OREANDA-NEWS. November 20, 2009. World Summit on Food Security took place at the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome. It was attended by 60 heads of state and government, heads of agriculture and development ministries from more than 180 countries, as well as by the UN Secretary General, and leaders of specialized international organizations.

This forum was a response of the world community to the worsening problems of hunger and malnutrition, when the number of hungry people in the world has exceeded one billion and continues to grow.

Speaking at the summit, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, FAO Director General Jacques Diouf, Pope Benedict XVI, and leaders of countries noted the intolerability of the current situation which requires urgent concerted collective action.

The meeting reaffirmed the benchmarks outlined at the Millennium Summit and food summits in 1996 and 2002, in particular, the goal of halving the number of hungry people in the world by 2015.

The importance was noted of implementing the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative (July 2009) envisaging large-scale assistance to sustainable development of the agricultural sector in the poorest countries.

An undoubted success of the meeting was its adoption of the Summit Declaration, which outlines concrete practical steps to overcome the current crisis and ensure food security in the world. The resolve to realize the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security was reaffirmed. An important element of the Declaration was support of a wide-ranging reform of the FAO Committee on World Food Security.

Minister of Agriculture Elena Skrynnik led the Russian delegation to the summit. In her speech, she expressed support for the collective efforts of the international community to combat hunger and noted the particular contribution of Russia to strengthening global food security through sustainable growth of grain production and expansion of exports of grain, which allowed us last year to become one of the world’s top three exporters.

The Russian minister stressed the close relationship of the Summit and the World Grain Forum organized by Russia in June this year in St. Petersburg, whose decisions have helped unite the efforts of agricultural producers and exporters in order to stabilize prices in the world food market and increase its efficiency and transparency.

The summit has constituted a landmark event in the unification of international efforts to overcome the problem of hunger and malnutrition in the world in the 21st century.