Laying out the facts

This is Tara McIndoe's second blog from the Fighting Hunger Conference: 

You can feel that everyone in the room is excited to hear what Kofi Annan has to say. He lays out the facts on hunger and food production and chastises the developed world for its lack of commitment to overseas development aid pledges.

Kofi praises Irish leadership and the Irish Hunger Task Force Report and links Irish commitment to our memory of famine. He also made some practical recommendations:

Ending hunger must be a core part of all donor strategies programmes and the proportion of overseas development aid to smallholder agriculture must be demarcated very clearlySupport the African Green Revolution wholeheartedly Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development must meet their overseas development aid pledges, a proportion to be allocated to hunger reduction

Peter Power is a young minister, but clearly passionate and motivated. He highlights the Irish cross-party support for the Irish Hunger Task Force’s recommendations (recently presented to government). Opposition TDs support the report’s recommendations and are ready to actively pursue them despite the domestic recession in this country.

Joachim von Braun’s message is simple: in some parts of the world much has been done to alleviate hunger. However, in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa large numbers of people experience poverty and hunger every day. He recommended that markets and trade policies must be addressed: especially on harmful bio-fuel policies and export bans.