[Press Release] Anti-Poverty Organization Questions Bush's UN Remarks on Hunger

from PR News Wire

President Bush's call for the United Nations to uphold its original charter pledge to stamp out hunger, disease, illiteracy and other challenges to human liberty was
called into question by the international anti-poverty agency, ActionAid.

"President Bush is rightly giving priority to hunger as a global issue.
Now, the US must put its money where its mouth is by ratifying the UN
resolution on the right to food," said Colm O Cuanachain, Action Aid's
Campaign Director, heading up the agency's HungerFREE initiative. "It is
currently the only country in the world which has consistently failed to do
so."

Any US policy on hunger, says ActionAid, also needs to address the
issue of corporate abuse. Regulations must be set in place to ensure that
smallholder farmers are not driven into destitution through unfair trade,
corporate land grabs, and the diversion of natural resources, such as
water.

"President Bush's challenge to the UN to return to its founding
principles reminds us that universal human rights are at the core of the
UN's mission. The time is ripe for the US to recognize and ratify the right
to food as a major step towards ending hunger in the world," said Peter
O'Driscoll, Executive Director of ActionAid USA.

In addition, says Karen Hansen-Kuhn, ActionAid food and hunger policy
analyst, "The US needs to adjust its trade and foreign aid policy so that
it doesn't put small family farms out of business. Family farms are the
drivers behind food production in the global south, and appropriate
policies must be set in place so that their interests are protected."

ActionAid is calling for all United Nations countries to support the
right to food resolution to be adopted at the General Assembly. The United
States is the only country that has consistently opposed it.

ActionAid is an international anti-poverty agency working in over 40
countries, taking sides with poor people to end poverty and injustice
together. For more information, http://www.actionaid.org.