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	The number of hungry people in the world has increased since 2015 by UN Food & Agriculture Organization   3 July 2017   The number of hungry people in the world has increased since 2015, reversing years of progress, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva told member states at the opening of the agency''s biennial conference.   Graziano da Silva stressed that almost 60 percent of the people suffering from hunger in the world live in countries affected by conflict and climate change.   The FAO currently identifies 19 countries in a protracted crisis situation, often also facing extreme climatic events such as droughts and floods.   FAO has signaled the high risk of famine in northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen with at least 20 million people severely affected.   The livelihoods of these mostly rural people have been disrupted and "many of them have found no option other than increasing the statistics of distress migration," Graziano da Silva said.   "Strong political commitment to eradicate hunger is fundamental, but it is not enough," he said. "Hunger will only be defeated if countries translate their pledges into action, especially at national and local levels."   "Peace is of course the key to ending these crises, but we cannot wait for peace to take action" and FAO, the World Food Program and the International Fund for Agricultural Development are all working hard to assist vulnerable people, he said.   "It is extremely important to ensure that these people have the conditions to continue producing their own food. Vulnerable rural people cannot be left behind, especially youth and women."   Broad support and need for action   The prospect of the worst food crisis since the Second World War - affecting northeastern Nigerian, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen - means "we mustn''t be resigned but make renewed and extraordinary efforts," said Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.   He described the UN''s Zero Hunger objective as a way to achieve peace, justice and equality and preserve the world for the future.   Gentiloni appealed to all of Europe to share Italy''s burden of large-scale arrivals in his country, in order to be "faithful to its own history, principles and civilization." But development efforts must go beyond responding to emergencies, he said.   "We cannot save people by putting them in camps," insisted Graziano da Silva. "To save lives, we have to save their livelihoods."   Pope Francis expressed strong support for FAO''s agenda, emphasizing the need for solidarity and recognition of human rights.   "We are all conscious that the intention to assure all their daily bread is not enough - it is imperative that we recognize that everyone has the right to food," the pontiff said in remarks delivered by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican''s Secretary of State.   Achim Steiner, who headed the United Nations Environment Programme for a decade until 2016 and is currently Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme,highlighted the importance of supporting agriculture.   Agriculture may account for only 4 percent or global gross domestic product but its real role is far greater and spans "extraordinary narratives" about people, land and their cultures, Steiner said in a lecture focused on the future agricultural economy in the wake of the Paris Agreement on climate change.   Inadequate policy and budgetary attention to a sector currently affected by high levels of waste and the erosion of natural resources, reflects a "high-risk strategy", he said.   FAO''s top priorities for the next two years include promoting sustainable agriculture, climate change mitigation and adaptation, poverty reduction, water scarcity, migration and the support of conflict-affected rural livelihoods as well as ongoing work on nutrition, fisheries, forestry and Antimicrobial Resistance.   July 2017   Achieving Zero Hunger by 2030 requires turning political will into concrete actions.   Turning political will on ending hunger into action requires a strong focus on national strategies, including to those on nutrition, health and education policies.   Achieving the international community''s goal of eradicating hunger and malnutrition by 2030 is indeed possible, but this requires a scaling up of action, including greater investments in agriculture and sustainable rural development, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said.   Speaking at an event on Zero Hunger at the FAO Conference, Graziano da Silva pointed to some stark facts and figures.   "Today more than 800 million people are still chronically undernourished.. and unfortunately the number has started to grow again," the FAO Director-General said.   Around 155 million children under five are stunted and 2 billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiency, he added.   While progress in combating the related scourges of poverty and hunger has been made in recent decades, these achievements are at risk of being reversed as conflict, population growth, climate change and changing dietary patterns, all pose new challenges, Graziano da Silva said.   He noted that the world is facing "one of the largest humanitarian crises ever" with more than 20 million people at risk of famine in four countries: North Eastern Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.   Graziano da Silva noted that the 2030 Agenda calls for strong commitment by nation states.. Turning political will into action requires a stronger focus on national strategies, including to those relating to nutrition, health and education policies.   The FAO Director-General called for enhancing governance and coordination mechanisms to facilitate dialogue and create incentives for different sectors and stakeholders to work together and to sharpen the focus of Zero Hunger initiatives. "For that, decision-makers need solid and relevant evidence, including statistics and monitoring data," he added.   "And last but not least, we have to significantly increase investments," Graziano da Silva said.   "Hunger is often due to poverty and inequality. It is the result of the exclusion of small-scale producers from large-scale food systems," said IFAD President Gilbert Houngbo speaking at the event.   He warned that "at the current pace, quite frankly the international community is not on track to meet its commitment to Zero Hunger by 2030" but noted the goal can be achieved "if we act now to establish inclusive and sustainable food systems and to build the resilience of poor rural people and the ecosystems that they depend on."   Achieving Zero Hunger by 2030 "has zero chances of succeeding in the environment we are living in today," said WFP Executive-Director David Beasley. "Governments have to take actions to reduce conflicts, which are man-made dead-ends on the road to Zero Hunger."   He noted that FAO, IFAD and WFP are "working together in a perhaps unprecedented way, both because states want us to and because the situation calls for it."   http://www.fao.org/giews/country-analysis/external-assistance/en/ http://www.fao.org/giews/en/ http://www.fao.org/emergencies/crisis/fightingfamine/en/ http://www.fao.org/zhc/en/ Visit the related web page
