (Oxfam International Blog)
Yesterday, the summit released a declaration outlining its vision on international food security and how it can be achieved. The declaration focuses on the poorest farmers but critics are saying that it does not go far enough to address issues affecting food security, including the global economic crisis and the onset of climate change.

Earlier this week, I had the chance to talk with Thomas Awiapo, a Ghanaian from the country’s Upper East Region and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) staff member. As a child in Ghana, Thomas was a beneficiary of CRS school feeding programs. Now, as an adult, he works for CRS Ghana and travels to the U.S. annually to tell his inspiring story to American Catholics at schools, parishes and communities. A powerful story to help wrap up our Food Security in Focus series this week!

Food security is a personal issue for you, isn’t it?

I lived hunger. I suffered it. I lost two siblings to malnutrition. I saw them die—skinny and bony. Every single day I fought for a bowl of food. There was nothing called breakfast or lunch. We were just lucky to get one bowl of food a day.

The only reason I survived was because I went to school. Catholic Relief Services built a school in my village, but I hated it. No one in my family had ever been to school. I didn’t know the benefits. So I went there merely to search for food. I thought the food was free—but it wasn’t. If you wanted snack, you were sentenced to one class and if you wanted lunch, you were taken hostage in another class. As CRS kept fixing lunch, I kept going to school, and today I hold a master’s degree in public administration. That’s the power of a little snack.

Today, I put three meals on the table for my children—and they stay in school because I understand that education is liberation from hunger. Education is the way to break the chains of poverty and hunger. I lived it. I survived to tell the story.

So is food security an issue you still deal with on a daily basis?

Every day: Now we’re working with local farmers—training them, giving them better seeds, helping to teach them how to produce more in their villages. Before, people were mostly just producing food for subsistence. But now we’re trying to encourage farmers: if you grow peanuts, how can we help you? What seeds, training and equipment do you need? How do you find the best markets? Farmers often sell their items at the wrong time, when the price is cheaper. But we help them find a market where they can sell their goods at a good price and make as much profit as possible.

How has climate change impacted farmers in Ghana?

Most people didn’t understand what climate change was. But now you can see so clearly. There was always a rainy season and a dry season. Each lasted six months. Every year it was the same. But now if we get three months of rain, we’re lucky. And the rain that comes is either too late or too early or too much.

Farmers can work as hard as they want, but without rain they are lost. When I visited Wisconsin, I saw them using sprinklers. It seemed so easy. But our government in collaboration with local and international NGOs is trying to support and educate farmers, creating awareness about issues of global warming.

Are they educating just about climate change?

They’re providing education on many issues—like deforestation. Trees here are a source of fuel. You cut down trees to build homes. You need them to survive. But with education, we are trying to teach that if you cut this tree, then plant another in its place. The education is slow, but we’re making progress.

How have the farmers reacted to this help?

They are very excited. Ghana is said to be comparable to Oregon in size. Oregon has 4 million people. Ghana has 21 to 22 million people. The need is great but resources are limited. But I believe there are enough resources in Ghana to feed Ghanaians, just like the United States has enough resources to feed all Americans. We just need to continue to advocate for more just and accountable systems and structures that are beneficial to all without exception.

We’re all working together—government, NGOs, universities and other stakeholders—to try and provide support. But we must remember what President Obama said when he visited Ghana—aid is not an end in itself. The purpose of foreign assistance must be creating the conditions where it is no longer needed. We have to make sure we have the right systems, the right people with the right intentions and many good things can happen. The trick is how to find all three.

As you know, we’re tracking the World Food Summit this week. Check out the articles below to see what major news outlets are saying about the summit, including the link between food security and climate change and child health, as well as how the events are going in Rome. Let us know what you think and keep checking the ONE blog for updates on the Summit, which ends tomorrow.

At UN Food Summit, Ban Ki-Moon Warns of Rise in Child Hunger Deaths (Christian Science Monitor)
To open the World Food Summit in Rome yesterday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon underscored the plight of children suffering from starvation, saying that more than 17,000 children die of starvation every day—six million children each year. Many groups expressed outrage that malnutrition exists to such an extent despite surpluses in world food production. Many were discouraged by the lack of specific financial pledges from the Summit and the lackluster attendance by world leaders: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the only G8 leader present.

UN: Climate Change Deal Key to Fighting Hunger (Voice of America)
At the opening of the summit yesterday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced that a global climate deal is essential to fight global hunger. There can be no food security without climate security, said Mr. Ban, calling the food crisis “a wake-up call.” By 2050, the world may need to grow 70 percent more food to feed an estimated 2 billion additional people, he said, but extreme and unpredictable weather caused by climate change will make it difficult to do so.

