Freedom From Want

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quires tools and approaches that have never before been imagined. In some re-
spects, the challenge is comparable to President John Kennedy s call in the early
1960s to send people to the moon. He had no idea how the job would get done,
but he was able to provide the vision.
Although the challenge of ending hunger and malnutrition is analogous to
the call to send people to the moon, there are important di�erences. President
Kennedy was able to supply not only the vision but also the resources. And he was
able to provide an authority structure through which contractors and subcon-
tractors could be hired and paid and asked to do the bidding of the U.S. govern-
ment. The task of ending hunger in the world is far more di~cult. The vision has
to be so compelling and complete that it must include finding ways to muster the
required resources, and it must include the creation of an organizational struc-
ture adequate to meet the requirements of the job.
There have been many e�orts to address hunger and malnutrition at the
global level, including:
�
the Manifesto of the Special Assembly on Man s Right to Freedom from
Hunger, held in Rome in March 1963;
�
the International Undertaking on World Food Security and the Univer-
sal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition, issued
by the World Food Conference held in Rome in 1974;
�
the Plan of Action on World Food Security of 1979;
�
the Agenda for Consultations and Possible Action to deal with Acute
and Large-Scale Food Shortages of 1981;
�
the World Food Security Compact of 1985;
�
the Plan of Action for Implementing the World Declaration on the Sur-
vival, Protection, and Development of Children, issued by the World
Summit for Children held at the United Nations in New York in Sep-
tember 1990, which included a major section on reducing children s
malnutrition;
�
the World Declaration and Plan of Action on Nutrition of the Interna-
tional Conference on Nutrition held in Rome in December 1992;
228 applications
�
the Plan of Action that came out of the World Food Summit of 1996,
and its follow-up meeting, World Food Summit; five years later; and
�
the Millennium Development Program, based on the Millennium Sum-
mit of 2000, in which the first goal centers on reducing poverty and
hunger.
These initiatives have shared a common weakness: Their focus was mainly on
the formulation of national plans of action, not a comprehensive global plan of
action. The intergovernmental organizations were viewed mainly as facilitators,
not as major actors. These plans did not give adequate attention to the role that
the international community must play if hunger and malnutrition are to be
sharply reduced.
In the approach envisioned here, the international community would be at
center stage, playing major roles in the global program for the realization of the
human right to adequate food. The intergovernmental organizations and the na-
tional governments, working together, would have to determine the division of
responsibilities among them so that each could make its own best contribution
to ensuring that people everywhere have adequate food. Of course, it would al-
ways have to be recognized that the intergovernmental organizations are not in-
dependent agents but are agents of, and accountable to, their member nations.
What role should international agencies have in helping to reduce hunger and
malnutrition around the world? Many good food and nutrition programs are al-
ready in place. Instead of trying to invent something wholly new, good use should
be made of existing institutional arrangements for dealing with the issues. We
should see how their methods of work could be adapted so that they help to carry
out the obligations of the international community, and thus help to advance the
human right to adequate food globally.
The most prominent international governmental organizations concerned
with food and nutrition are the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations, the World Food Program, the International Fund for Agricultural De-
velopment, the World Health Organization, and unicef. They are governed by
boards comprised of member states. Responsibility for coordinating food and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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