Leaders of the rich nations stayed away from the World Food Summit that ended last Thursday in Rome, but their counterparts in the underdeveloped world attended in record numbers with Africans meeting to discuss a continental economic rescue plan. Samia Nkrumah attended and spoke to the Ghanaian leader The latest World Food Summit, held between 10 and 14 June, ended, as it began, on a sobering note. The conspicuous absence of heads of states and governments of the industrialised nations contrasted with the abundance of their counterparts from developing countries, particularly African states, prompting snide references to "the summit of the poor". Would the outcome of the summit have been any different with more leaders from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)? "Definitely," Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told Al-Ahram Weekly at the end of the summit. "These are very important signals. Having only two OECD heads of state present does not send a good psychological, political nor diplomatic signal. So many leaders here flew from the Pacific, from Southern Africa, from Latin America," added Diouf. "Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his counterpart Jose Aznar were the only two OECD leaders who were present." The FAO chief recognised that some of the industrialised countries sent a 45-member delegation. All in all, 248 ministers from more than 180 countries attended, something which had not happened at any previous summit. And many, such as Japan and the Scandinavian countries, are big Overseas Development (ODA) donors. "I'm not saying that they are not interested. But when we've all decided that it's going to be a meeting of heads of state and governments and if the leaders of the poor countries show up and the rich don't, naturally, this could be misinterpreted, and that could have been avoided," he added. Some commentators speculated that the OECD leaders' absence implied an unwillingness to increase contributions at a time of economic pessimism worldwide. This year's summit, held at the FAO headquarters in Rome, is the follow-up of the 1996 World Food Summit. The current summit met to revive efforts to reduce, by half, the number of hungry people to around 400 million by 2015, a pledge made in 1996, and now, a failed target. "The targets were not met because there was no rigorous framework. You need a framework and political will. Today, we've identified the problems in a clearer manner. We've done our homework better," Mary Robinson, UN commissioner for Human Rights told the Weekly. The summit's declaration was already in place before the gathering came to an end, exposing it to sharp criticism that nothing would change on the ground. But despite such misgivings, Arab and African delegates expressed their satisfaction with the conference. From the point of view of developing countries, this summit gave them the platform to voice the contradictions they have to grapple with in their struggle to achieve food security. African, Asian and Latin American countries spelt out their complaints clearly in numerous opening speeches, in press conferences and inside meetings. Food insecurity, another way of referring to hunger and poverty, is not just linked to natural disasters, wars and a downward trend in official development assistance from the rich world, but equally to the need for fairer trading practices between the developed and developing world. One way in which the industrialised world could contribute to the fight against hunger, asserted several heads of state from the south, is to open their agricultural markets to semi-finished or finished goods from the developing world. One way out of the cycle of poverty is to increase agricultural production. Agriculture- based economies cannot increase the volume of their commodities because that would bring down the price and push them further into poverty. Sometimes surplus and hunger exist side by side, when the surplus is wasted because it cannot reach the people who most need it, or be exported to neighbouring countries or abroad, due to bad infrastructure. Ugandan President Yweri Museveni gave the example of Uganda, which produced 800 million litres of milk annually with only 22 million litres being consumed in its towns per year. The regional market is not well organised because of wars and poor infrastructure. The only well organised, big markets are in the European Union (EU), Japan, India, and China and it is these that have been closed to African products. Challenges in increasing the value of imports are illustrated in the case of chocolate. "Increasing value means engaging in some processing; but while it is easy to export cocoa, chocolate is another story. And we all know that if we try to fill the markets with more cocoa we'll only see the price drop drastically," Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the executive secretary of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), told a press conference. Poul Nielson, the EU commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, said that opening up markets was a process that would develop gradually and it required a change of philosophy. According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) figures, the OECD countries help their agricultural sector with generous subsidies amounting to $300 billion a year, as compared to the $8 billion they give developing countries. Therefore each farmer in the OECD area receives $12,000 per year compared to $6 in developing countries. It is now globally recognised that there has been a steady decline in the Official Development Assistance (ODA) that goes into agriculture and rural development in countries at the receiving end. According to FAO figures, ODA fell by 30 per cent in the 1990s. Likewise, loans from international financing institutions fell by 50 per cent for agriculture over the last decade. These downward trends coincided with the introduction of liberalisation policies. "Chronically hungry people are a fairly recent phenomenon in the region. Liberalisation of economies in the south, in the late 80s and early 90s, coupled with debt servicing, meant governments had fewer funds to use in agriculture. Sometimes, with liberalisation, the private sector and the commercial farmers, were able to buy produce cheaply and re-sell it later at very high prices, all of which translates into very little incentive to produce especially on the part of the small scale farmer," Sindiso Ngwenya, assistant secretary general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), told the Weekly. "According to the World Bank's recently published reports, most funds that do go into agriculture have gone to countries with a basic infrastructure in place. Who would want to invest in a country with poor infrastructure; no roads, no links, no transportation and so on?" Ngwenya added. In any case, there is insufficient investment in small-holdings. Delegates from less industrialised countries argue that priority should go to agricultural and rural development with particular emphasis on projects run by small scale farmers and women. Water, for example, is a priority for agricultural development in Arab and African territories where they have only seven per cent control of water resources, compared to 50 per cent in China, and 36 in Asia, according to the FAO. To improve irrigation, farmers need to be aware of the appropriate technology. Electrical irrigation is very expensive; simpler techniques can be used. The summit was not used solely as a platform for complaints and criticism. Many countries from the south indicated that they wished to build a common understanding that would form a basis for successful partnership with the richer nations. Political and economic governance, respect for the rule of law and human rights, are recognised as prerequisites for an environment conducive to investment. To enter foreign markets, countries of the south have to put in place measures that would help their products reach the required standard, and they need assistance in achieving this. Once they have their own standards, developing countries would be able to refuse to be the dumping ground for surpluses and everything else, such as the powdered milk which was sent to regions with severe water shortages. Alongside the main summit events, numerous meetings were held by regional economic groupings or organisations. More than 20 organisations met on the fringes of the main summit. Many countries were members of more than one group. Some of the biggest Arab and African groups that held meetings were the Arab Organisation for Agricultural Development (AOAD) with its 22 countries; the 22-member Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA); the Southern African Development Community (SADC) with 14 member states; and the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). FAO has taken opportunity of the summit to focus on some funding. It is proposing an anti- hunger programme to reduce hunger through agricultural development. The proposal will cost an extra $24 billion a year, to be spent on infrastructure and food assistance. The organisation has already created a Trust Fund for Food Security and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced, at the concluding press conference, that Italy would be the first to contribute to the fund with 100 million Euros. Italy also took advantage of being represented by its prime minister to announce that it was cancelling Mozambique's $600 million debt. One EU official argued that countries tend to move their money from one fund to another, adjusting budgets, without actually increasing their real contribution. Thousands of campaigners from over 80 countries and 400 Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), held a forum at a venue outside FAO headquarters, but with FAO's approval, as indicated by the organisation chief's visit to the parallel summit. The campaigners issued their own declaration at the end of the summit. Their impact was felt through their emphasis on the human rights element of every issue, even though they did not take part in official meetings.
