YouSaid · the spoken record

Morris

lines on the record: 163
first: 2002-12-03
most recent: 2005-06-30
sittings or episodes: 5
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“In some ways, he and I could not be more different in our political and economic outlooks. He is a leading Swiss socialist and I am a confirmed American capitalist. But he is a good guy and we have a good friendship. I hope he would say the same about me. We do not see the world through the same lens, but on one point we could not agree more: vulnerable, hungry people, especially women and children, have a right to food. And we agree that food should never be a weapon in war or an instrument of diplomatic coercion. President Reagan said that eloquently when he approved United States food aid for Ethiopia in 1985 during the great famine there, despite his strong antipathy toward the communist regime in Ethiopia at the time. He said simply, "A hungry child knows no politics".”
2005-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5220 (2005) · source
“Hunger is a symptom of failure: a failed harvest, failure to cope with a natural disaster and failure to overcome social inequities, ethnic strife and racial hatred. But addressing hunger and malnutrition and saving the women and children who suffer most require the cooperation of those in charge in the very areas where those failures take place. Even with the cooperation of civil authorities, delivering food and other humanitarian aid is a dangerous business. The World Food Programme has lost more staff to death than any agency in the United Nations, with the exception of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Assaults on convoys and hostage-taking are not uncommon. We have lost three staff members in the last few weeks in Darfur. The United Nations has a Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler.”
2005-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5220 (2005) · source
“Today there are 14 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa because of HIV/AIDS, and that number will grow to 20 million over the next five years. The demographics are strongly in place, and there is nothing we can do to turn that number around in the short run. I wish that I could find a way to stir up adequate public and media interest in the suffering in southern Africa. I will never forget a 70-year-old grandmother in Swaziland. She and her blind 80-year-old husband were heading a household with a dozen small children. Some were her grandchildren, others not. In much of Africa villages act as extended families. It is their form of social security. In some respects, that system has been the envy of the world. But that system is now stretched to the breaking point where AIDS has taken its greatest toll.”
2005-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5220 (2005) · source
“In 2003 Lesotho lost a third of its health workers and 15 per cent of its teachers. The Prime Minister of Lesotho said to me, "Jim, by 2010 half the teachers in our country will be dead because of AIDS". President Mwanawasa of Zambia told me that his country was losing teachers at twice the rate they were able to replace them. Outside many rural villages land lies fallow, with no one to till it. A generation has gone missing. There is no one to teach the next generation to farm. The fastest growth industry in the region is the business of producing funerals. AIDS has claimed the lives of nearly 8 million African farmers, more than the total number of farmers in North America and the European Union combined - a staggering fact.”
2005-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5220 (2005) · source
“More than 4 million people are at risk in Zimbabwe, 1.6 million in Malawi, 1.2 million in Zambia and 900,000 in Mozambique. The case of Zambia is particularly important when one thinks that in the last two years the World Food Programme was able to buy 150,000 metric tons of food in Zambia for use elsewhere in the world. The prevalence of HIV is taking a huge toll in terms of lives lost and reduced life expectancy. It is directly undermining the capacity of communities to produce enough food. HIV prevalence ranges from a low of 12 per cent in Mozambique to a high of 42 per cent of the adult population in Swaziland. Government ministers talk frequently about losing their closest colleagues to AIDS, and they worry that their educational and health systems are collapsing.”
2005-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5220 (2005) · source
“We are now entering the peak of the pandemic, the years 2005 to 2007. The numbers will continue to rise. On average, life expectancy in the region has decreased by 20 years. Think of that. In North America, Europe and Japan children can expect to live nearly twice as long as children in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Much of life expectancy in southern Africa is barely more than it was in Europe during the Middle Ages. If there is a sadness, something that is absolutely reprehensible, it is the impact of all of this on children. Earlier this year, the World Food Programme estimated that 3.5 million people would need emergency food aid in southern Africa. Today our estimate is that 8.3 million people will need food aid, in large part as a result the lack of rain in the region in January, February and much of March.”
