Three United Nations agencies issued a joint statement Tuesday calling on rich and poor countries alike to do more for the more than 1.2 billion people worldwide living in extreme poverty, over 850 million of whom are chronically hungry. Signatories to the statement were Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), James Morris, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), and Lennart Bage, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). It was issued at the Rome launch of the Millennium Project Report, which covers a number of goals including a pledge to reduce by half the number of people living in extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. More than five million children worldwide die of malnutrition every year, the statement said. "In a world that has abundant resources and can produce sufficient food to feed everybody, the extent of hunger is not only a moral outrage, but a manifestation of the world community's collective failure to put in place policies and programmes with long-term vision," the statement said. "We believe that there is no choice but to meet the goals. The cost of not taking urgent action - in terms of lives ruined, economic growth foregone, and natural resources irretrievably depleted - is simply too high." The three agencies advocated a twin-track strategy to combat hunger and poverty: firstly, investments aimed at creating a vibrant economy where people can provide for themselves; and secondly, direct, sustained, and well-targeted assistance.
