COOK ISLANDS - ILES COOK - ISLAS COOK

The Honourable Inatio Akaruru, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration of the Cook Islands

I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude and that of my delegation to the Government of Italy for the hospitality that has been extended to us since our arrival in Rome.

May I also express the deep gratitude of my Government to the Director-General, Dr. Jacques Diouf, for his initiative in proposing this very important Summit and for the excellent arrangements which he and his staff have made to enable us to be present here today.

As we will be painfully aware, food security is not a new concern of the international community. Some 22 years ago, in fact, many of us had gathered at the World Food Conference to discuss many of the same types of issues facing us now. In the intervening years, it must be acknowledged, considerable progress has been made in global terms to increase food production and to promote food security. Indeed, certain regions have made noteworthy advances in the past two decades.

Nevertheless, that progress has been highly uneven. The food security position of numerous developing countries has even deteriorated or is, at best still rather precarious. Approaching the dawn of a new millennium, it is simply not acceptable that some 800 million human beings are still chronically undernourished and that by the year 2010 some 730 million will still be so unless concerted action is taken. As Ms. Lisa Prendergast, a young Cook Islands student said in her essay, "Food for All", written on the occasion of this Summit, "It is a basic human right that everyone should have enough to eat and the right food in order to survive". We are pleased that this right has been reaffirmed in the introduction of the Rome Declaration.

The World Commission on Environment and Development concluded in 1987 that although the agricultural systems had contributed greatly to the alleviation of hunger and the raising of living standards, they were nevertheless built for the purposes of a smaller, more fragmented world. New realities required agricultural systems that focused as much attention on people as they did on technology, as much on resources as on production, as much on the long term as on the short term. Only such systems, said the Commission, could meet the challenge of the future.

In short, the Commission recognized the complexity of the situation and the necessity of adopting a comprehensive approach to food security and the problems of undernutrition in an ever more interdependent world. Just such an approach, the Cook Islands feel, is embodied in the Rome Declaration and Plan of Action.

Both recognize that the world is capable of producing sufficient food to meet the needs of mankind. They also reflect a growing understanding that the fundamental causes of food insecurity and chronic undernourishment lie in a wide range of factors, among the most critical being widespread poverty.

It is clear that in order to achieve the target enshrined in the Rome Declaration of halving the number of undernourished people by no later than the year 2015, it would be necessary to increase food production, particularly in low-income food-deficit countries, to meet the needs of the undernourished and food insecure.

That being said, implementing various aspects of the Declaration and Plan of Action may well run contrary to certain, often powerful, vested interests, or will require significant investment of resources from the donor community that might be only forthcoming with the greatest reluctance. In that regard, I would like to touch briefly on a few issues raised in the Summit documents, of critical importance to the Cook Islands.

National governments obviously have a primary role to play in addressing many constraints by creating the requisite enabling environment, securing the active participation of groups and local communities in the developmental process and promoting innovative food production techniques such as hydroponics and aquaculture. In so doing, many developing countries will require external technical and financial assistance. As the Plan of Action points out, the international community has a key role to play in this regard.

That being said, in this increasingly independent world, certain constraints to agricultural development and food security may be incapable of solution at the national level. As the Plan of Action recognizes, for example, Small Island Developing States such as the Cook Islands face the grim threat of losing scarce land resources due to climate changes and sea level rises. Already, increasingly fierce tropical storms have inflicted serious loss of valuable foreshore areas through erosion. Risks to the Cook Islands' long-term food security, and even the disappearance of its low-lying islands from climate change and sea level rise, my Government takes very seriously indeed. It joins with other Small Island States in calling on all members of the international community to take climate change out of the "too hard" or "an exception must be made in our case" basket and adopt immediately an effective precautionary approach to the issue.

The Plan of Action recognizes that the Cook Islands and other Small Island Developing States have particular needs for their overall sustainable development. Improvements in transportation, trade, communication, human resources, and stabilization of income and higher export earnings are initiatives cited which will increase their food security. As another young Cook Islands student, Ms.Theresa Heather keenly observed in her essay written for the Summit, for example, transporting food between our 15 widely-scattered islands as well as to distant foreign markets has long put obstacles in the way of the nation's agricultural development and food security. While some constraints can be, and are being addressed at the national level, others still require concerted international action, including the elimination of non-tariff barriers and other restraints on trade.

Marine fishery resources are vital to the Cook Islands' overall food security. Exploitation of these common property resources must be based on sound conservation and management principles and within the framework of fisheries agreements such as those referred to in the Plan of Action. At the same time, full recognition must be given to the special circumstances and fishery requirements of developing countries, particulary the least developed among them and the Small Island Developing States.

Given the special constraints to food security faced by the Cook Islands and other small island States, my Government very much welcomes the decision by the Director-General to establish a South Pacific Sub-Regional Office for FAO. That office will greatly assist the Organization in carrying out its vital mission in the region.

Finally, that leaders from the four corners of the globe have gathered here to give their solemn commitment to the undertakings enshrined in the Summit document must give the world cause for renewed hope. The Cook Islands joins in that commitment and looks forward to working closely with other States in implementing the Plan of Action in the months and years ahead.