37th CFS Plenary Session, 17-22 October 2011, Rome
The CFS is the United Nations' forum for reviewing policies concerning world food. It is the most inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for all relevant stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition.
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21 February 2012, Rome – The Government of Brazil is providing $2 375 000 for a new local food purchase programme to be set up by FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP) to benefit farmers and vulnerable populations in five African countries – Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal.
Under an agreement signed here today, Brazil will fund the project, as well as share expertise drawn from its own national Food Purchase Programme (PAA).
Brazil's PAA buys agricultural products from smallholders and delivers them to at-risk categories, including children and youth through school feeding programmes. The PAA is a cornerstone of the country's Zero Hunger strategy.
15 February 2012
- ROME – Leaders of United Nations agencies, representatives of affected governments, and major donors today called for an urgent scale up of humanitarian, rehabilitation and development assistance to address rising levels of hunger and malnutrition caused by the combined effect of drought, high food prices, displacement and conflict affecting the Sahel region of West Africa. After an emergency meeting at the headquarters of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome, participants agreed that the time for humanitarian action in the Sahel is now.
13 February 2012 – The leaders of United Nations aid agencies, humanitarian organizations and donor governments will meet on Wednesday in Rome to discuss how to urgently scale up assistance in Africa’s Sahel region, where drought and food shortages are threatening millions of lives.
8 February 2012, Juba/Rome - Millions of people in South Sudan will face hunger this year if urgent action is not taken, according to a joint report issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).
The FAO-WFP report, Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to South Sudan, is based on a joint mission conducted in the world’s newest nation between October and November 2011 at the request of the government of South Sudan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
3 February 2012 – The United Nations declared an end to famine conditions in Somalia today, but warned that the crisis in the Horn of Africa is not over and requires continued efforts to restore food security and help people resume normal lives.
The number of people in need of emergency humanitarian assistance in Somalia has dropped from 4 million to 2.3 million, or 31 per cent of the population, according to a new report by the United Nations and the United States Government. Additionally, 325,000 children are acutely malnourished.
31 January 2012 –The United Nations World Food Programme announced today that it will scale up its assistance to reach 80,000 people affected by the recent escalation of ethnic violence in South Sudan’s Jonglei state.
25 January 2012 – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that half a million children in Yemen could die or suffer physical and mental damage as a result of malnutrition, unless sufficient resources are made available to alleviate the effects of conflict, chronic poverty and drought.
GENEVA – “Drought, poor harvests and rising food prices have left the Sahel region of West-Central Africa on the brink of a humanitarian crisis,” warned Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food.
“We must not wait until people are starving in order to act. The world must respond immediately to avert a full-scale food and nutrition crisis,” the Special Rapporteur said. “This crisis may look like a natural calamity, but it is in fact a symptom of our failure to be better prepared and to react more swiftly to early warning signs. The failure of the international community to act, now and in the future, would result in major violations of the right to food.”
The government declared Jonglei state a "humanitarian disaster area" and called on international aid agencies to help provide urgently needed assistance.
It is not yet clear how many people have been killed or injured in the violence.
The United Nations said Thursday it was mounting a "massive emergency support programme" to help those displaced by fighting.
15 December 2011 – Damaged crops combined with conflict and insecurity are threatening to leave some 2.5 million people in South Sudan – the world’s newest country – in critical conditions unless food assistance is provided immediately, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.
The spike in food prices of last year (2008) underscored what experts have been telling us for many years: the world's food systems are in crisis