2005-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5220 (2005) · source
“Recently, I had the privilege of making my fifth trip through southern Africa as the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Needs in Southern Africa. I was accompanied on the trip by Ann Veneman of UNICEF and Peter Piot of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). It is my judgement that the greatest humanitarian crisis we face today in the world is not in Darfur or Afghanistan or North Korea, as challenging as those issues are. It is the gradual disintegration of the social structures in southern Africa. Hunger is at the very core of that issue. A lethal mix of AIDS, recurring drought and failing governance and capacity is eroding social and political stability. The facts relating to southern Africa are extraordinary and overwhelming. Last year 1 million lives were lost to AIDS.”
2005-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5220 (2005) · source
“Indeed, I would say that without peace, there is no chance of reaching the Millennium Development Goals. You talked about the importance of accelerating the post-conflict process to address the Millennium Development Goals. You then said that prevention is just simply common sense, and that the best way to make progress in the area of development is through good governance. I admire a person who can so say much with such few words. Your comments were powerful. A few weeks ago, President Obasanjo of Nigeria made a trip to Rome to visit with the World Food Programme Executive Board. He came to talk about the relationship between food and peace and security. But he said something that I will never forget: "A hungry person is an angry person. It is in all of our interests to take away the cause of their anger".”
2005-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5220 (2005) · source
“Mr. Morris: I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to visit with the Council about a range of humanitarian issues, specifically as they affect peace and security in Africa. Yesterday, I listened carefully to the comments that you, Mr. President, made at luncheon. I thought that in just a few short sentences you offered extraordinary insight and guidance with respect to the humanitarian agenda and the development agenda as they relate to very tough issues of peace and security and the extraordinary impact that those issues have on hundreds of millions of people who are, truly, so desperately at risk. You said that it was important to focus on the essential. You said that there was no possibility of reaching the Millennium Development Goals without peace.”
2005-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5220 (2005) · source
“Security guards have not been paid for a long time, and it is very difficult to ask them to come back and resume their occupation when they do not have any confidence in compensation. I am grateful for the high praise that many here have given to the United Nations country teams and their national staff. We had 800 people with the World Food Programme in Iraq work right through the conflict, and they did a superior piece of work. I think that those are my comments. Once again, I am grateful for the privilege of being here and for the importance and value the Council attaches to the work that all of us do as it relates to issues of international security.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762Resumption1 (2003) · source
“I met with the two leaders of the Ministry of Trade when I was there last Sunday; they are working with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA). Every other day they have a senior staff meeting together with the United Nations agencies. There is a good sense of collegiality and of doing our work well together. We essentially have the food we need to do what we need to do. We still have a need for some salt and something called weaning cereals, but those are not substantial figures that we need to address. We will get that done. Security, in part, is being provided by the occupying militaries, but in the long run this needs to be provided by local people, and I am pleased with the commitment that people will begin to be paid in two days.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762Resumption1 (2003) · source
“Members of the Council should know that the United Nations family works pretty well together on the ground. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and WFP work as a good team. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) gets part of the credit for that; the United Nations Development Group gets part of the credit, too. I know the Council has a great focus on harmonization and on how we work together as a team. We do that really very well. We also work well with the Red Cross. We now have 10 NGO partners functioning in Iraq all across the country and doing a good job. We also, I believe, are working well - at least in our case - with the Ministry of Trade.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762Resumption1 (2003) · source
“It is important that the grain board and all of the infrastructure for acquisition and distribution of locally purchased commodities be put back in place. We try to buy locally every time we have the chance. I am grateful for the emphasis on security. There is no doubt in my mind that it is everyone's top priority. My sense is that a lot of the turmoil relates to the uncertainty of the Iraqi people and to their level of confidence that a system that has fed them for many years will still be there. I tried to say this morning that 60 per cent of the Iraqi people get 100 per cent of their food from the Government and that 100 per cent of the people get most of their food from the Government, so we are working at trying to give some degree of confidence to the Iraqi people that this system will continue to function.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762Resumption1 (2003) · source
