Out of the 842 million people worldwide suffering from hunger, 796 million live in developing countries and  315 million ( 2001) live in Sub-Sahara Africa. World wide, half the people suffering from hunger live in farm households. This means the greatest effort to end hunger and poverty should be in the rural areas where farmers live.

The adoption of the Millennium Development Goals by many governments of developing and developed countries is enough evidence of the common agreement on the urgency to end world poverty and hunger.  At the global level there have been policy declarations and policy initiatives, towards this. Some of these have been the widespread formulation and the adoption of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), US Initiative on HIV/AIDS, foundation initiatives such as the Gates foundation and the Clinton fund, the UN Task Force on Hunger, FAO’s IAAH, and the Africa Blair Commission.

IFAP Recommendations for eliminating rural poverty and achieving food      security. Policy Statement November 2004      Rome Declaration on World Food Security and Plan of Action of the World      Food Summit. FAO     The State of Food and Agriculture 2003-2004. FAO     The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2003. FAO

FAO - World Food Summit   MDG - The Millennium Development Goals   WTO Doha Development Agenda NEPAD             World Bank-Implementation of the RSPs                      World Bank Rural Week 2004 IFAD               CGIAR African Rice Center                     ILRI - International Livestock Research Institute                         IITA – International Institute of Tropical Agriculture      Dakar Agricole              ILC- International Land Coalition  Mercy Karanja Development Policy Coordinator