G-8 leaders are missing at the three-day UN summit in Rome on how to fight global hunger, with anti-poverty campaigners already writing off the event as a missed opportunity. Apart from Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, G-8 leaders are skipping the food summit, which now looks more like a gathering of Latin American and African heads of state. Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Libya’s Muammar Gadaffi are among those attending. UN officiakls said those dismissing the summit because G-8 leaders are not taking part were wrong, arguing the aim was to get poorer countries on board in the fight against hunger.

“For me it is not so much the participation of the G-8 that is important but driving our message home to the developing countries whose leaders are going to be there, to tell them – get your house in order, Kanayo Nwanze, head of the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development, told Reuters.

A G-8 summit in July had pledged $20 billion over the next three years to boost agricultural development, in a big policy shift towards long-term strategies and away from emergency food aid.
With the world’s hungry topping one billion for the first time in history, the FAO had canned the summit, hoping that leaders would commit to raising the share of official aid spend on agriculture to 17% of the total – its 1980 level – from 5% now. That would amount to $44 billion a year, up from $7.9 billion now. But a published draft of the final declaration to be adopted on Monday included only a general promise to pour more money into agricultural aid, with no target nor a timeframe for action.

A pledge to eliminate malnutrition by 2025 was also taken off the agenda, which now states that the world leaders commit to eradicate hunger at the earliest possible date. The real cause of hunger and food insecurity are not even on the agenda or in the draft declaration.

Last year’s spike in the price of food staples such as rice and wheat sparked riots in 60 countries, hoarding and a scramble by rich food importers to buy foreign farmland, pushing food storages and hunger up the political agenda. Food prices have fallen back since, but they remain high in poor countries and FAO warns sudden price rises are very likely.

-- Agencies

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