CONFERENCE ON RIGHT TO FOOD AND COSTS OF HUNGER (20-21 JUNE 2003)

18 June 2003



FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf Will Open Meeting


ROME, 18 June (FAO) -- In technical cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an International Conference on the Right to Food and the Costs of Hunger will take place on 20 and 21 June 2003 at Sala di Porta Castello, via di Porta Castello 44, in Rome.

The Conference is organized by the International Jacques Maritain Institute ( http://www.maritain.org) and the National Committee for the relations between the Italian Government and FAO (Italian Ministry of Agriculture), in scientific cooperation with LUMSA University

The World Food Summit: five years later, held in Rome in June 2002, established an Intergovernmental Working Group to draw up "a set of voluntary guidelines to support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security".

During the Conference, a panel of experts and politicians will formulate a set of policy recommendations which will be submitted to the Intergovernmental Working Group as a contribution to the drafting of voluntary guidelines towards the progressive implementation of the right to food.

Keynote speakers will provide an overview of the principal economic issues, such as food self-sufficiency, the relationship between poverty and hunger, the need to focus on income and entitlements, the importance of pro-growth policies, the link between democracy and anti-poverty and anti-hunger programmes, the role of trade liberalization, the importance of sound institutions and good governance.

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf will deliver a speech at the opening of the Conference.

Participants include high-ranking Italian officials, Nobel Prize Robert William Fogel and M.S. Swaminathan, Chairman of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation.

Contacts: Media Relations Branch, e-mail: media-office@fao.org, tel: (+39) 06 570 52519; or Letizia Postiglione, e-mail: l.postiglione@maritain.org, tel: (+39) 06 4874 336.




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