The World Summit on Food Security took place in Rome, Italy between 16 and 18 November 2009. The decision to convene the summit was taken by the Council of the

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

(FAO) in June 2009, at the proposal of FAO Director-General Dr

Jacques Diouf Jacques Diouf (1 August 1938 – 17 August 2019) was a Senegalese diplomat and the Director-General of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) from January 1994 to 31 December 2011. He died on 17 August 2019, 16 days after hi ...

. Sixty Heads of State and Government and 192 ministers, from 182 countries and the European Community, attended the summit, which took place at FAO's headquarters.

Context

The FAO says the global

food security Food security speaks to the availability of food in a country (or geography) and the ability of individuals within that country (geography) to access, afford, and source adequate foodstuffs. According to the United Nations' Committee on World ...

situation has worsened and continues to represent a serious threat. There are 1 billion chronically hungry people in the world and recent reports say this number could grow by 100 million in 2009. Food prices remain stubbornly high in developing countries, while the global economic crisis is aggravating the situation by affecting jobs and deepening poverty.

Achievements

The Summit adopted unanimously a declaration committing all the nations of the world to eradicate hunger at the earliest possible date. It pledged to substantially increase aid to agriculture in developing countries, so that the world's 1 billion hungry can become more self-sufficient. The declaration confirmed the current target for reducing hunger by half by 2015. Countries agreed to work to reverse the decline in domestic and international funding for agriculture and promote new investment in the sector, to improve governance of global food issues in partnership with relevant stakeholders from the public and private sector, and to face the challenges of

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

to food security.

Funding

FAO announced in July that Saudi Arabia had agreed to meet the costs of the Summit, estimated at $2.5 million. The offer was made during an official visit to the country by Diouf.

Linked events

The outcomes of three related events taking place just ahead of the Summit contributed to the debate—a private-sector forum (Milan, 12–13 November), an inter-parliamentary meeting (Rome, 13 November) and a civil society forum (Rome, 14–16 November). FAO says three events in October 2009 prepared the ground for the Summit. These were: a High-level Expert Forum on How to Feed to World in 2050, from 12–13 October; the Committee on World Food Security, from 14 to 17 October; and World Food Day on 16 October. The launch of the

1 billion hungry campaign 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1 ...

a week prior to the event. FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf told a pre-Summit Private Sector Forum on 12 November that the importance of the private sector has increased due to privatization, globalization and the transformation of the food chain. On the eve of the summit, FAO Director-General began a 24-hour hunger strike to call for action to end the scourge of hunger and in solidarity with the one billion humans who suffer chronic malnutrition. He called on "people of goodwill everywhere" to join him in a worldwide hunger strike this weekend. FAO on Monday 16 November 2009, said that agreeing a

deal in Copenhagen at the

COP15 The 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was planned to be held in April 2022 in Kunming, China, but was postponed, for a fourth time, to the third quarter of 2022 a ...

( 7–18 December 2009) is crucial to fighting global hunger, which Brazil's president described as "the most devastating weapon of mass destruction."Climate deal key to fight "devastating" hunger: U.N., 16 November 2009, https://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5AF20W20091116

Sources

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Summit Related Documents

Feeding the world in 2050

Food security and the financial crisis

Foreign Direct Investment – win-win or land grab?

New challenges – climate change and bioenergy

Non-distorting farm support

Sub-Saharan Africa – realizing the potential

The contribution of technology

The investment imperative

Transboundary Animal and Plant Pests and Diseases

Global governance of food security

External links

Summit website

FAO High-level expert forum: How to Feed the World in 2050

Committee on World Food Security
Food security Food and Agriculture Organization United Nations conferences Diplomatic conferences in Italy 21st-century diplomatic conferences 2009 in international relations 2009 conferences 2000s in Rome November 2009 events in Europe Events in Rome