[afro-nets] In preparation of People's Health Assembly II - part 15

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

In preparation of People's Health Assembly II - part 15
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Note of interest on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs):

As many of you know, in 2002, the Secretary-General commissioned
the Millennium Project. Its purpose is to recommend an opera-
tional framework that will allow all countries to achieve the
MDGs by 2015. Almost 300 experts are engaged in ten thematically
oriented Task Forces. A UN Expert Committee oversees the project
implementation. Interim Task Force reports were available in
early 2004 and will be finalised by the end of the year. The fi-
nal recommendations will be presented to the Secretary General
in June 2005.

The Hunger Task Force is of special relevance and interest for
PHM. A careful reading of the 220-page document reveals disturb-
ing weaknesses. First, nutrition is reduced to food consumption,
and food consumption is reduced to food production, which in
turn is reduced to small-holder agricultural production. More-
over, given that the focus of the interim report is on sub-
Saharan Africa, it is quite surprising that the HIV/AIDS catas-
trophe is not recognised as the key factor in the current food
and humanitarian crisis in Southern Africa.

Second, and even more disturbing, is the fact that the report
totally neglects human rights. The right to food is discussed on
one page with the conclusion that "Making the right to food into
an operational concept is a challenge, and questions remain of
how to specifically create and enforce this right" (p. 117). If
the United Nations is "emphasising the centrality of human
rights in all activities of the system," it would seem that a
major purpose of the Hunger Task Force should have been to ad-
dress this challenge.

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[1] See http://www.unmillenniumproject.org

[2] The Millennium Hunger Task Force, Halving Hunger by 2015: A
Framework for Action, Interim Report of the Millennium Project
Hunger Task Force, December 15, 2003.

Download latest Report (February 2004) as Adobe PDF file (1.2 MB):
http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/tf2interim.pdf