“With what we have been able to pull out of the oil for food programme and with the approximately $500 million our donors have given us, we will have enough food - together with what is in Iraq's reserve stock - to feed the people of Iraq through the end of the year. We are very much focused on the issue of local purchase. The barley harvest and the wheat harvest are beginning right now and last a few weeks. The tradition in Iraq has been for the Government to buy these crops in their entirety. I think I mentioned this morning that it had been paying $75 per metric ton. It costs us about $200 per metric ton to move wheat into the country. With proceeds from the oil for food programme, we intend to buy at least one million metric tons. We will pay $105 per ton for the food.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762Resumption1 (2003) · source
“I should also thank the many Council members that have been incredibly generous in their support as it relates not only to Iraq, but in fact to our work all around the world. First, let me say that, as of 1 June, the 480,000- metric-ton monthly requirement will be in place. There will be adequate food in Iraq to feed every single citizen. Our plan is for WFP to help provide that food through oil for food resources and through donor support for the next five months. We are hopeful that the Ministry of Trade in Iraq will be back on its feet by then and able to work through its very successful and substantial distribution system. It has a distribution system of 44,000 outlets all across the country and it functions very well. Once we got into Iraq, we discovered that the country had more food reserves than we were aware of.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762Resumption1 (2003) · source
“Mr. Morris: May I first express our profound gratitude to you, Sir, and to all of your colleagues on the Security Council for the fact that you would be willing to spend as much time with us as you have today. You will never know how much your interest in what we do means to us and to our colleagues around the world. Fifty-nine staff members of the World Food Programme (WFP) have lost their lives in the past 14 years in the line of duty. The work our national and international staff do is oftentimes under the most difficult circumstances. The fact that we will be able to convey the Security Council's interest and the appreciation expressed by all will be a real boost to our team.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762Resumption1 (2003) · source
“Should it be called upon to do so, the World Food Programme stands ready to provide its expertise and capacity in this area to assist the Iraqi people.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762 (2003) · source
“At the same time, Iraq is a nation of tremendous potential wealth and resources. With the restoration of a functioning economy, it will eventually be able to make the transition from heavily subsidized food rations towards a market food economy. As it does so, it will be critical to maintain a safety net for the vulnerable and food insecure, especially young children, in areas where we have seen unusually high malnutrition rates. The population requiring a safety net would at the outset be very large. However, it would shrink over time as more and more economic opportunities became available. The World Food Programme has developed considerable expertise in supporting the development of a safety-net system.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762 (2003) · source
“WFP has supported the procurement and delivery of food commodities for public distribution during this time of upheaval in Iraq, and we look forward to handing over these responsibilities as a new administration comes online. The importance of the food ration provided under this system cannot be overstated during this time of transition. The entire population of Iraq depends on the rations to some degree, and 60 per cent of Iraqis who are dependent on the rations as their sole source of income sell part of them to pay for other household needs. As such, until there is political stability and broad economic recovery which benefits all sections of Iraqi society, the food rations will continue to provide basic household food security and act as a stabilizing force in this volatile period.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762 (2003) · source
“By way of comparison, the cost of importing wheat into Iraq is over $200 per tonne. The World Food Programme has set aside funds from the 13 per cent account and is further developing a project proposal to procure some 1 million tonnes of wheat locally in Iraq using United Nations escrow account funds, as provided for under resolution 1472 (2003). We will, in fact, pay the local farmers $105 per tonne. For this project to be successful, we need the immediate re-establishment of the administration of the Grain Board. This will require payment of salaries and replacement of looted weight scales, bagging equipment and office equipment, as well as security and currency arrangements for large-scale cash disbursements, given the absence of banking facilities.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762 (2003) · source
“Other pressing issues include the payment of salaries for Ministry of Trade staff implementing the public distribution system, as well as the provision of water, fuel and electricity supplies to mills in Iraq so they can produce wheat flour. Another pressing concern is the protection of Iraq's cereal harvest, estimated this year at some 1.7 million tonnes of wheat and barley. The harvest began last week and will continue into June. The Iraqi Ministry of Trade has traditionally purchased the local crop through a network of Grain Board buying centres spread throughout the production areas. In previous years, farmers have been offered a fixed price of some $75 per tonne of wheat, taking into consideration that they have also received subsidized seeds, fertilizers and pesticides from the Government.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762 (2003) · source
