Suchergebnisse

Agricultural and rural development and the eradication of hunger and malnutrition are among the chief aims of the international development strategy for the Third United Nations Development Decade. In realising these aims the major focus has to be on achievement of national and collective self-sufficiency in food in developing countries. This international concern for agricultural and rural development in developing countries and securing adequate supplies of food for the peoples of these countries to eradicate hunger and endemic malnutrition among them, is of particular interest to South Asia which is the most populated and one of the poorest geographical regions of the world.

An important factor of international economic relations today is that the developed market economy countries produce much more food than they need for their own consumption while the developing nations have to import food-grains at heavy cost from the former to feed their growing population. The cereal imports of all developing countries in 1978/79—1979/80 amounted to 86.2 million tonnes. Of this only 9.2 million tonnes was received in food aid from the developed countries;1 the rest had to be paid for. Food imports thus imposed a big strain on the external payments account of the developing countries. That, however, is not the only or even the major problem in the distribution of world food supplies between the developed North and the poor South. Because of their poverty, the average daily energy in-take per person in the latter group of countries in 1974–76 was 2180 Kcal compared to 3315 Kcal in the former. Out of the total population of 2259 million (excluding China) in developing countries, 435 million or over 19 per cent were undernourished.2 At the root of the low levels of food consumption and undernourishment in these countries, lay the poor performance of agriculture. As against 5.4 tonnes per hectare in the developed countries, the average yield of paddy in the developing countries in 1974–76 was 1.9 tonnes and that of wheat 1.9 and 1.3 tonnes respectively.3 The close association between under development, backward agriculture and under-nourishment of a large section of the population needs to be noted.

Despite petrodollars, ideological and economic divisions in the Middle East make for difficult agricultural development. High food deficits plague the area and projections are for Increased consumptlon and food shortfalls. However, the area has seen some dramatic production and development growth and external food aid t ofurther this development seems worthwhile for the Middle East and the West.

As a public policy objective in Japan, food security shifted from one that had near consensus support after World War 11 to one that caused deep political divisions among a variety of groups and political actors. Japan continues to reconcile levels of commodity self‐sufficiency with a variety of domestic public policy issues and external conditions that work for and against the goal of this industrialized nation feeding itself.

Much of the discussion and study in the field of international organization has long been beset by a sterile encounter between the "uncritical lovers" and the "unloving critics" of formal intergovernmental organizations, of which the UN family is the preeminent example. The former have seen in those institutions and their procedures precursors of a regime of international law, if not of a world government, characterized by greater rationality, order, and cooperation and by less conflict in interstate relations; they have often been mentally fixed on a dominant image of international order, an image whose flaws and other characteristics were well analyzed by John Ruggie several years ago. The latter have seen them largely as shadow plays, at best reflecting and at worst having nothing to do with the power relations among states, which are the real determinants of state behavior in an anarchic system. The split between the two corresponds roughly, if not identically, to another fundamental divide among theorists of international relations, namely, that between idealists and realists.

SUMMARY The problem of 'world hunger' as it is conventionally understood in fact involves a number of related problems. A weakness of the North's response is its failure to recognise interrelationships between these problems, which often fall within the portfolios of different agencies. The EEC's agricultural production and trade policies, for example, have a major impact on the Third World food situation, but are normally regarded as a constant; hence, European attempts to help alleviate the 'world hunger problem' tend to focus exclusively on development assistance. Within these narrow confines, there are a number of policy changes that could benefit developing countries. These include an extension to the Stabex scheme to take account of food import costs, as well as major improvement in the Community's food aid programme to establish greater coordination with other donors and between the Community's programme and other elements of the recipients' food strategies.RESUMEN Pespuestas de la Comunidad Europea al 'problema del hambre mundial':ayuda alimenticia, seguridad alimenticia, estrategias alimenticias, etc.El problema del 'hambre mundial', como se entiende convencionalmente, involucra de hecho problemas interrelacionados. Una debilidad de la respuesta del Norte deriva de no reconocer estas interrelaciones, las que, a menudo, aparecen en las carteras de diversas agencias. Por ejemplo, las políticas de producción y comercio agrícolas tienen mayor impacto en la situación alimenticia del Tercer Mundo, pero normalmente se consideran como una constante. En consecuencia, los intentos europeos para ayudar a aliviar el 'problema del hambre mundial' tienden a concentrarse exclusivamente en la asistencia al desarrollo. Dentro de estos estrechos límites, hay algunos cambios de política que podrían beneficiar a los países en desarrollo. Estos incluyen una extensión del programa Stabex para considerar los costos de importación de alimentos, así como un importante mejoramiento en el programa de ayuda alimenticia de la Comunidad, tanto para establecer mayor coordinación con otros donantes, como entre el programa de ésta y otros elementos de las estrategias de los receptores de alimentos.RÉSUMÉ Les réponses de la Communauté Européenne au 'probleème de la faim dans le monde': assistance alimentaire, sécurité alimentaire, stratégies alimentaires et tout ce qui s'en suitLe problème de la 'faim dans le monde' auquel on se réfère habituellement comprend en fait un nombre de problèmes apparentés. Une faiblesse de la réponse du Nord est son incapacité à reconnaître la corrélation entre ces problèmes, qui souvent font partie de portefeuilles d'organismes différents. La politique de la CEE sur le commerce et la production agricole, par exemple, a un impact majeur sur la situation alimentaire dans le Tiers‐Monde, mais est normalement considérée comme une constante; de ce fait, les tentatives européennes d'aide à la réduction du 'problème de la faim dans le monde' tendent à se concentrer exclusivement dans une assistance au développement. Dans ces limites réduites, il y a un certain nombre de changements de ligne d'action qui pourraient profiter aux pays en voie de développement. Ils comprennent une extension du projet Stabex en vue de prendre en compte le coût de l'importation de denrées alimentaires, ainsi qu'une amélioration majeure dans le programme d'assistance alimentaire de la Communauté pour établir une coordination plus grande avec les autres donateurs et entre le programme de la Communauté et d'autres éléments des bénéficiames des stratégies alimentaires.