Brussels, 16/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) proposed on Tuesday creating a financial mechanism with an envelope of $98 million to help the least developed countries (LDCs) improve the safety and quality of their food products. The proposal was launched at the third United Nations Conference on LDCs being held in Brussels until Sunday.
This fund, made up from voluntary contributions from bilateral and multilateral donors, would be intended to support projects to "develop, rehabilitate, upgrade and sustain national food quality and safety systems in these countries", says the FAO in a press release. It would also help them comply with international requirements and help them participate in international standard-setting bodies such as the Codex Alimettarius Commission. ""Substantial investment is needed in irrigation and rural infrastructure, human development and institutions", FAO Assistant Director-General Hartwig de Haen stressed, insisting on the fact that progress in biotechnology "may pose further threats to the competitiveness of agriculture". If the recent trends of actual annual investments in primary agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa were to be continued until 2015, they would fall short by 38% compared to the level of investments needed to reach the World Summit target (halving under-nourishment in the region). In addition, the FAO representative stipulates that the annual amount of public aid to development fell by 20% in the periods 1981-1990 and 1991 -1999.
Lennart Bage of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), said that LDCs receive some $200 million a year. But public aid in favour of agriculture has fallen by 40% in ten years. Baba Dioum, coordinator of the Conference of Agriculture Ministers of Western and Central Africa, attacked the "iniquitous" aspects of trade, like the erosion of tariff preferences that raises many problems in 34 of the 49 LDCs located in these regions of Africa. Although globalization and the liberalization of trade offer new possibilities for growth in all the regions of the world, the LDCs are increasingly being sidelined in trade in agricultural products: the combined share of their exports fell from 5% of the world total in the 70s to hardly 1% in 1996-1998.