The promises of Europe ” “

The World Food Summit ended with a renewed commitment to halve the number of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition in the world by 2015. Held in the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome from 10 to 13 June, the summit was addressed among others by the president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi , who recalled that the European Union is “by far the major importer of agricultural produce from the developing countries. Each year – he said – we import alone more than the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan put together. Moreover, we have adopted the initiative ‘Everything but Arms’, which opens the market of the Union to all the products exported by the less developed countries, including farm produce, without any restriction and without any customs or excise duties”. Prodi also stressed that by 2006 the EU pledges to “raise public aid to development to an overall level of 0.39% of gross domestic product”. But that’s only “a stage towards the final objective of 0.7% of GDP, to which we remain committed”. We asked Chantal Hebberecht , head of food security at the European Commission’s “Europeaid” office of cooperation, what are the programmes that the EU intends to implement to achieve these objectives (cf. the fact file on EC policies to combat hunger in SirEurope no. 22/2002). What are the resources that the EU allocates to food security? “There are two main sources of funding. In the first place, there exists a specific budgetary provision for interventions of food aid that amounts to some 500 million euros per year; 40% of the appropriation is directly allocated to food aid programmes, while 55% is spent on mid- and long-term programmes of food security. The remaining 5% covers contingency expenditures. In the second place, the Commission benefits from a wider programme of rural aid and support for food security in the framework of the so-called ‘geographic credits’ of the European Development Fund, administered by the General Directorate for development and cooperation”. Could the European Union do more? “The effort currently being made could undoubtedly be improved: what’s needed is to develop better coordination and coherence between the various programmes in liaison with the donor countries, the NGOs and the beneficiary governments. A second factor that should be borne in mind is the fact that, at the level of food aid, the Commission, beginning in 1996, decided to shift the focus of its own involvement towards a policy of food security. The aim is in this way to avoid the massive and sometimes chaotic sending of foreign aid, and promote local purchases and hence the development of the economy of the more vulnerable countries. That’s why only 40% of our current budget is allocated to food aid tout court: the aid must be given, it’s badly needed, but the prime necessity is to combat the structural elements that lie at the basis of hunger in the world”. What’s the level of cooperation of the Commission with the other world institutions? “Among our partners we have the World Food Programme, to which 20/25% of our budget is devolved, the NGOs in the food aid sector that benefit from a further 25/30% of our budget, the Governments to which we allocate 40% of our funds, in the form of direct credits, and the FAO which receives 1/2%. With the FAO, in particular, we manage two information systems to continuously analyze the situation and draw a map of the more vulnerable populations. Lastly, we collaborate in the funding of seminars and conferences in the developing countries in the framework of the programme of the World Trade Organization, and also provide long-term consultancy”.