FIGHTING POVERTY IN ALL ITS DIMENSIONS

FIGHTING POVERTY IN ALL ITS DIMENSIONS VATICAN CITY,
8 MAR 2008 (VIS) -
Made public today was a statement given by Msgr. Renato Volante, Holy See permanent observer to the United Nations Organisation for Food and Agriculture (FAO), during the 29th FAO Regional Conference for the Near East held in Cairo, Egypt from 1 to 5 March. In his English-language address, which was entitled "Promoting food security with particular attention for the situation of smallholders", Msgr. Volante indicated that t he Holy See "pays a particular attention to those initiatives that are carried out at international level trying to solve situations of hunger, food deficiencies, malnutrition, especially when in some areas of the earth an increase of needs occur".

" The situation of food security in the Near East is not without preoccupation even in presence of a general development also on account of food availability destined to people nutrition. Water shortage, besides conditioning the agricultural production, involves the standards of living, with an evident opposition between the real potentialities and the will to take those measures that grant not only nutritional standard and food consumptions but, in a broad sense, social conditions, people health, especially in those areas which are naturally risking desertification. "This could mean to give better attention to the small farmers, often neglected by the institutions and by the co-operation activities. In the same way, some environmental conditions, human-induced factors and animal disease compel nomadic populations to eradicate themselves from their habitat thus forcing them to food production and livelihoods different from their traditions".

"That of the Holy See delegation is an invitation to focus the results obtained during this conference in a perspective that involves the human being as a whole, recalling those fundamental values of history, different cultures, religious experiences and social life in the Near East Region. These aspects easily express concepts of justice and solidarity to be put into practice in politics, rules and actions to fight poverty in all its material and spiritual dimensions".
DELSS/NEAR EAST/FAO:VOLANTE VIS 080310 (340)