WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO) - ORGANISATION MONDIALE DE LA SANTE - ORGANIZACION MUNDIAL DE LA SALUD

Mr. Hiroshi Nakajima, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO)

It is a pleasure and an honour to address the World Food Summit on behalf of the World Health Organization and to pledge our wholehearted support for its objectives.

Good nutrition is essential for both physical and mental health. The improvement of nutrition has therefore featured prominently in WHO's work since the Organisation was founded in 1946. It is inseparable from our health work both in its own right and as a component of other activities such as immunization, maternal and child health care and health promotion.

Nutritional security is one of the major items on the agenda here. The International Conference on Nutrition, jointly held here in 1992, by WHO and FAO, marked an important shift in the world's perception of food problems towards consideration of quality rather than mere quantity. That Conference helped to make the world aware that food needs cannot be defined in terms only of food security. Both physical health and mental health depend to a very signficant extent on the precise nature, quality and combination of the nutrients consumed. In collaboration with other United Nations agencies and programmes, we are combatting in particular the following major crippling forms of malnutrition: protein energy malnutrition, iodine deficiencies, vitamin-A deficiency, and iron deficiency anaemia.

I have made nutrition a priority for WHO, both as a programme division and as a crucial aspect of our disease prevention and control activities. Much of the sickness and death attributed to the major communicable diseases is in fact caused by malnutrition which makes the body less able to withstand infections when they strike. At the same time, in developing countries today, malnutrition is the cause of 174 million children under five years of age being underweight and 230 million being stunted in their growth. Such figures represent deprivation, suffering and wasted human potential on a scale that is unacceptable from every point of view. Whether we think in terms of humanitarian concern, common justice, or development needs, they demand a response both from national governments and from the international community.

Food safety is one of the major concerns of both FAO and WHO. The dependence of health on safe food has given rise to close cooperation between WHO and other agencies, especially FAO, through our co-sponsorship for many years of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Our guidelines for the prevention of food contamination, known as the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point System, were adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission in 1993. More and more countries are using this system and referring to it in their regulations and laws governing food handling.

With the mass production and global distribution of food products has come the increasing incidence and risk of diseases caused by biologically or chemically contaminated food. Food safety has become a highly visible aspect of WHO's work as Member States are faced with an urgent need for scientific analysis, risk assessment and monitoring. We respond to these demands by convening scientific meetings as necessary, issuing technical documentation, working in partnership with related organizations, and using our 27 collaborating centres on nutrition to analyse specific problem areas.

The globalization of industry, trade, travel and communication has brought with it unprecedented possibilities for mutual cooperation in combatting hunger and malnutrition. At the same time, however, the acceptability of certain foods, and the cultural aspects of their production, distribution and preparation, are now recognized as crucial in the promotion of good nutrition. Without due attention to them, little progress can be made towards household food security, appropriate diets, the control of micronutrient deficiencies, the promotion of breast-feeding and other strategies listed in the Plan of Action adopted in 1992. In this regard, and in the effort to make practices more equitable in communities and families, especially for girls, we have much to learn from the impressive network of NGOs and community groups, such as farmers' and women's associations, involved in tackling this problem.

In conclusion, we cannot solve nutritional problems by thinking only in terms of food and health. Overcoming problems in this area requires access to land and appropriate technologies; it requires conditions of peace and socio-economic stability; it requires a just and reliably regulated world trade system. These are matters that concern the international community as a whole. Each of us in our own area of specialization depends on the effectiveness of the others. If this Summit succeeds in opening up the ways in which we can count on one another's concrete support and partnership, it will be a source of well-founded hope to the world's future.