Ireland urged to play greater role to combat poverty

Eliminating world hunger should be at the heart of Ireland's foreign policy, one of the country's leading NGO's said today.

Eliminating world hunger should be at the heart of Ireland's foreign policy, one of the country's leading NGO's said today.

Tom Arnold, chief executive of Concern, said the state should use its position as an affluent nation to help ease the crisis before another generation is affected.

He urged politicians to make Ireland the world leader in the fight against hunger and poverty, similar to the role Norway carved out for itself in conflict resolution.

"It is also an objective for which the people of Ireland, north and south, would feel an instinctive resonance and would, I believe, be willing to enthusiastically work together on," he said.

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Mr Arnold told a World Hunger seminar in Dublin while progress is being made in reducing poverty, particularly in Asia, the situation in sub-Saharan Africa continues to deteriorate.

"Unless there is a dramatic improvement, Africa will fail to meet the UN Millennium objective of halving the proportion of people who are hungry by 2015," he said.

"Even if this objective is reached, the world will still have 600 million hungry people in 2015, compared to 850 million today. That is why Ireland as an affluent country must take a lead role in ensuring that hunger can be eliminated before another generation passes."

Joining Mr Arnold at the seminar were Professor Jeffrey Sachs, economist and chair of the Millennium Project and special adviser to UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, former Irish president and head of UNHCR Mary Robinson.

Conor Lenihan, Minister of State with responsibility for overseas aid, also attended along with over 100 politicians, policy makers and business representatives.

Professor Sachs, graphically described how in a world of unimaginable wealth a sixth of its population has a daily duel with death as they fight to attain basic needs, such as food, safe drinking water, shelter and access to medicine.

He said extreme poverty is a crisis that has worsened before our eyes and called on stakeholders to turn human rights into reality.

Dr Mary Robinson, veteran human rights campaigner, said the issue of human rights should underpin all efforts to tackle the scourge of world hunger.

The former president said fair trade practices were crucial if the developing world were to shake off the shackles of poverty.