Excellencies,
Esteemed colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Just a few months ago, many of us were gathered in this very building to discuss the threat of famine for millions of people in the Horn of Africa; precisely thirty years ago FAO initiated World Food Day to focus world attention on the need for all people to have access to safe, nutritious and affordable food.

Thirty years have passed. Yet we are still witnessing famines. Thirty years have passed, and today close to one billion men, women and children go to bed hungry every night.   Thirty years have passed and yet every six seconds one child dies of malnutrition-related causes on our planet.

Famine – and its close relative, extreme hunger – are obscenities that should have no place in the modern lexicon. And yet they stubbornly persist, despite the best efforts of so many. All of us here today must ask ourselves "why?".

We must take full responsibility for the disaster in the Horn of Africa.

The relief efforts have been laudable. Food assistance has saved countless lives. The death toll is far less than we have seen under similar circumstances in the past.

But still the fact remains. People have died; children are malnourished. People are suffering. This was a crisis that need not have happened. But it did. And it will happen again.

We will continue to have food security crises, we will continue to have too many hungry people, unless we act now.

We must build the resilience of vulnerable people, countries and economies in anticipation of the next drought or flood. We must build resilience to the wild fluctuations in food prices that have become the new normal.

Poverty and food insecurity go hand in hand. Poor people are hurt most when droughts or floods strike; poor people are hurt most by erratic prices.

 About 70 per cent of the world’s poorest people live in the rural areas of developing countries. Most can be found working on the nearly 500 million small farms in the developing world. Many of these farms have the potential to produce enough food and generate enough income for the 2 billion people who depend on them.

The best chance these women and men have of overcoming poverty is through medium and long-term rural development. Their best chance of having reliable access to safe, nutritious and affordable food is through medium and long-term investment in agriculture and rural development.

But for this to happen their own governments must make long-term investments in agricultural development, backed up by greater investment in rural development, infrastructure and services.  These efforts must be coupled with long-term commitment from the international community.

At IFAD, we see every day what can be achieved by determined nations and communities. This summer, I visited a drought-prone region of China where farmers are feeding themselves and increasing their incomes despite the harsh conditions.

In August, I met some of the most enterprising women farmers and livestock producers in rural Ethiopia who single-handedly are transforming their lives and their communities.

And just last week in Burkina Faso, Senegal and Togo, I met farmers taking advantage of low-input, high output, pro-poor technologies.  Technologies that in many cases were developed locally in order to deal with the harsh Sahelian climate.

These farmers are thriving because they have had the right policy support and the right training. They are connected to markets and have access to  financial services and agricultural technologies. They are farming in ways that respond to and respect the physical environment.

And they are thriving because of the investment and commitment to rural areas made by central and local governments, and by the local population itself, with long-term support from institutions like IFAD, FAO and WFP.

And so, on this day dedicated to food security, I hope that we can all make a solemn vow to follow through on our commitments  – commitments made at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, commitments made by African nations at Maputo, and commitments made elsewhere – to create solid and lasting foundations for food security so that when we gather here, in the years to come, we can celebrate the elimination of hunger instead of asking ourselves, as we must today, “what has gone wrong?”.

Thank you.

17 October 2011, Rome, Italy