Conference eyes some answers to hunger crisis
Charity chiefs and foreign diplomats will join with Overseas Development Minister Michael Kitt to commemorate World Food Day.
More than 840 million people worldwide suffer from hunger daily, according to charity Gorta which is hosting a conference in Dublin’s Docklands.
Ireland is fully supporting a UN programme to lessen by half, by 2015, the number of hungry people in the world.
Details about Ireland’s progress under its Hunger Task Force will be outlined by Mr Kitt in an address to UN officials and NGOs.
The task force is scheduled to report in the coming months on improved ways of tackling root causes of food shortages, particularly in Africa.
The theme, the Right to Food, has been chosen for World Food Day, in commemoration of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, founded on October 16, 1945.
Speaking ahead of the event, Gorta chief executive Brian Hanratty said a number of Irish companies have struck up initiatives in recent years to help prevent starvation in Africa.
AIG, an investment group based in the financial services centre has set €100,000 as its goal to help build a bridge over a river in south west Kenya. Intel have also raised funds.
Staff in Irish companies are also signing up for monthly withdrawals from their bank accounts, explained Mr Hanratty.
“We need to pinch ourselves and not forget we are one of the richest countries in the world,” he added.
Irish NGOs have already expressed concern to the newly appointed body about access to food, poverty in rural areas as well as support for locally produced foods in developing countries.
Other speakers at the conference will include representatives from the UN, the ambassador of Lesotho, missionary leaders, director Glenn Denning with the Millennium Development Goal centre in Kenya.
Issues raised at the conference will include the long term effects of starvation on villages.
More details can be found at www.gorta.ie
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