Meanwhile people are going hungry

Saturday, May 17, 2008

This from Reuters:

"ROME (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. food agency hit back on Thursday at criticism from the president of his home country Senegal, who has called the organisation "a bottomless pit of money largely spent on its own functioning."

Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation since 1993, said the broadside from President Abdoulaye Wade was politically motivated and factually incorrect."

Diouf is actually a former Senegalese minister himself. President Wade has pushed a Senegalese agricultural self-sufficiency program, something that doesn't look to put food on Senegalese plates right away.

The Reuters story states that Senegal has one of the largest per capita food import figures. It stands to reason that skyrocking fuel prices would hit Senegal harder than most.

Between the lines we read that Wade wants food programs based in Africa where he has more control over them.

If Wade's agricultural self-sufficiency program starts to show success, maybe closer integration with world support is justified. But the UN is addressing an immediate food crisis that is giving President Wade his one of his biggest political liabilities. Not only is picking a fight to divert attention short sighted--it is below the statemanship that Wade has shown up to now.