Rome: The UN food chief said today he was
chilly but otherwise slept OK after his first night on a
hunger strike to draw attention to the plight of the world's
hungry before next week's UN food summit.
Jacques Diouf began the 24-hour strike at 8 pm yesterday
in the lobby of the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture
Organization. Since FAO offices are unheated at night, he
donned a hat and scarf, and wore his overcoat over his pajamas
as he spent the night on a makeshift mattress.
"I slept pretty well," Diouf said in a statement. "The
only problem was the cold." Temperatures in the capital dipped
to 8 C overnight.
The FAO said Diouf was trying to show solidarity with the
world's 1 billion chronically malnourished people, raise
awareness about their plight, and put pressure on world
leaders to do something about it.
FAO has said global food output will have to increase by
70 percent to feed a projected population of 9.1 billion in
2050.
To achieve that, poor countries will need USD 44 billion
yearly of aid to agriculture, compared with the current USD
7.9 billion, to increase access to irrigation systems, modern
machinery, as well as to build roads and train farmers.
Bureau Report
First Published: Saturday, November 14, 2009, 20:33