FAO Head Warns Of Funding Gap For Food Security Activities In Sahel, Horn Of Africa

Speaking at an economic forum in Madrid, Spain, "[t]he head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO], Jose Graziano da Silva, warned Thursday of a major funding gap for activities in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa," Agence France-Presse reports. "He added that boosting food security entailed combining emergency action with support for family farming and smallholder production, as well as promoting long term development and reducing vulnerability to extreme events, like drought," the news agency writes (5/10). According to the U.N. News Centre, Graziano da Silva also called for the involvement of "civil society, private enterprise, international agencies, and the governments of developing and developed countries" to help fight chronic hunger and malnutrition -- which affects one of every seven people in the world -- because it "is a challenge too great for FAO or any government to overcome alone" (5/10).