France: defending ” “food sovereignty” “

It was supposed to have been held from 5 to 9 November last year, but the international community, shocked by the tragic events of September 11, decided to postpone it. So the world food summit will be held in Rome from 10 to 13 June, at the headquarters of the FAO (the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization). The summit comes six years after the similar summit – it too held in Rome – that adopted the “Action Plan” with the objective of reducing by half, by 2015, the number of people suffering from hunger in the world. A goal that seems increasingly unreachable now. Therefore, explained FAO’s director general, Jacques Diouf, the objective of the next world summit on food is “to give new impetus to the efforts in the world on behalf of the hungry. We must increase the political will and the financial resources to combat famine”. The “World Food Summit” will be attended by 150 heads of state. In tandem with it will be held the Forum of the non governmental organizations; over 600 NGOs are expected to attend. In preparation for these events we gathered the testimonies of some Catholic aid agencies and NGOs that are active in France and the UK in the campaign against famine and that will take part in the meeting in Rome. “Since last year a coordination of the NGOs in France has been created; it is in constant contact with the French government, explains Catherine Gaudard, an expert in food security and economic solidarity, who is due to go to Rome together with another two members of the “Catholic Committee against hunger and for development” (CCFD) to attend the World Food Summit. Ever since its foundation, the CCFD has participated in all the summits of the FAO. During the summit of 1996, “the NGOs has criticized some aspects that were not courageous enough and presented contradictions between economic policies and local structures”, recalls Gaudard. That’s why, in preparation for the forthcoming summit, the NGOs have drafted “an international code of conduct” which will be presented to the Forum of the NGOs and to the participating countries”. Moreover the French government, as the representative of the CCFD stresses, “will support the principle of food sovereignty that is having an uphill task in gaining acceptance by all the European countries”. With 31 movements, 99 diocesan committees, 15,000 volunteers organized in local, regional and national networks, the CCFD is the leading French NGO for development. In response to the signals of alarm sounded by the FAO in 1960, the French Church decided, in 1961, to unite the forces of the 15 more committed movements against hunger. Their fusion led to the creation of the CCFC, which became the CCFD in 1966. Recognized as an “association of public utility”, the CCFD now represents 29 movements and charities close to the Church. In its forty years of life, the CCFD has supported more than 6,000 projects in 80 countries. By now well known throughout the world, this Committee enjoys consultative status at the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. It also belongs to the “Council of Solidarity”, currently chaired by Bishop André Lacrampe of Ajaccio. Created by the French Episcopal Conference in 1989, the Council of Solidarity is present in almost all the country’s dioceses. It brings together three times each year the 13 organizations that sit on it; they include Caritas-France, the charitable arm of the Knights of Malta, the society of St. Vincent de Paul, and Fidesco, an aid agency founded by the Emmanuel Community in 1981. Ever since national military service was abolished in 2001, the NGOs involved in the developing countries have found themselves in difficulty. The “Catholic Delegation for Cooperation” (DCC), created in 1967, a year after the institution of the “National Service for Cooperation”, is facing serious difficulties in recruiting volunteers. However, this year 150 future volunteers are preparing to depart, including 57 youngsters that had been due to perform their national Service, but who will now depart as civil volunteers.