HLTF Responding to the Global Food Security Crisis at the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis 1-3 June 2009, New York

United Nations: High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis (HLTF)

Yale University

Yale University EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale YPFS Documents Browse by Media Type 6-1-2009 Responding to the Global Food Security Crisis (HLTF) United Nations: High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis (HLTF) Follow this and additional works at: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ypfs-documents Recommended Citation United Nations: High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis (HLTF), "Responding to the Global Food Security Crisis (HLTF)" (2009). YPFS Documents. 1343. https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ypfs-documents/1343 This Document is brought to you for free and open access by the Browse by Media Type at EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. It has been accepted for inclusion in YPFS Documents by an authorized administrator of EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. For more information, please contact elischolar@yale.edu. UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis1-3 June 2009, New YorkResponding to the Global Food Security CrisisPresented by the UN High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis (HLTF)In the face of the world financial and economic crisis, the vulnerability of millions of households,governments and the international system to food and nutrition insecurity is heightened. Developingcountries are calling on the UN system to assist governments and their stakeholders to respond withrobust national food and nutrition security strategies.The financial and economic crisis coming on the heel of last year’s high food prices is leading to analarming increase in food insecurity around the world. Today, almost one billion human beings, or 15percent of the world’s population, suffer from chronic hunger and malnutrition. In the long term theworld is facing an important challenge of how to feed more than 9 billion people in 2050 in the face ofincreasing demand for food and climate change which, among other impacts, will put furtherconstraints on already scarce water resources.While international food prices have declined from their peaks of 2008, they remain volatile and mayspike again as droughts and floods and climate related events affect harvests. More notably, domesticprices in most developing countries have not fallen as much as international prices. The financial andeconomic crisis is making the situation worse, affecting poor and food insecure people in developingcountries in at least four ways: Export volumes are shrinking. Financial flows to developing countries – international remittances, foreign direct investment(FDI) and official development assistance (ODA) – are falling. Output and employment growth are declining. The medium or long-term negative impact on infrastructure and on physical and human capital isseverely compromising development and poverty reduction efforts and the achievements of theMillennium Development Goals.Reflecting the on-going work of the Secretary General’s High Level Task Force on the Global FoodSecurity Crisis (HLTF)1 and its members and the provisions of the Comprehensive Framework forAction it produced, a UN System Joint Crisis Initiative on the global financial situation and foodsecurity sets out seven areas for action in support of national responses to needs and expresseddemands from vulnerable countries. Concrete short- and medium-term measures have been identifiedin each of these areas. This Initiative is part of a broader UN system-wide response requested by theChief Executive Board (CEB) and deals with the multiple dimensions of the impact of the crisis onhuman development. The seven areas are:1. Food assistance, including safety nets;2. Nutrition programmes for children, mothers and vulnerable populations;1The Secretary General’s High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis comprises 21 different bodieswithin the UN and Bretton Woods systems. In July 2008, it published a Comprehensive Framework for Action which it haddeveloped in consultation with a broad set of development partners, both governmental and non-governmental. ThisFramework, drawing on assessment of needs, articulates a series of outcomes required to address the global food crisis andintroduce greater food and nutrition security globally, with the ‘right to food’ as an underlying principle.3. Social protection systems for vulnerable populations;4. Smallholder farmer food productivity, with an emphasis on women farmers;5. Agricultural sector development; infrastructure and trade and tax policies;6. Information and management systems;7. Advocacy for sufficient, sustained and predictable funding and sustained investments.1. Food assistance, including safety netsCountries are asking for assistance to strengthen effective, timely and needs-based delivery ofemergency food assistance, nutrition interventions and safety net support to vulnerable households.This assistance is essential until such time as all countries have the means to ensure the people’s rightto food. This includes scaling up nutritional support and targeted safety net programmes, such asschool