Food crisis / Prime Minister of Lesotho highlights economic growth, productivity, in alleviating global food crisis
MASERU, Lesotho, June 12, 2008/African Press Organization (APO)/ --
The Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Lesotho, Pakalitha B. Mosisili today addressed the International Labour Organization’s annual conference here and highlighted the role of sustained economic growth and agricultural productivity in alleviating the global food crisis.
Noting that this year’s International Labour Conference had discussed the promotion of rural employment and decent work for poverty reduction, the Prime Minister said “tackling poverty in the rural areas would be the quickest and most effective way of reducing overall poverty country-wide”.
“Sound and sustained economic growth with mechanisms for equitable distribution of income, materializes whenever the three partners represented here today engage together in harmony, and with a focus on high productivity”, the Prime Minister said.
Prime Minister Mosisili was the keynote speaker at a “High-Level Panel on the Food Crisis, Production, Investment and Decent Work” held during the 97th annual International Labour Conference of the ILO taking place here.
Other speakers were Phil O’Reilly, Chief Executive, Business New Zealand; Ron Oswald, General Secretary of the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations; Lennart Båge, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development; and ILO Director-General Juan Somavia.
Stressing the urgency of international efforts to address rising prices of food and energy, as well as other global challenges, the Prime Minister said his address came “at a time of enormous global challenges” including “financial instability, sky-rocketing oil prices and phenomenally escalating food prices”.
“Lesotho is a least developed country aiming at improving the quality of life of its citizens and at the earliest opportunity”, he said. “Let us not allow climate change, financial turmoil, sky-rocketing oil prices, and food shortages and high prices to frustrate this effort.”
Noting that development aid for agriculture and productivity growth had declined over the past two decades just as demand was rising, IFAD President Lennart Båge said “meeting emergency food requirements is obviously the most urgent task. But raising agricultural productivity and output, especially by smallholder farmers, is also essential. Our collective aim must be not only to address the present crisis but to reduce, if not eliminate, the danger of future food crises.”
Speaking for the employers, Phil O’Reilly, Chief Executive of Business New Zealand noted that “escalating food prices cause real pain and hardship, particularly to the world’s most vulnerable” and said the food crisis had been a factor during Conference discussions on rural employment and poverty reduction. He called for long term solutions to “not only help us solve this food crisis but to put us in the best position to ensure that it never happens again”.
Speaking for the workers, Ron Oswald, General Secretary of the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations said “hunger doesn’t just happen, it is made to happen” and added that its main factors included hyperinflation in the price of staple foods and that “every percentage increase in the rise of staple food prices sends another 16 million people into hunger”. He also said capital flows must be channeled into Decent Work and social regulation to address the issue.
ILO Director-General, in his remarks, called for employment promotion in rural areas, including non-farm employment and employment intensive infrastructure investment, saying “Poor workers in urban and rural areas are hardest hit by the food crisis. To feed one’s family, people need a decent job and a fair income.”
SOURCE : International Labour Organisation (ILO)