“Full distributions to the entire population will commence on 1 June through the 44,000 food agents placed all across Iraq. Advanced rations provided by the Government before the conflict supplied families with two months of provisions, and with the restoration of the public distribution system we are confident we can avoid any serious hunger among Iraqis. Today, there is no food crisis in Iraq. That being said, we still face a number of immediate challenges. First and foremost is the issue of security for staff, warehouses, silos, mills and offices. I raised this issue in Baghdad and was pleased to hear that it is considered to be the absolute, number-one top priority.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762 (2003) · source
“Resources for this operation so far have come both from the donor community - in fact, we have received support from more than 30 countries - and from food supplies available under the oil for food programme. WFP staff have been working hard to renegotiate food contracts under the provisions of Security Council resolutions 1472 (2003) and 1476 (2003). I am pleased to inform the Council that we have now identified a total of $947 million worth of food items from the oil for food programme, including their transport and distribution costs, which will be used towards this emergency operation. With those resources and existing in-country stocks, distributions have already begun to hospitals, social institutions and those who had not received their complete advance rations earlier.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762 (2003) · source
“And once the dredging by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and other work is completed, that port will become a major entry point for the World Food Programme. All those deliveries are gearing up to WFP's largest humanitarian operation ever. Our objective is to ensure that 480,000 metric tonnes of food a month are available to feed all 27 million Iraqis through their existing public food distribution system for a period of five months. At the conclusion of that five-month period, we plan that an Iraqi authority will be able to take over. During this operation, we will distribute 2.5 million tonnes of food - that is 48,000 truckloads - at a total cost of $1.85 billion.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762 (2003) · source
“Mr. Morris: On 11 May, I travelled to Baghdad to review first-hand the progress of the operations of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Iraq and to hold meetings with senior members of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs, the Ministry of Trade, which is overseeing the Iraqi food distribution system, and United Nations colleagues. I am pleased to report to the Council that tremendous progress has been made. The WFP has already delivered more than 200,000 metric tonnes of food - 3,800 truckloads - using five different logistics corridors through Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Kuwait. In addition, a shipment of WFP rice has moved through the port of Umm Qasr.”
2003-05-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4762 (2003) · source
“We are working closely with the FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and other organizations. Concerning the question from the representative of China, we have had a relationship with China for 40 years, and it is an extraordinary success story. China is one of the great success stories in the world in terms of letting the market function; hundreds of millions of people there who were not fed years ago are now fed. The agencies of the United Nations do work well together; we cooperate on these issues, and the notion of capacity for self-reliance is basic. Mr. President, when I tried to address the question of the representative of the United Kingdom, I tried to answer your question as well, but we will provide a thoughtful answer as to what the Council could do to help us and how we could work more closely together.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“Worldwide, the trend is away from investment in basic agricultural infrastructure: in 1988, the world committed $14 billion to that programme; last year, it committed $8 billion. Now there is some good news: the United States and the United Kingdom have both begun to turn their investments around in this area. Last year, the United States committed $200 million more to investment in basic agricultural infrastructure than it had the year before. So the trend had been downward, but now there is a bit of hope that it is beginning to head in the other direction. With regard to the question concerning Ethiopia, I am asked, "Jim, how can this happen again?" Well, our investments had been made in emergency relief as opposed to prevention and development, and I think we are beginning to learn that lesson.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“But many countries have made generous commitments; we now have commitments from 11 countries. And I should say that commitments come from countries that have very different views of the conflict. One of our strengths has been that we keep a narrow focus on humanitarian issues. People may have one View or another of the conflict, but no one wants human beings to starve, especially very vulnerable people who are severely at risk. So countries that have different views of the conflict will be comfortable about helping us. Last week, we had a tremendous commitment from Germany to help. I had a wonderful two days in Berlin, and I am profoundly grateful for that. My friend from Angola raised a question about the green revolution. I was saluting the Secretary- General for raising that issue and making that commitment.