ITALY: Religious leaders call on U.N. to act now on food crisis
Episcopal News Service. June 9, 2008 [060908-04]
Vanya Walker-Leigh TSSF, Economist and Journalist based in Malta
More than 300 religious leaders and organizations have signed a statement challenging last week's United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's High Level Summit on Food Security to launch "an effective, long-term multi-stakeholder process of discussion and action" to address the global food crisis.
The full text of the statement is available here.
With food riots exploding in 30 countries, escalating prices, extremely low grain stocks and climate change threatening to devastate the food-production capacity of many poor countries -- unless action starts now to build in 'climate resilience' to agricultural systems -- the statement urges the need for the international community to act with urgency.
The summit, "Food Security: The Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy," drew more than 5,000 participants to Rome June 3-5, including 44 heads of state and government, 181 national delegations, 1,300 media personnel, and barely 60 NGOs, including less than 10 religious representatives from Franciscans International, The Passionist Fathers and two Roman Catholic development NGOs.
A small group of Catholic NGOs based in Rome, with help from two Franciscans (a Roman Catholic friar and an Anglican tertiary), wrote and circulated the five-language statement to the conference in mid-May throughout the Christian family, and also to Muslim development NGOs. In two weeks it attracted nearly 300 signatures, mostly from Roman Catholic orders and NGOs, but also received support from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Episcopal Relief and Development, the Anglican churches of Wales and Scotland, and Swiss Inter-church aid.
Discussions are now underway to turn the signature list (which remains open) into a network and lobbying group to spur joint action, both national and international.
While the 1,700-word document adopted by the U.N. summit June 5 disappointed many participants, openings for greater church action emerged from the mega-gathering.
The Pontifical Message from His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, read by the Holy See's Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, emphasized the ethical underpinnings of the food security crisis and promised dynamic involvement of the Roman Catholic Church in conference follow-up.
The 349-member World Council of Churches was not represented in Rome, but its secretary general, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, issued a similar statement about the ethical aspects, calling for much more inter-church action while announcing that the WCC's Executive Committee would adopt a new food security policy statement and action program in the fall. In recent months, a clutch of statements from several religious denominations signal increasing concern and commitment.
The summit's declaration calls for both short-term relief action to rescue the starving, and coherent long-term action to boost agricultural production -- rooted in empowering the world's two billion developing country rural dwellers.
Since 1980, foreign aid to agriculture has slumped from 17% to 3%, with a similar slide in national budgets of developing nations themselves. Agribusiness style mono-cropping for export and cheap heavily subsidized food imports from developed countries have added to the devastation of small-scale farmers.
While the U.N. is calling for $30 billion a year of national budget spending and foreign aid to boost smallholder farming in poor countries, the $13 billion offered at the conference by various donors was an encouraging start.
Most importantly for churches and faith groups, the summit's declaration calls for support of the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's Comprehensive Framework for Action (CFA) drawn up by a U.N. family task force set up in April. Criticized for lacking civil society participation, the next stage of the CFA calls for six point national level actions, such as stocktaking and strategic policy development to involve all stakeholders, including government, international donors, private business and civil society.
Further information, including conference speeches, documents and webcasts, is available here.