EC policy paper to help developing countries address food security

31 March 2010. The European Commission (EC) announced that it has adopted two new policy frameworks “to help developing countries address food security in emergency and long-term situations” and has called upon member nations to implement similar policies, IRIN reports.
The humanitarian assistance framework focuses on “response tools to enhance food security, and also spells out EU efforts to tackle acute food insecurity and malnutrition in crises.” The other policy “takes a longer view and spells out the need to support agriculture in poor countries to help them reach the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving hunger and poverty by 2015,” the news service writes (4/2).

An EC policy paper (.pdf) outlines an approach to help developing countries achieve food security and recommends that “sustainable small-scale food production should be the focus of EU assistance to increase the availability of food in developing countries,” . The EC “believes that access to food should be enhanced by creating better employment and income-earning opportunities in both rural and urban areas, especially via diversification and trade, thus making food more affordable for more people. It suggests that in rural areas, new jobs could be created in agricultural processing by small and medium-sized enterprises”.


The EC makes additional recommendations related to vitamin and mineral deficiency prevention, regional integration opportunities and price control (4/2). The paper also suggests launching an initiative “to help the African Union accelerate the implementation of the African Land Policy Guidelines, completed in 2009, to secure people’s rights to land”. 


The EC has supported reforming the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization technical committee, “to become the pivotal global institution on food security,” the paper said.


Reference
EU wants to help small farmers in developing countries