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“That means we will need to ask the donors for at least $1.1 billion in help to fund the rest of the programme, and we are in the process of doing that now. We have had dozens of conversations with many Council member countries and with all of our donors, and those conversations are going very well, if I may say so. I suspect that we have more than half of what we will need under the current negotiations, and we have people in Rome - where we have our headquarters - and, in fact, all over the world working around the clock to put this package together. The World Food Programme is a bit different in that sometimes it can take two, three or four months from the time a commitment is made until food is purchased, transported and delivered to someone. So timing is absolutely of the essence.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“Under resolution 1472 (2003), the oil-for-food resolution that the Security Council adopted a week ago Friday, the Council kindly gave us authority to have access to proceeds already encumbered through the oil-for-food programme as long as they were under transport within a period of 45 days. We have had only a short period of time in which to analyse the contracts, but our best estimate today is that $110 million of value will be available from the oil-for-food programme during that 45-day period to feed the people of Iraq. We are obviously very hopeful that the Council will find a way to extend the 45 days to a longer period of time and that it will address other footnote issues that are significant in terms of costs associated with transportation of those items.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“We feed about 700,000 people in Iraq who are very vulnerable, including those in orphanages, pregnant women and lactating mothers. The World Food Programme is also the logistical arm of the United Nations. We run the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service, we manage the communication systems in Afghanistan - we went in with Ericsson and installed an entire communication system in Kabul - and we manage transportation, trucks and the fuel supply, among other things. As a part of the consolidated appeal process, in which the United Nations family came together to request $2.2 billion in the short term for humanitarian issues in Iraq, we have asked for $1.2 billion for food and $100 million for logistical activities.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“Iraq is interesting in that 60 per cent of its people rely entirely on the central Government for food, and 100 per cent of its people rely on the central Government for part of their food. The country has had a successful public distribution system, with 44,000 outlets distributing food proceeds from the oil-for-food programme. So we would look at helping to ensure that there was a steady pipeline of adequate food resources available to feed Iraq's entire population for the second, third and fourth months. As the fifth and sixth months come along, we would assume that the oil-for- food programme would be fully back in place, administered by the Government of Iraq, and that our responsibility would be to continue to look after refugees, internally displaced persons and people who are very vulnerable.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“We have been a major implementer of the oil-for- food programme, directly implementing it in the north to about 4 million Kurds every day and helping to monitor it in the central and southern parts of the country. As we have been getting prepared for the conflict at hand, we have pre-positioned enough food in the countries on Iraq's perimeter to feed up to 2 million people for 30 days. So we have essentially focused on refugees or internally displaced persons who would make their way to the perimeter. We are now looking at a six-month programme that, in the first month, would focus on refugees and internally displaced persons - somewhere between 2 million and 4 million people. We are looking at ensuring that food is available in the second, third and fourth months to feed the entire population of Iraq - 27 million people.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“What form the lessons learned from RIACSO will take and how our work is re-formulated going forward are very important questions. Maybe, in part, this answers the question of the representative of Guinea. The representative of the Syrian Arab Republic raised a question as it relates to Iraq, and a new role for WFP. May I express our gratitude to Syria and to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both countries have made their own food reserves available to WFP to use in Iraq, where we can borrow from them as we need it, urgently and in a timely way. We will always repay them, but having the reserve right at hand has been a blessing to us. The WFP, as I said, has been in Iraq for 12 years now.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“This is the regional coordinating arm of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), UNDP, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), WFP, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); there are about 100 people working together to coordinate and cooperate on a regional basis. The response to the initiative in the six countries is that it works superbly well. The Southern Africa crisis will be a food crisis for a few more months. I am hopeful that we will work our way out of the agricultural predicament. Going forward, there will be an enormous crisis in Southern Africa related to governance and related to HIV/AIDS.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“The representative of France asked a question about coordination. I am not going to try to answer the question generally, but may I tell you that in Southern Africa the level of cooperation has been extraordinary. All of the United Nations agencies, plus the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the regional organization in Southern Africa, plus the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) and non-governmental organizations, have come together into something called the United Nations Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Support Office (RIACSO).”