Africa will be the priority for FAO

The new director-general of FAO, the Brazilian José Graziano da Silva, said yesterday that Africa will be a priority for this Organization during his term and warned that "ending hunger requires the commitment of all" as will any body"only defeat in this war".

In his first appearance before the press after taking over on January 1, the direction of the United Nations food and Agriculture (FAO), Graziano said, moreover, that it wants to work "in the most transparent and democratic way" with countries members, the different UN agencies, the private sector and society civil.

Eradicate hunger
the main objective of its mandate for Graziano is the work for the eradication of hunger and emphasized that you to achieve it is necessary that there should be a "political will" and that this translates into "concrete actions".

Showed u000aconvinced that it is possible to "recover the lost ground" and the goal of halving the number of hungry in the world by 2015, although due to the proximity of this date, insisted "there is no time to lose".

Graziano recalled that FAO has limited resources and, therefore, explained that it will give priority to assisting the countries in greatest need, which placed in Africa.

He also referred to Latin America, considered a "very privileged region on issues of agriculture and food security" and in which there is a wide range of laws to address this problem, so considered that it was ahead of other countries in the world in this aspect.

Therefore, the new director of the FAO established that not going to treat all countries equally, but will concentrate on those that are not moving at the pace required.

Within its mandate, to u000aconcludes by 2015 and that happens to the of the Senegalese Jacques Diouf, Graziano also sees as strategic priorities move toward a system of production and consumption more sustainable, promote greater justice in the global governance of food, completing the reform of FAO and expand South-South cooperation.

Dramatic level
Graziano stressed that not expected a "dramatic increase of hunger" and stressed that the world is already at a dramatic level with nearly a billion hungry people in the world.

To this regard pointed out that while are expected in some countries the growth in the number of hungry people lower in areas such as Asia or Africa will not be so, since significant increases are expected in these regions. FAO expects to be "closer" to these areas through a series of measures.

Share this article

Digg it!

del.icio.us

MySpace

Facebook

Fark

Reddit

Newsvine