World hunger reached an historic high in 2009 with over a billion people going without enough food every day. Malnutrition increased by 13 percent in Asia, 8 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean and 6 percent in Africa.
Caritas Australia launched a report ‘Food: The Fundamental Right’ in which they called for food to be recognised as a right through national and international policies. Caritas members went to a UN food summit in Rome in November calling for radical changes in the way resources are managed.
Michael O’Brien fromTrócaire (Caritas Ireland) said during the meeting, “The liberalisation agenda promoted over the last decades by theWorld Bank and others has categorically failed. There is a real need to strengthen small farmers’ involvement in policy making and implementation.”
Caritas also lobbied the UN General Assembly’s Economic and Social Council Emergency Session on the Food Crisis, highlighting agriculture, farmers, nutrition and the role of women.