Future Action

Abstract

Two specific proposals have been made to end hunger and achieve the MDGs established in the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000. George McGovern, US congressman and senator, the first director of the US Food for Peace programme in the Kennedy Administration, and the candidate of the Democratic Party for US president in 1972, has been a constant and tireless proponent of the conquest of world hunger for over half a century. As this history has shown, he has made a number of proposals to end hunger in the world and took the personal initiative that led to the founding of the UN World Food Programme in 1961 (Shaw, 2001b). More recently, while US ambassador to the UN food and agriculture agencies in Rome, Italy, he advocated another strategy to defeat world hunger (McGovern, 2001). His strategy consists of a five-point initiative: a school lunch programme to reach every child in the world; a worldwide special nutrition programme for women, infants and children; the establishment of food reserves globally; an assistance programme to help developing countries improve their own food production, processing and distribution; and the dissemination of the results of high-yielding scientific agriculture, including genetically modified crops.