PHA-Exchange> 16 - In preparation of PHA II

[Claudio]

Note of interest on MDGs: 



As many of you know, in 2002, the Secretary- General commissioned the Millennium Project. Its purpose is to recommend an operational frameworks that will allow all countries to achieve the MDGs by 2015. Almost 300 experts are engaged in ten thematically oriented Task Forces. A UN Expert Committee oversees the project implementation. Interim Task Force reports were available in early 2004 and will be finalised by the end of the year.  The final recommendations will be presented to the Secretary General in June 2005.

 

The Hunger Task Force is of special relevance and interest for PHM. A careful reading of the 220-page document reveals disturbing weaknesses. First, nutrition is reduced to food consumption, and food consumption is reduced to food production, which in turn is reduced to small-holder agricultural production. Moreover, given that the focus of the interim report is on sub-Saharan Africa, it is quite surprising that the HIV/AIDS catastrophe is not recognised as the key factor in the current food and humanitarian crisis in Southern Africa.

 

Second, and even more disturbing, is the fact that the report totally neglects human rights.  The right to food is discussed on one page with the conclusion that "Making the right to food into an operational concept is a challenge, and questions remain of how to specifically create and enforce this right" (p. 117). If the United Nations is "emphasising the centrality of human rights in all activities of the system," it would seem that a major purpose of the Hunger Task Force should have been to address this challenge. 


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[1] See http://www.unmillenniumproject.org.

[2] The Millennium Hunger Task Force, Halving Hunger by 2015: A Framework for Action, Interim Report of the Millennium Project Hunger Task Force, December 15, 2003.

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