FAO chief appeals to Obama to help end world hunger
The director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), Jacques Diouf, has called on US President-elect Barack Obama to make the eradication of world hunger a priority.
In a message congratulating Obama, Diouf said the US should, "in the first semester of 2009, take a leadership role in convening a World Summit on Food Security in order to reach a wide and common consensus on the definitive elimination of hunger from the world".
He said the summit must find $30bn per year to build and develop rural infrastructures and increase agricultural productivity in the developing world, with a view to doubling production.
Diouf added that increased awareness of the plight of 923 million hungry people as a result of the ongoing global food and financial crises created a "special window of opportunity for such an initiative".
