FAO Council - 28 October - 2 November 2002: The discussion continues on the establishment of the International Alliance Against Hunger.

The FAO member countries, who met in Rome from the 28th of October to the 2nd of November 2002, for the FAO council, made progress in establishing the International Alliance Against Hunger, whose creation was approved in the Final Declaration of the World Food Summit: five years later, 10-13 June 2002.

The Council members reviewed the proposals and concrete measures to insure the follow-up to the International Conference on Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development in Mountain Regions (Adelboden, Switzerland, June 2002).

They also discussed the question of the "right of access to safe and nutritious food for all" and the measures needed to implement it. The Council established an inter-governmental working group to draft a series of voluntary directives aimed at realising this right. The first meeting of this group is scheduled for March or April 2003. We will keep you informed about its preparations in our next update. FAO has since hired a coordinator to manage an adhoc unit, within FAO, to provide support to the working group. For more information, click here.

We will keep you informed, in our next update, about the next stages in the implementation of the International Alliance Against Hunger, the inter-governmental working group on the right to food and the follow-up of the Adelboden Conference. The Secretariat will also study the potential for the Thematic Groups to link to these initiatives.