UNITED KINGDOM - ROYAUME-UNI - REINO UNIDO

The Right Honourable Baroness Chalker of Wallasey, Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Minister for Overseas Development of the United Kingdom

I am glad to address you today on behalf of the Government of the United Kingdom.

Like others amongst you, my thoughts are deeply focused on the tragic situation in Zaire. I arrived last night from Paris where, in the margins of the Bosnia Conference, we discussed how best to help with the many other countries involved in launching this major mercy mission for refugees in the Great Lakes in Zaire. Our first priority must be to bring relief to those who so desperately need it. Surely the greatest hunger of these days. Forty British soldiers left for Zaire this morning to plan our participation in the multinational force. We hope to have the United Nations Chapter VII Resolution from New York later today. Then the main force can deploy to provide much-needed logistic and other support to the humanitarian agencies working to alleviate the plight of one-and-a-half million refugees. We shall announce further humanitarian assistance once the UN DHA appeal is received.

If there is one lesson that we must all learn from past experience, it is that our response must not be limited to short-term relief. That is as true of world hunger as it is of the crisis of the Great Lakes region and other regions of instability. Those crises will only be solved by long-term political solutions. Difficult though the issues are, in the Great Lakes we must not and we will not ignore the need to separate refugees from militias and to create conditions for voluntary repatriation of refugees.

But just as the situation in Zaire needs a long-term approach, so does our global problem of food insecurity. We all know the simple, widely-accepted definition of food security: "Access at all times for all individuals, to a sufficient quantity and quality of food for an active and healthy life".

This is not just about statistics and predictions. We can all roll off the numbers. Food security is essentially about alleviating poverty. It is about finding sustainable solutions to individuals' access to the food they need to survive and to live a decent life in dignity. It is about finding solutions to all the appalling problems like those which beset Zaire and the Great Lakes Region.

The basic challenge is to develop international consensus and understanding on what needs to be done to improve food security over the next decades and who is responsible for each aspect of it. Above all, it is getting on with the job of alleviating poverty.

All this requires turning the Summit text into action. The seven key action points should be these:

One: To create the right enabling political and economic environment for food security. The majority of poverty and hunger is caused either by war or by failure of government to provide the right basis for peace and sustainable development or both. The most appalling war legacy is the millions of anti-personnel land mines scattered randomly which maim and kill those who return to the land. It is right that this issue is recognized in the text of the Summit.

Two: To promote food security as an integral part of our efforts towards poverty eradication and sustainable development. If people cannot afford to buy food, farmers have no incentive to grow it. All the complex problems of poverty need to be addressed, including the need for proper health care and for people to be enabled to choose the size of their families.

Three: To maintain the natural resource base for increased food production. The world's population will double by the year 2020. Our food production systems need re-gearing if they are to feed everyone into that century and beyond.

Four: To have a more efficient world trading system which allows individuals and countries to make the best of their resources. That is why the United Kingdom has strongly welcomed the Ruggiero Initiative on tariff-free access for the least developed countries.

Five: Whenever possible to prevent disaster, but also to enhance the effectiveness and speed of our response to emergencies and disasters wherever and whenever they strike.

Six: To create conditions which encourage productive investment in all aspects of food security.

Seven: To strengthen the existing organizations and mechanisms by improving their focus, coordination and performance.

Overlap, duplication and waste must be eliminated. The challenge of food security requires effective partnerships between governments, international organizations, the NGOs and local communities.

What matters is what both donors and developing countries do next. The Plan of Action rightly recognizes the respective roles and responsibilities of all members of the international community.

In my Government's view, the task ahead means that: FAO and other relevant United Nations agencies must operate strictly in accordance with their mandates, areas of comparative advantage, capacities and resources. The United Nations system has very few gaps in its coverage, but it has far too much overlap and many areas where performance is not what it should be.

It means that FAO has a natural role in the Summit follow-up, as the United Nations' centre of expertise on food production, by improving access to information and by acting as a catalyst for change. Its job, through the Committee on World Food Security, must be to keep food security firmly on the international agenda in all fora. It also means that a number of other United Nations agencies must play their part too, especially UNDP, WFP and WHO. The Bretton Woods Institutions and the World Trade Organization also have a major contribution to make. The task ahead means that the Summit's follow-up must be properly integrated into the follow-up to all other recent United Nations Conferences and Summits.

I for one - and I know there are many others here - think that implementing action plans for the benefit of our fellow human beings must be at the top of our agendas, not more Summits. We have had enough of them. Implementing action plans must be our steadfast goal. We do not underestimate the size of the task of implementation. The inefficiencies caused by that duplication and time-wasting caused by turf battles are all too real. Coordination must be improved pragmatically and practically. If the Rome Declaration is to be more than just a piece of paper, the global partnership to which I refer must work effectively. The Rome Declaration must work effectively, efficiently and responsibly. In doing so, my Government will give all the assistance we can.

The obscenity of hunger is amongst the biggest challenges facing mankind. In 1974, the last World Food Conference dedicated itself to the elimination of hunger. Then Bangladesh and the Sahel were in the news. Twenty-two years on, we still have to remind ourselves of this commitment through this World Food Summit.

Now today Zaire and the Great Lakes dominate our headlines. We must not fail the world's poor and hungry again. There are too many millions of lives at stake. My Government is determined to see that we translate the words of Rome into effective action which will benefit those who are in such dire need.