Food Experts Vow to End Worldwide Hunger

An extraordinary “nutrition summit” of agricultural and health experts from 160 countries ended here Friday with a solemn promise to a needy world: no more hunger.

“Hunger and malnutrition are unacceptable in a world that has both the knowledge and the resources to end this human catastrophe,” said a World Declaration by the first International Conference of Nutrition.

Representatives of more than 150 international organizations and private aid groups joined government delegations in issuing the declaration to climax a six-day conference sponsored by the World Health Organization and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization at FAO headquarters here.

The first major international conference to focus on nutrition worldwide, the Rome meeting was planned years before the ongoing American intervention to combat famine in Somalia; it shares, however, the same goal--on a global base.

The conference noted that one person in five in developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America--about 780 million people--is famished: They lack enough food to meet basic daily needs. About 2 billion of the world’s 5.5 billion people are malnourished, FAO estimates.

“We must fulfill our responsibility, indeed our moral obligation, to lift the burden of malnutrition, in all its hideous forms, from the newborn infant, our young children, our mothers, our elderly--from all humanity,” said WHO Director General Hiroshi Nakajima.

The conference’s closing declaration did not dwell on Somalia, the old Yugoslavia or other countries where civil strife and hunger go hand in hand. But delegates from countries rich and poor vowed “to protect and respect the needs for nutritionally adequate food and medical supplies for civilian populations in zones of conflict; . . . food must not be used as a tool for political pressure.”

Over the past 20 years, the world has made “remarkable progress” in reducing malnutrition, noted FAO Director General Edouard Saouma. The number of chronically undernourished has fallen from 940 million in the early 1970s to the current 786 million despite an additional 1.8 billion mouths to feed.

Still, there is much to do, Saouma said: “Hunger and malnutrition, even if they afflict a single person, are unacceptable in a world which has the means to eliminate both. But the world lacks the political will, commitment and a global vision for the future.”