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“We have a good paper on lessons learned, and we will share it with Council members. A question was also asked about capacity- building policy. I suspect we have not seen ourselves as capacity-builders. In Afghanistan, we did provide food to pay the compensation of 150,000 schoolteachers. They had nothing else with which to pay them in Afghanistan. We have also used food to pay for rebuilding the bureaucracy in Afghanistan. There are other examples where we have done things like that, but we generally look to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to provide leadership in that sphere. Here I must mention the issue of coordination and how we all work together. Rebuilding the capacity of education, agriculture and health in that part of the world is so critically important that we are all going to have to be a part of it.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“We know how important small neighbourhood groups are to getting the job done and how important remarkable community leaders are. We have also learned how difficult it is to make the case for non-food aid items. We have learned that comparable dollars invested in seed, fertilizer and farm implements in the long run have more of a pay-off than comparable dollars invested directly in food. For the life of me, I cannot see why it is so much more difficult to make that case. It is beyond me. But we do know that. We have learned the value of early warning systems and of being well-informed. We know that the investments we make at the very beginning of a crisis - and the sooner we get there the better - are more powerful and have more leverage than what we do later on down the trail.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“There is no more important place in the world for that statement to be made than right here. Food, health and education are at the base of security and at the base of a good life for individuals. We will talk more about this, and we will give members the best answer of which we are capable. It will be a good exercise for my colleagues. The representative of Spain asked a question about lessons learned. We have learned that we do indeed know how to distribute food. A couple of years ago in Ethiopia, before I was there, we did a terrific job in getting food distributed so that people did not die. We knew how to do that. We are learning how to use food as a tool for prevention and investment and development. We know how to do that.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“We need to think more about that. I am grateful that Council members are thinking about it; as they communicate with their capitals, this becomes part of the dialogue. Usually, we relate to the Ministry of Agriculture. That is very important. When we relate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance, we are more successful in having a stronger country partner. On the issue of the politicization of food aid, I think, strong statements on that subject from the most important political body in the world, which this Security Council is, are very powerful and very important. People have to take what Council members say seriously. It is important to make the statement that it is the basic entitlement of a person to be fed if he or she is down and out - without a personal political agenda.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“The representative of the United Kingdom raised the question about what the Security Council can do. It is much the same question as the President raised. First of all, I think what the Council can do is to help put the humanitarian issues - food is one of them, and there are many - at the centre of the world's agenda. Humanitarian issues are security issues. If people are treated in a humane way and have the basic ingredients that lead to a life of hope, opportunity, fulfilment, the realization of potential and civil behaviour, I believe security issues will be mitigated or moderated. So what we are about has an enormous impact on families, on children and on other individuals, saving lives and propping up lives in such a way that people can begin to be productive citizens. In terms of reducing conflict, what we do is very important.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“Our programme this year is to feed nearly 3 million people in the country. We have had good success in the past raising nearly 75 per cent of the resources that we need to do our work there. It has been encouraging, in that it is one of the places where we have a very broad base of support. Nearly 20 countries help us in Somalia. There was a question from the United Kingdom. May I first express our appreciation to one of Sir Jeremy's colleagues, Anthony Beattie, who is our Executive Board President this year. He has extraordinary competence and effectiveness and is very bright. The question was about structural issues. Clearly, there are structural issues at every level. There are structural issues that affect the family farmer, that affect the marketing operation and that affect the system in which agriculture can survive and thrive.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“Mr. Morris: May I say that both rounds of questions have raised profound issues, and that it means a lot to the World Food Programme and our colleagues that Council members have all been so thoughtful about the work we are a part of. Clearly, I am unable to give Council members the answers they deserve this afternoon. As we did last time, we will respond in considerable detail in writing to all the questions; our responses will be available to everyone. The representative of Bulgaria asked a question about Somalia. The situation in Somalia is very troubled. It is a very, very difficult place to work in, and it is a difficult place to assess the magnitude of the difficulty, given the conflict. We have been there for a long time. It is one of the places where we operate the United Nations humanitarian air service.