The International Fund for Agricultural Development known, in a world where it is fashionable to use slogans and acronyms, as IFAD, today celebrates its twentieth anniversary.

Congratulations to you, President Fawzi Al Sultan, for whom I hold great admiration and friendship; may I also congratulate the Governors representing the various world States and salute all here today.

This year, we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

These celebrations should lead us to reflect on the role of the entire United Nations system, and especially on that of the four Rome-based organizations operating in the field of food and agriculture so that they can intensify their efforts to eradicate hunger and malnutrition and achieve food security for all the world’s people.

Is it necessary that institutions operating in a single sector, each with its own specific responsibilities, it is true to say, but each of whose aim is to serve humanity, to serve people suffering similar hardships - is it necessary that they should be organized into four separate bodies?

Is this really necessary?

Can there be any doubt that every increase, every rise in administrative expenditure can, and indeed does, reduce the amount of resources that are actually used for the purpose for which they were intended?

Have we noticed over past decades that the international organizations have become excessively large, to the detriment of their effectiveness?

Some may find these comments ill-timed but, based on observations worthy of consideration, it is a call I feel I have to make.

It is unacceptable, because it is unbefitting to human dignity, that today more than 800 million people continue to suffer hunger and malnutrition.

The international community has a definite moral and political obligation to raise the living standards of millions of human beings above the poverty line.

I have mentioned the International Community. Phrases or expressions like these worry me, because, in one sense, we are all players and, therefore, all responsible but, in the other sense, we are onlookers without responsibility.

No! We all have a moral and political obligation toward those who suffer injustice.

We, I; yes I have that moral and political obligation. But when I say I, I am not referring only to myself; this “I” applies to each and every one of us. We all have the same moral and political obligation. The responsibility is incumbent upon each and every one of us.

By establishing the United Nations Financial Institute, whose role it is to assist the rural poor and the small farmers in the less developed countries, the World Food Conference, held in Rome in 1974, acknowledged the need to improve the living standards of the rural people in the developing countries, through the use of financial instruments, among others.

It also recognized the need to directly assist the governments of the less favoured nations whose large external debts have prevented them from channelling sufficient funds to agricultural development.

As we stand on the threshhold of the third millenium, it is necessary, now more than ever, that we should renew the international community’s and our own personal commitment to reduce by half the number of people suffering hunger and malnutrition by the year 2015 - a commitment solemnly reaffirmed on the occasion of the World Food Summit, hosted by FAO in November 1996.

This objective can only be achieved if all the United Nations institutions and all the governments were to implement coherent, responsible measures designed to increase agricultural production in the developing countries and to facilitate access to basic food supplies, to farm tools and to agricultural credit.

This plan is a courageous one; it is forceful; it is bold!

But how many victims will there be before this important result is achieved in 2015?

Indeed, emergency operations and measures have been planned and anticipated in order to relieve suffering and reduce delay.

The horrible human tragedy calls out to us, drives us, must compel us to do our utmost before it is too late.

For these reasons, the celebration here today gives us a rare opportunity to reaffirm the value of the cooperation between United Nations organizations, governments, non-governmental organizations and civil institutions in the pursuit of food security, in accordance with the recommendations of the Conference on Combating Rural Poverty, hosted by IFAD in Brussels in 1995.

What is needed is more closely coordinated efforts in order to make better use of available funds, scientific knowledge and technical and administrative capability, of which there is so much to be enhanced and developed at the United Nations’ focal point here in Rome.

I have mentioned coordination. Coordination requires humility to work with others, requires the ability to renounce the idea of achieving individual success. Coordination means putting the rights of the person in need first, being convinced that what counts most is to serve the world’s most disadvantaged to the best of our ability.

Such a task is neither easy nor straightforward. But it is one which IFAD, FAO and WFP, each with an equal level of commitment, must continue to pursue in order to reverse the signs of apathy which have become apparent in recent years - even among the donor countries. It is one which these institutions must continue to pursue if they are to resume, with greater enthusiasm and drive, the campaign on whose success will depend the living standards of hundreds of millions of people, the social development of numerous countries, our own security and world peace.

I have mentioned signs of apathy, so let us pause to consider this for a moment.

Donor countries are not fulfilling their pledges; they have to be asked to do so repeatedly; they have to be asked to rekindle their awareness that solidarity is a primary obligation.

Is this the stage we have reached?

What do we have to do awaken them, to call them to order and urge them on?

I think this matter needs to be examined more closely. Is their indifference, their reluctance to fulfil their commitment justified? Are they dissatisfied with the organizations? And if so, why? Have they said why?

Or, is it that with the passage of time, their initial enthusiasm has given way to apathy towards a commitment which they perhaps regret ever having undertaken? A sobering thought!

Solidarity needs a soul, needs a living spirit that believes, that can overcome obstacles, that does not lose sight of the purpose behind the commitment, which is to relieve suffering and to bring help to those in grave and urgent need.

Solidarity needs to come alive!

The Italian Government has fulfilled its commitment with a contribution of 29 million dollars to IFAD; 33.6 million dollars to the Special Programme for Sub-Saharan Africa; 2 billion lire between 1994 and 1997 to rural and agricultural, and irrigation development projects.

This may not be very much.

But let me say that Italy has really done all it can. We would be only too pleased to do more; we would be honoured if you were to ask us for more!

However, given the importance of the problem, particularly at the human level - for it is the human suffering on which the spotlight always falls, we need to formulate basic cultural strategies.

Above all, we need to have a uniform concept of the human being, of human dignity and of human rights.

Commitment to our fellow men is at the root of the very concept of civilization!

When faced with world hunger, poverty and the basic needs of entire populations, how often have scientists and politicians blamed over-population rather than the inappropriate use of agricultural resources and, in particular, the inequitable distribution of wealth?

Of course, this does not mean that there is not a problem with irresponsible population growth.

Our primary objective must be to tackle these substantive problems, otherwise the best designed and most carefully prepared operations will be hardly more than short-term palliatives.

We should not be discouraged by the magnitude of the problem - we have not been discouraged these last twenty years - nor by the fact that we still have a long way to go before we can claim any significant measure of success.

The only way forward is to adhere to the principles laid down in the United Nations Human Rights Charter of fifty years ago.

Article 1 of that Charter emphasises, with a courage and far-sightedness that is still admired today, that human beings, and I quote, should behave toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Ladies and Gentlemen, nowadays, we often speak of solidarity. And rightly so, for it is important. But brotherhood is a feeling that goes much deeper and is much more intense.

Brotherhood is about blood relationships; it implies a family link; it is an indissoluble natural relationship. That is what brotherhood is!

What we need to do, therefore, is to take a fresh look at our way of thinking and our way of dealing with important issues.

Only then will we achieve true solidarity; only then will we achieve the true brotherhood proclaimed in 1948.

This is the spirit in which I conclude, with the wish that the reform and revitalization of the United Nations system will facilitate and accelerate the similar process taking place among the Rome-based United Nations bodies.

Let me conclude by thanking you, Mr President, and all those who have worked here over the past twenty years. May I also thank those whose names will never make the headlines, but will endure in the written pages of suffering humanity.

Thank you.

Italy is proud and priveleged to host these Organizations. Italy’s wish, however, is the wish of all the world’s peoples: that this focal point may have an ever-increasing influence on the world situation. The world’s needy are waiting.

Were you to carefully re-read Article 25 of the United Nations Human Rights Charter, you would pause, we would pause, together, to ask the question: Have we responded aptly, fairly and in accordance with our consciences? Let us, in any event, undertake to do so in the coming years.

Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen.