CSD 17 Day 3 - 6 May 2009

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Outreach Issues A daily publication of Sustainable Development Issues Network (SDIN) and Stakeholder Forum (SF)

WEDNESDAY

A Recipe for Hunger: How the World is Failing on Food

May 6, 2009 The International Trade Union Confederation released a report which predicts a worsening of the already serious global food crisis unless urgent action is taken by governments and international agencies. The number of people without enough to eat increased by 150 million in 2008, and the global economic crisis is likely to result in a further 200 million falling into absolute poverty.

Inside this Issue: A Recipe for Hunger: How the World is Failing on Food

1

Meetings and Meat Things

3

Derecho Humano al Agua

4

The Human Right to Water

5

Dr. Tariq Banuri Profile

6

Live from the CSD

7

Food for Thought...

8 By: Annabella Rosemberg, Trade Union Advisory Committee

Outreach Issues is the civil society newsletter produced by the SDIN Group and Stakeholder Forum. Outreach Issues aims to report with attitude, from the global scene of sustainability. The organizations publishing Outreach Issues are not responsible for the content of signed articles. Opinions expressed in articles are those of the authors.

Food prices have diminished somewhat but the food crisis has not gone away: as long as the factors that caused it have not been tackled, it will return in the near future, almost one billion people live in constant hunger close to starvation. With the attention of the International community turned to the global financial and economic crisis, the real danger is that the world hunger situation may deteriorate even further. If anything useful is to come out of the food crisis, we will have to learn from past mistakes. Now is the time to act, and if the international community is determined to halve the number of hungry people by 2015 in MDGs, serious political will and commitment is needed. The trade union movement is demanding more

investment in the agricultural sector and universal social protection coupled with respect for core labour standards to bring about the decent and sustainable production of food and other agricultural products. The right to food must be considered a basic human right for everyone. The phenomenon The world witnessed hunger and famine in almost every decade of the 20th century. Currently, more than 963 million people are malnourished and living in dire poverty across the globe. The majority are rural and urban working poor. Yet the situation today is different in terms of its impact, ranging from poor people in developing countries to workers in industrialised countries all feeling the effect of soaring food prices on their household budgets. 1


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