	Co-operatives ensure no-one is left behind by International Co-operative Alliance, agencies   1 July 2017   At a time when income inequality is rising around the world, it is good to remember that solutions for inequality exist. The co-operative model is foremost among these. Its internationally agreed definition, principles and values set it apart from all other forms of entrepreneurial organisations. Those principles state that membership in a co-operative is open without discrimination to all people who accept the requirements of membership.   That open membership affords access to wealth creation and poverty elimination. This results from the co-operative principle on member economic participation: ''Members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of their co-operative''. Because co-operatives are people-centred, not capital-centred, they do not perpetuate nor accelerate capital concentration and they distribute wealth in a more fair way.   The open access that co-operatives provide extends across all business sectors -- savings and credit facilities, farming and fisheries, purchase of goods and services, health care, housing, insurance, provision of artisinal and industrial services -- wherever the capital-based market fails to look after the needs of the people and they choose to organise themselves.   Beyond the non-discriminatory structure of the co-operative itself, co-operatives also foster external equality, through principle seven, ''Concern for Community''. As they are community-based, they are committed to the sustainable development of their communities - environmentally, socially and economically.   This commitment evidences itself across the world in co-operative support for community activities, in local sourcing of supplies to benefit the local economy, and in decision-making that considers the impact on their communities.   Despite their local community focus, co-operatives also aspire to bring the benefits of their economic and social model to all people in the world. Globalization should be done through a set of values such as those of the co-operative movement; otherwise, it creates more inequality and excesses that render it unsustainable, as we have seen.   Co-operatives achieve results not as charities, but as entrepreneurial self-help organisations. This has allowed them to grow to scale, through community-based federated structures and by offering increasingly varied services in response to member needs.   The World Co-operative Monitor reports that the 300 largest co-operatives alone account for over USD 2.5 trillion annual turnover. Over 250 million people organise their livelihood through a co-operative. This is wealth creation and distribution at a high impact level. The question of scalability of co-operatives was resoundingly answered in the affirmative long ago.   This impact is one of the reasons that UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) recently added co-operatives to its list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. UNESCO established the list in 2003 to acknowledge that the human experience is not defined only by tangible places and monuments, but equally by practices and traditions.   A member-state must make such a nomination, and Germany made the case for co-operative recognition, noting that co-operatives ''strive for a more just development of globalization processes''.   It is important to note that it is not only income inequality that plagues the world. Women in particular and minority groups often find themselves denied access to important activities essential to improving their living situation. The nondiscrimination defined in the co-operative principles is multi-dimensional: gender, social, racial, political and religious, ensuring that no-one is left behind.   On this International Day of Co-operatives, the International Co-operative Alliance calls on co-operatives across the world to reflect on the misery caused by rising inequality, to recommit to ensuring equality across their communities, and to celebrate the co-operative contribution to making the world a better place. The platform ‘Coops for 2030’ (www.coopsfor2030.coop) offers the possibility for co-operatives to pledge initiatives towards the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and the International Co-operative Alliance encourages all co-operatives to do so.   http://ica.coop/en/media/news/95th-international-co-operative-day http://ica.coop/en   July 2017   Cooperatives help to build inclusive economies and societies. (ILO/UN News)   "Let us draw on the strengths of cooperatives as we pool efforts to implement the 2030 Agenda and make sure that no one is left behind," says ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.   Today the ILO is pleased to join the international community in celebrating the International Day of Cooperatives . This year’s theme "Cooperatives ensure no one is left behind ” is rooted in the guiding principle of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, driven by the commitment to leave no one behind.   Cooperatives with their people-centred focus, and founded on solidarity and members’ ownership, are well-placed to be vehicles for bringing about more inclusive societies and economies.   Work – decent work – is a fundamental mechanism for inclusion and social justice. Making decent work a reality for all is embedded in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): it means being particularly attentive to the situation of working women and men who are at risk of exclusion and poverty, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, migrants and refugees.   There is already much evidence of cooperatives in action to promote equity and inclusion. Producer and service cooperatives of indigenous peoples, for example, have enabled their members to secure livelihoods, create decent jobs and to access markets. At the same time, cooperatives have allowed members to preserve traditional knowledge and strengthen environmental sustainability, while advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment.   Women and men with disabilities as well as migrants and refugees have also benefited from the capacity of cooperatives to facilitate their inclusion in the world of work and integration into society at large.   Cooperative enterprises play a growing role in delivering people-centred quality care for the elderly, as well as day and home care for the disabled and the chronically ill. In the informal economy, cooperatives have helped workers to move to formal work arrangements and securing better conditions through increased bargaining power. Through cooperative organization, domestic workers, for example, have been successful across regions in improving their conditions.   However, there is still a long way to go before cooperatives’ potential is fully tapped and in some areas remains largely unexplored. Cooperatives could, for example, play a powerful role in efforts to eliminate child labour, forced labour and discrimination at work.   Addressing the multi-dimensional challenges of inclusion will require cooperation and partnership. In heeding the call of the International Co-operative Alliance let us draw on the strengths of cooperatives as we pool efforts to implement the 2030 Agenda and make sure that no one is left behind.   The Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC) – whose membership includes ILO, UNDESA and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) – is scheduled to host the observance of the 2017 International Day of Cooperatives during the High-level Political Forum, to be held from 10-19 July in New York. This year''s theme for the Forum is “eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world.”   http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/cooperatives/lang--en/index.htm http://www.copac.coop/ http://www.un.org/development/desa/cooperatives/international-day-of-cooperatives/2017-2.html Visit the related web page
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