World Leaders at UN Summit Vow to Aid Farmers in Bid to Help Starving (The Times Online)
Yesterday, world leaders agreed on a strategy to help the world’s one billion starving people by increasing aid to farmers in developing countries, but failed to pledge the specific funds the UN had hoped for. The FAO had asked for a $44 billion a year commitment for agricultural aid and a 2050 deadline for eradicating world hunger altogether. Instead, summit delegates confirmed the current target of halving the number of chronically hungry people by 2015, a commitment first made nine years ago. The FAO emphasized that the way to help poor farmers is to empower them by supplying agricultural equipment, irrigation technology, fertilizers and better seeds, rather than food aid.

Economic Revival Carries ‘Food Price Surge Risk’ (Financial Times)
Yesterday, Jacques Diouf, director-general of the FAO warned that food prices may surge again as the global economy recovers. Diouf warned that many of the same structural problems that led to last year’s spike in food prices are present again, including lack of investment, high demand in Asia and the conversion of food commodities into biofuels, adding that “we have all the elements of a crisis.” He encouraged countries to consider investing in technology to raise farmer productivity while other global food companies urged policymakers to boost investment in infrastructure spending.

Some Nations Successful in Global Hunger Fight: FAO (AFP)
Today, the FAO announced that some countries have made significant progress in the fight against hunger. According to the FAO, sixteen countries have already reached the goal of reducing hunger levels by 50 percent by 2015, an accomplishment which FAO chief Jacques Diouf lauded as evidence of “an unflagging commitment on the part of governments of developing countries themselves and energetic support by the international community.” Moving forward, the FAO emphasized the importance of a favorable economic environment, targeted investment, and sensible planning to be successful in the fight against hunger.

As I posted below, today is the kickoff of the World Food Summit in Rome. This weekend, the Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf, undertook a 24-hour fast to protest the astonishing figure of over 1 billion hungry people around the world. The FAO is also currently running a campaign against global hunger, which you should check out at www.1billionhungry.org.

Today marks the opening of the World Food Summit on Global Food Security which is being held in Rome through Wednesday. The meeting, which brings together officials from the UN food security-related institutions (like the UN Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO] and the World Food Program [WFP]) and an estimated 60 heads of state, is designed to garner political will to address global food insecurity. The UN FAO has asked those in attendance at the Summit to commit $44 billion per year in official development assistance (ODA) for agricultural development, and to adopt 2025 as a deadline for eradicating global hunger.

Over 1 billion people worldwide suffer from food insecurity, and the challenge ahead will only be exacerbated by climate change, population growth, and rural-urban migration. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon cautioned today that food security cannot be tackled without addressing climate change. “Food security and climate change are deeply interconnected,” he said. “Today’s event is critical, so is Copenhagen.” The FAO predicts that we will need to grow 70 percent more food by 2050. At the same time, however, farmers, particularly in places like Africa where crops are rain-fed and rainfall is becoming increasingly erratic, could see drastic declines in harvests.

In the lead-up to the Summit last week there were concerns about attendance and outcomes. News reports indicated that the Summit might not set measurable targets for addressing food insecurity, and a draft communiqué released last week by the FAO contained promising language, but also lacked specific and measurable goals. Thus far at the Summit leaders have only reaffirmed the first Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger and poverty by 2015; it seems unlikely that the UN’s more ambitious targets will be ratified.

In the next few days we’ll update you about happenings at the Summit. The coverage of this event will wrap up our Food Security in Focus series. We hope you’ve enjoyed the content here on the website as much as we’ve enjoyed tracking and writing it! And we will, of course, continue to keep you posted about news in the agriculture and food security sector.

Check out this post—in the lead-up to next week’s World Summit on Food Security—from American Jewish World Service, another entry in our Food Security in Focus series.

Why are so many people hungry? It’s a simple question with complex answers. Hunger is not driven by a lack of food in the world. Global hunger is rooted in a web of political and economic policies that prevent access to food, particularly in developing countries. Hunger is complex because food is political.

As Policy Associate at American Jewish World Service (AJWS)—an international development organization motivated by Judaism’s imperative to pursue justice—I am exploring ways in which our own U.S. aid, trade, and agriculture policies affect global hunger.

Through grantmaking, service, advocacy and education, AJWS supports grassroots organizations that are achieving food sovereignty in their own communities by developing sustainable solutions to food insecurity. My advocacy from our Washington, DC office responds to the global challenges and the local solutions of AJWS’s grassroots partners.

