UN to honour 4 Caribbean leaders for efforts at eradicating hunger

Fighting hunger in Haiti

The United Nations will on Sunday honour four Caribbean leaders for the roles their respective countries have played in meeting the international target on hunger eradication.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) announced on Monday that it would honour the leaders of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Cuba, Guyana and the Dominican Republic for the roles that have played in reaching the anti-hunger goals.

The Caribbean states are among 38 others that have already met internationally-set hunger eradication targets for 2015.FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said in a media release, "These countries are leading the way to a better future. They are proof that, with strong political will, coordination and cooperation, it is possible to achieve rapid and lasting reductions in hunger."

He urged all countries to "keep up the momentum, aiming for the complete eradication of hunger," in keeping with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Zero Hunger Challenge.

The initiative was first proposed at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Brazil last June with the ambitious goal of ensure that in the future every individual has adequate nutrition.

Its five objectives are:

• to make sure that everyone in the world has access to enough nutritious food all year long
• to end childhood stunting
• to build sustainable food systems
• to double the productivity and income of smallholder farmers, especially women
• to prevent food from being lost or wasted