SECRETARY-GENERAL URGES REDEDICATION TO WAR AGAINST HUNGER, POVERTY,
IN MESSAGE ON WORLD FOOD DAY
Following is the message of Secretary-General Kofi Annan on World Food Day, observed 16 October:
Every year, World Food Day provides us with an occasion to renew our commitment to the fight against world hunger.� This year, the theme "Fight Hunger to Reduce Poverty" highlights the need to address hunger both in itself and as a way to alleviate poverty worldwide.
Today, 1.2 billion people live in abject poverty.� More than 800 million of them are chronically undernourished.� Hunger is not only a consequence of poverty in its most extreme manifestation; it also serves to perpetuate and deepen poverty itself.� Hungry people's capacity for productivity and growth is stunted.� They cannot fulfil their potential as individuals, nor as a society.� This has devastating consequences for economic and social development as a whole.
We must end this cycle of misery.� We must combine concerted political will and innovative policies with investment in agriculture and rural development, as well as social safety nets.�
Five years ago, governments pledged at the World Food Summit in Rome to halve, by 2015, the number of hungry people in the world.� Today, I urge Member States to mobilize renewed political and financial commitment to meeting that goal.� In the light of recent global events and the current economic climate, that commitment is more important than ever.
And I urge all our partners in the international community to rededicate themselves on this World Food Day to the fight on both fronts -- the war against hunger and the war against poverty.
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