For example, Kenya—a country of nearly 35 million people—produces less than 50 percent of the food that its population needs to survive. Small-scale growers were long ago forced out of business by cheap subsidized imports from Western nations. Kilili Self-Help Project (KSHP), an AJWS grassroots partner, is working to reduce Kenyans’ dependency on foreign imports by promoting local, sustainable farming that helps communities feed themselves.

To support this work from here in the U.S., AJWS is pushing to fix the aid, trade and agriculture policies that perpetuate challenges faced in Kenya and elsewhere.

Food is a human right, not a privilege. It cannot be traded and treated like any other commodity. Join us in calling on our U.S. leadership to promote this principle during the upcoming World Summit on Food Security on November 16 to 18 in Rome.

Stay tuned to AJWS’s From the Ground Up campaign to learn more, and be sure to take our hunger quiz!

-Amanda Cary, Policy Associate, American Jewish World Service

Here’s another post for our Food Security in Focus series, this time from MANA about malnutrition and emergency food aid.

Formula 100 (F-100) is pretty cool stuff. It’s a therapeutic milk designed to bring severely malnourished kids back from the brink of death. It works exceptionally well—if you can get it to kids who need it. Delivery is tricky in Africa, where clean water and refrigeration are often not available. A few years ago, a group of doctors and nutritionists developed a way to get F-100 to the kids who need it the most. They mixed it with peanut butter and packaged it in sealed packets. The result was a game changer for the war on malnutrition. They called their peanut butter paste invention “Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF).”

A version of RUTF—Plumpy’nut—is currently being distributed in Africa through Doctors Without Borders. Meanwhile, Mark Manary, the MIT-bred American doctor who started Project Peanut Butter, has been a loud champion of RUTF development. We heard him speak, got inspired (you would be too if you met him) and decided that we needed to take his peanut butter recipe, scale up production and get it to kids as quickly and cheaply as possible. So, we started MANA (Mother Administered Nutritive Aid). Our dream and our purpose is to make RUTF readily available for kids who need it, and to develop other products and practical methods for delivering essential nutrition around the world.

Currently, we’re working on two fronts: production of MANA in the United States for humanitarian emergencies, and in Africa for daily needs distribution.

A child dies from malnutrition every six seconds—about every time you blink. That doesn’t have to be the reality. Malnutrition can be cured and prevented, and we’re starting a movement to that end. Learn more about MANA and tell your friends.

-Mark Moore, co-founder of MANA (Mother Administered Nutritive Aid)

Check out this video from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a research and policy organization that works to reduce poverty and cut hunger and malnutrition. In the video, IFPRI highlights a series of success stories in agricultural development.

Check out this post from our partner organization Bread for the World. This post—talking about the need for more (and better) funding for agricultural development—is part of our Food Security in Focus series.

I’m a vegetarian. So I wasn’t sure how to respond when my host Yemiama offered me chickens as a gift for visiting him in southeastern Burkina Faso. I reluctantly took the chickens with many “thank yous.” Later, as I climbed into our truck, my colleagues joked that the birds would never make it through U.S. Customs.

Recently, I visited Burkina Faso as a guest of the Ministry of Agriculture on a project supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). While there, I talked with farmers about how they are coping in the midst of a global food and financial crisis. Predictably, they are struggling.

But the government in Burkina Faso is trying. With the support of IFAD, they are working to improve agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods. In Kompiengbiga, they have built irrigation schemes, increased organic fertilizer use and taught farmers business skills. Burkinabè farmers have benefited from these efforts. Even in my short visit, I was impressed that they are willing to take risks and adopt new technologies if they are given the chance.

Unfortunately, far too few farmers are getting the support they need. Currently, only four cents of every dollar of Official Development Assistance supports agricultural development. That’s down from 17 cents of every dollar in the 1980s.

How did we get to a point where we failed to anticipate needs in an area as critical as agriculture? Part of the answer is donor policies are poorly aligned with needs in developing countries. This must change.

Creating more responsive foreign assistance that alleviates hunger and poverty is sorely needed. Right now Bread for the World members are urging their Senators to support S.1524, “The Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act.” This bill will strengthen the capacity, transparency, and accountability of U.S. foreign assistance—and is a critical step toward helping farmers like Yemiama. Click here to learn more about S. 1524.

-Eric Muñoz, International Hunger and Nutrition Policy Analyst, Bread for the World Institute