L'Aquila, Italy - Plans by US President Barack Obama to boost food production in the world's poorest nations mark a welcome shift in aid policies that could help reduce migration towards the West, a UN agency on the food aid frontline said Thursday. "The time has past when we just gave aid and then turned away," said Kanayo Nwanze, head of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
The initiative aims to "prevent problems rather than solve them," he said.
The IFAD president was attending a summit of Group of Eight (G8) leaders in the Italian city of L'Aquila, where fellow leaders planned Friday to endorse Obama's plan to spend 15 billion dollars on seeds, irrigation systems and other long-term investments designed to help the poor feed themselves.
"Tomororw we'll be discussing hunger and food security, and I think we need to show the world that we will take action to avert what is a famine and hunger emergency," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is supporting the initiative.
The bulk of the money would be provided by the US and Japan and would be channeled through agencies like IFAD, a Rome-based agency which specializes in helping small farmers in poor nations.
Nwanze, who planned to address G8 leaders on Friday, said it was gratifying to see the rich club of nations shift their attention away "from emergency assistance to helping developing countries provide for themselves and feed their own people."
Recalling the food riots 18 months ago that caused havoc in North Africa and brought down the government of Haiti, Nwanze also praised the G8 for treating food security as a global issue and as an engine for growth.
"We now have sufficient proof that food security and national security are inter-linked," Nwanze said.
At the Gleneagles summit of 2005, G8 leaders pledged 22 billion dollars in aid to Africa by 2010.
So far, however, only a third of this pledge has been delivered.
But Nwanze played down concerns that Obama's announcement Friday would eventually result in another empty promise.
"We did not have a food crisis back then," he said.
IFAD, which also provides funding to small farmers, says 75 per cent of the world's poorest people - 1.05 billion women, children and men - live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods.