feeding and food for work schemes to address hunger and malnutrition in vulnerablepopulations. Support will need to further increase as more people fall below the poverty line, face foodinsecurity, and are unable to access adequate, affordable, nutritious food as a result of the globalfinancial crisis. Increased flexible, free and predictable flows of assistance are required to meetescalating needs and allow timely forward purchasing and pre-positioning of food for crisis response.Food purchased for humanitarian purposes must be exempted from any export bans, extraordinarytaxes or imposed restrictions; and unhindered and safe movement of humanitarian food must beensured within and across borders.2. Nutrition programmes for children, mothers and vulnerable populationsCountries and national stakeholders are asking for support to: 1) raise the profile of nutrition ofchildren, mothers and vulnerable populations in national strategies; 2) enhance public knowledge onnutrition; 3) incorporate key nutrition interventions into public health services and outreach activitiesincluding scaling up nutritional support through safety nets to meet specific food and nutrition needsof vulnerable groups and prevent longer-term health consequences; 4) enhance household foodfortification; and 5) expand the availability of therapeutic foods through global and local production.3. Social protection systems for vulnerable populationsVulnerable countries need assistance to: 1) develop national frameworks for social protection; 2) focuson protecting the situation of vulnerable groups through realization of relevant human rights,especially pregnant women and children, with additional focus on adolescent girls to preventunwanted early marriage and pregnancy, and mitigate against sexual exploitation; 3) strengthentargeting and delivery mechanisms; and 4) develop linkages with basic health and education services,and with agricultural development initiatives, including access to organized women’s groups.4. Smallholder farmer food productivity, with an emphasis on women farmersCountries seek support to: 1) improve the organization and voice of smallholder farmers, includingwomen farmers and those belonging to marginalized groups; 2) increase access to land, credit andagricultural extension services, especially for women; 3) widen the availability of accurate andrelevant knowledge for the management of crops, livestock, fish and forests; 4) develop risk-hedgingmechanisms such as weather insurance and price protection mechanisms; 5) increase smallholders’access to irrigation, inputs for production and post-harvest storage and marketing; 6) expand the use ofirrigation and water harvesting to improve productivity and reduce vulnerability to drought andclimate change 7) enhance rural infrastructure to improve market access; 8) increase agriculturaldiversification in order to improve household nutrition; and 9) source local foods for school meals andfor safety nets.5. Agricultural sector development; infrastructure and trade and tax policiesCountries and development partners aim to: 1) achieve increased national and international attention toagriculture; 2) increase investment in agricultural and rural infrastructure; 3) provide systematicattention to sustainable local development; 4) provide leadership on renewed strategies for improvingagricultural trade, eliminating trade and tax policies that act against the development of local andinternational food markets; and 5) ensure the free flow of food assistance for humanitarian purposes.6. Information and management systemsVulnerable countries and their development partners seek to: 1) establish a set of key indicators at themacro, meso and micro levels that will determine warning signs; 2) identify the best collection pointsand methods, including the use of cell phone technology for rapid data transmission; 3) merge relevantexisting information systems; and 4) build national capacities to analyze and respond to warning signs.7. Advocacy for sufficient, sustained and predictable funding and sustained investmentsFinally, at all levels, there is an urgent need to: 1) focus on priority issues needing action in the nextsix months (such as urgent responses to needs for food assistance and social safety nets, plusagricultural inputs and market access for smallholder farmers in coming planting seasons); 2) intensifyadvocacy for an increase in investments for longer term resilience; 3) ensure high level politicalattention to food security and responses to date; and 4) ensure better coordination of financial supportfor food security that galvanizes additional private and public investments.It is important to act now in a well coordinated, effective and transparent manner to address hungerand malnutrition in the world and to mitigate the effects of the financial and economic crisis on thepoorest and most vulnerable countries and populations. Addressing urgent hunger and malnutrition is ahumanitarian imperative, a matter of economic and social stability, human security and human rights -including the right to food.

Responding to the Global Food Security Crisis (HLTF)

https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2391&context=ypfs-documents

Responding to the Global Food Security Crisis (HLTF)

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Yale University