The Finnish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Sirkka-Liisa Anttila participates in a high-level conference on world food security in Rome on 16-18 November 2009. The aim of the summit is to find sustainable ways of eradicating hunger and reducing malnutrition.
Poverty has again started to increase due to the high food prices and global economic recession. The number of people suffering from hunger is also rising. Today the number of hungry people in the world is estimated at more than one billion. This has brought agriculture and food security very high on the international development policy agenda.
"Food security is a high priority in the development policy of both Finland and the EU. Finnish objective is, in particular, to apply development policy and development cooperation in a way that improves the preconditions for agriculture in the developing countries and their own food production capacitay. We are looking forward to a successful meeting," Minister Anttila says.
Finland hopes that the summit will clarify the international food security architecture and, through this, improve the coordination among the different actors. In particular, Finland supports the efforts to reform the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO, hoping that this will lead to better coordination. Finland fully supports the valuable work done by the UN to promote food security and sustainable development and to reduce poverty, mainly through the three Rome-based organisations FAO, WFP and IFAD.
The UN Secretary-General and delegations of the member states are all present at the summit. Heads of states are expected from the developing countries, while the majority of the EU Member States are represented at the ministerial level. Before the summit special events were organised for the private sector, representatives of national parliaments and NGOs.
Minister Anttila heads the Finnish delegation at the meeting. She will also speak at the General Assembly and participate in the roundtable on climate change challenges to agriculture and food security. In addition, the Minister will have bilateral meetings with colleagues from different countries. Ritva Koukku-Ronde, Permanent Under-Secretary of State responsible for development policy and development cooperation at the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, also attends the summit.
More information from the ministry:
civil cervant Mrs. Anna Santala p. +358 9 160 53129, +35840 827 4007