THE following appeared as yesterday’s Editorial in the Barbados Nation and is reprinted in today’s edition of the Chronicle, courtesy of the Nation newspaper:

“One of the decisions taken by Caribbean Community leaders at last week’s 20th Inter-Sessional Meeting in Belize is to endorse an initiative by the Director General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Jacques Diouf, for the convening of a “World Summit on Food Security” on November 14-16.

Ensuring food security is critical for governments in every region of the world, particularly at this period of a global financial and economic crisis.

In the circumstances it is understandable why the region’s leaders and heads of delegations who endorsed the proposal for the World Summit on Food Security went further with a pledge to “elicit support for and full participation in the November summit”, starting with their attendance at next month’s Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port-of-Spain.

That said, it must be pointed out that previously a number of so-called “High-Level” meetings on food security, organised by the FAO, have taken place, most recently four between June 2008 and January this year.

However, the results of these “high-level” encounters are not known to have made any significant impact on policies and programs of UN member states, including the Caribbean.

In his drive to win widest possible support for the World Summit on Food Security, Director General Diouf was anxious to remind CARICOM Heads of Government that endorsement had already been given by leaders of the African Union; League of Arab States and at last December’s summit of Caribbean and Latin American leaders in Brazil.

It is to be assumed that CARICOM and its Latin American allies will participate in the coming FAO Food Security Summit armed with a well-researched brief on the specific problems and challenges facing our region and how our Community could play its part in a global framework.

What is really disappointing to note, at this stage, is the lack of a meaningful information flow from CARICOM on what areas of progress have actually been achieved in the Community’s own regional agriculture expansion and diversification project, with food security as its centrepiece, since its inauguration over four years ago.

Often promoted by the Community Secretariat as “The Jagdeo Initiative on Agriculture Development”, consistent with the Guyana President (Bharrat Jagdeo) having lead responsibility for the project, there remains a yawning gap between official statements/declarations from Heads of Government and the actual results of cooperation and production member countries have to show.

It is, therefore, reasonable for the region’s public to expect to be informed of at least the outlines of the case CARICOM intends to present at the FAO-proposed World Summit. Food security, after all, is at the heart of the peoples business.”
(Reprinted courtesy Barbados Nation).