FAO AND MWALIMU NYERERE’S VISION

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has its 33rd Governing conference ended in Rome on 26th November 2005 by approving a budget of 765.7 million USD for the coming 2 years. The conference also re-elected Jacques Diouf for a third 6-year term as Director-General. Normally such conferences are preceded by McDougall Memorial Lectures in honour of Frank McDougall, an Australian who proposed the UN FAO. This year’s Lecture was delivered by David Beckam, President, Bread for the World and the US Alliance to End Hunger. Delivering the same kind of Lecture in the 12th Session of the Conference, 42 years ago, the first President of Tanzania (then Tanganyika in 1963), Julius Nyerere warned about bias towards social against economic change and vice versa. What Mwalimu forecasted in those years and cautioned have been recurrent stories in the FAO’s conferences. Stories like Hunger slows millennium goals, Better education helps reduce malnutrition, Failure to educate childen perpetuates hunger and $96 million for urgent agricultural relief in 14 emergencies are key examples. NYERERE, What a man of VISION!!