RP joins global campaign versus hunger, poverty

The Philippines is joining other nations in the Asia-Pacific in a renewed global campaign against hunger and poverty to ensure world peace and to deprive extremist and terrorist movements from advancing their cause in the region and elsewhere in the world.

Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor made this statement in a speech he delivered at the 26th Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Regional Conference for the Asia-Pacific in Kathmandu, Nepal recently.

With FAO’s help, Montemayor said the country is fast-tracking the establishment of FIVIMS, or food insecurity and vulnerability information mapping system, to identify and keep track of areas and population groups that are food-insecure and vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition.

Once the system is put in place, he said it will lead to more efficient policies and intervention programs under the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition, the country’s blueprint for nutrition improvement.

Montemayor said the government is also strengthening action plans to implement its commitments to the World Food Summit five years ago.

The commitments include direct and targeted programs that address malnutrition, including milk feeding for poor school children aged seven and below.

Montemayor said the Philippines is also enjoining FAO member-countries to work together for a genuinely free and fair global trading system in agriculture.

He said globalization appeared to have favored the more developed countries and hindered the attainment of food security and poverty alleviation in developing countries.

In his speech, he noted that the Asia-Pacific continues to face a daunting challenge of overcoming hunger and poverty, saying the region still accounts for two-thirds of the world’s 1.2 billion poor, and 64 percent of the 800 million hungry people in the developing world.

He said that unless governments in the region take a stronger stand to combat the two problems, political stability in the area may be undermined.

"Our failure to reverse the tide of mass poverty and deprivation will only serve to heighten the appeal of extremist, including terrorist, movements in the region and elsewhere in the world," Montemayor warned.

"We therefore welcome the call for a renewed global campaign against hunger and poverty, even as we reaffirm, in the strongest terms, our common stand against violence and terrorism," he added.