|
April
4 - 5, 2003
Summary
Note
Speeches
and Papers
Programme
Background
Note
Framework
of Priority Issues
Media
Reaction
________
Also
See
Towards
Hunger Free India
________
Publications
Towards Hunger Free India: Agenda and Imperatives
Enabling
Development
Food
Insecurity Atlas of Rural India
|
|
|
As India stands on the verge of
implementing the Tenth Five-Year Plan, an unparalleled opportunity has
been presented to prioritise the most urgent of targets and to restate
the joint
commitment to the cause of freedom from hunger. The
Honourable Prime Minister of India had made a commitment of achieving a
Hunger Free India by 2007 during the "Towards
Hunger Free India" (April, 2001) consultation. However,
to reach this goal, it is necessary to plan and implement
practical and feasible steps of action - begin a countdown. |
|
In view of this, United
Nations World Food Programme, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation and
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations jointly
organised the "Towards Hunger-Free India - Countdown from
2007" consultation.
The
consultation was inaugurated by Shri K. C. Pant, the Honourable Deputy
Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India.
|
|
The
Consultation focussed on:
-
The
Challenge of hunger and under-nutrition – qualitative,
quantitative, spatial and gender-specific.
-
The
Response – in terms of the Government of India's Tenth
Five-Year Plan goals and targets for food and nutrition security,
outlining the strategy for reaching major goals, assessing the
effectiveness of existing programmes to meet stated targets,
identifying the gaps which remain.
-
The
Way Forward – using
innovative means for the convergence of programmes: a) horizontal
linkages, b) the life cycle approach, c) the grass-roots approach
through the mobilisation of potential leaders/catalysts – the one
million women panchayat members, d) public-private partnerships,
etc.
The
expected outputs were:
-
Prioritization
of the most urgent targets to begin the countdown.
-
Framework
of critical strategies/mechanisms for achieving selected targets.
-
Identification
at national and state level of innovative institutional arrangements
and government–private sector–civil society partnerships for the
implementation of these strategies.
More
specifically, it was expected to formulate a concrete proposal for
alleviating malnutrition and hunger in India for submission to the
Government of India. The proposal aimed to highlight the importance
of hunger and malnutrition issues in poverty alleviation programmes
and suggest concrete steps to synergise basic necessities
like water, sanitation and access to nutritious food.
|
Countdown
from 2007