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“We have offered food as an incentive for people to lay down their weapons, and that has worked pretty well. Beyond that, this is an issue that I think we would be interested in thinking a little more about. We try to stay focused on the humanitarian agenda - the world does not want people to starve. We are especially concerned about the very vulnerable people at risk, including women and children. We try to absent ourselves from all of the other political debates going on. But the representative of Pakistan raised a question worth considering.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“Foreign exchange, which would allow for imports, is not available. The private sector does not function there. The donor community does function there. Those are issues that will require enormous leadership if the situation is to be turned around. The question from Pakistan about tying peace and security to food issues was absolutely on target. There is no question in my mind that hungry people behave differently from people who are not hungry. When people are fed and begin to learn they have hope and opportunity in their lives, and lives with hope, opportunity and a future are less likely to be violent. Clearly, we have talked about the issue of refugees and internally displaced persons. We have used food to some degree in conflict resolution in Angola and Sierra Leone.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“That gets to the issue of knowing what is likely to happen as soon as possible and being prepared for it. We need to make more investments in doing that better. The technology is there. In analysing what the problems are, historically we have looked only at food issues. But as we do our assessments today and analyse the severity of a problem, we need to look at other issues, too. I agree completely with my colleague from Germany. The issue of governance and leadership is a prime responsibility. Some countries, such as Zimbabwe, are having very difficult problems right now. I am a little more optimistic about the agricultural situation of Malawi and Zambia this year - likewise Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland. But the number of people at risk in Zimbabwe has increased, and agricultural production has not increased.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“We are doing a good job - we have raised about 70 per cent of what we need. The issue in Eritrea is much more difficult. We looked to raise more than $100 million, but the response has been less than 20 per cent. We work very well with the Government of Ethiopia. With regard to the question raised by the representative of Pakistan about the conflict, my sense is that there are 900,000 soldiers still in the Eritrean army who are being repatriated. Not having that manpower available for agricultural work has been a huge factor in the problem in Eritrea. So I think that the conflict has exacerbated the problem - there is no question about that. Investments in early warning systems, in assessment systems and in surveillance systems for agriculture and health are incredibly important.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“Some of our most important investments are in food-for-work programmes, whereby we make resources available to feed people if they participate in the rebuilding of a community's infrastructure. In that way the community wins and the family wins. We are very troubled by the fact that today only 20 per cent of our resources are aimed at long-term development - at prevention. That is a huge problem in a place like Ethiopia; it is a huge problem around the world. Our colleague from Chile asked a question about assistance required for Ethiopia and Eritrea. It has been our plan to feed about 40 per cent of the hungry people in Ethiopia, with the rest being handled by the Government, by non-governmental organizations or bilaterally. We have been raising something in the neighbourhood of $205 million there.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“But, working with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, we are conducting three times as many natural disaster assessments today as we did in 1965, and twice as many as in 1990. There has been a change. There are presumably limited resources, and the resources have gone to keep people alive and to reduce human suffering in an emergency context. In emergencies we try as much as possible to ensure that our work has long-term development implications. If we feed a child and encourage that child to go to school, that is development. If we feed a child and enhance the nutritional content of the food with iodine, vitamin A or iron, that is development in a human resource for that country for a long period of time.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source
“We will need 3.8 million metric tons of food to do our work in Africa this year; we will need $1.8 billion, plus the $300 million that we carried over from last year. Eight of our 10 top donors increased their support for the World Food Programme dramatically last year. We need to keep that support growing. We need new donors, and we need help from the private sector. With regard to the question from Cameroon - we have a regional office in Yaounde; Cameroon has been a great friend - 10 years ago, 80 per cent of our support was for development. Today, 80 per cent of our support is for emergency relief. I do not know what has happened in the world - I am not a scientist.”
2003-04-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4736 (2003) · source