Seeking to continue the momentum from last week's food security summit in New York, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) just announced a new initiative with Millennium Villages. The alliance is aimed at cutting hunger and malnutrition in Africa.
Here is the full text of the statement from WFP:
Highlighting the growing challenge of hunger and malnutrition and the urgent need for solutions and partnerships, the World Food Programme and the Millennium Villages project today announced plans to expand joint action to cut hunger and malnutrition across Africa.
At a time when one in six people worldwide do not have enough to eat, the partners will work to establish “undernourishment-free zones” in Millennium Villages and ensure the poorest have access to sufficient, nutritious food. Currently, there are 80 Millennium Villages in 10 countries.
"Hunger stands at the core of extreme poverty," said Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General. "Without enough food, people suffer, die of disease, and too often descend into violence and conflict. Without enough food, a farmer cannot feed her family, much less earn an income and look after the children in the household.”
“We're proud to partner with the World Food Programme, the pre-eminent global institution on the ground fighting hunger in the world's poorest and disaster-hit countries,” Sachs said. “The Millennium Villages will carry out the exciting interventions pioneered by WFP, and demonstrate that hunger and under-nutrition can be cut decisively through proven measures in agriculture, school meals, nutritional supplementation, food-for-work programs to build infrastructure, and other powerful WFP tools."
Global recession and continued high commodity prices across much of the developing world increasingly have put food beyond the reach of the poorest and most vulnerable. Climate change and weather-related disasters threaten to further spread misery and deprivation.
“The G8’s historic $20 billion commitment to hunger and food security must be followed by concrete actions necessary to ensure the world produces enough food and all people have enough to eat,” said WFP’s Executive Director Josette Sheeran.
“The hungry and malnourished cannot wait,” Sheeran added. “We must act now to build the partnerships and take the comprehensive steps necessary to win this fight. No one organization can do it alone, and we will leverage a growing collaboration with the Millennium Villages project to deliver powerful solutions to malnutrition.”
Hunger is the underlying cause of death for 3.5 million children worldwide every year. Africa remains the only region where undernourishment and child mortality rates have increased. Working closely with governments, civil society, the UN and the private sector, the partnership will apply coordinated, science-based, emerging best-practices in nutrition and food security.
Partnership objectives include ensuring universal school meal coverage for children in primary schools within Millennium Village clusters, finding the best way of meeting the nutritional needs of children affected by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other pandemics, and working with smallholder farmers to
boost productivity and incomes.
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The Millennium Villages Project is a partnership initiative between the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Millennium Promise Alliance, and UNDP, working with impoverished rural communities to apply evidence based policies and interventions recommended by the UN Millennium Project
combined with local on-the-ground knowledge and experience. The core idea of the MVP is to demonstrate that investing in practical interventions – such as improved seed and fertilizers for raising crop productivity, nutrition and school meals, long lasting insecticide-treated bed nets to reduce malaria, clinics to dispense effective treatment and care, and safe drinking water – would lead to a transformation in village life. The 80 Millennium Villages, covering 500,000 people in “hunger hotspots”, in ten sub-Saharan African countries with varying agro-ecological settings, demonstrate that the Millennium Development Goals are achievable with theright approach and level of investment.
For more information, please contact:
NEW YORK: Erin Trowbridge, trowbridge@ei.columbia.edu Tel: +1-917-291-7974
NAIROBI: Joelle Bassoul, j.bassoul@cgiar.org Tel: +254-714-60-6058
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WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency and the UN’s frontline agency for hunger solutions. In 2009, WFP aims to reach 108 million people in 74 countries with innovative hunger solutions – from school meals, vouchers and food for work to emergency assistance and programs helping smallholder farmers increase production and contribute further
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