Vatican's U.N. observer stresses need to eradicate world hunger

31 May, 2013 - Finding a solution to the "ongoing scandal" of worldwide hunger should be a top priority, said the Vatican's representative to the United Nations. Addressing a U.N. General Assembly meeting on sustainable development goals May 23, Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, Holy See’s Permanent Observer to United Nations in New York, called it "a shame that so many of the poor people in the world continue to find themselves helpless victims of chronic hunger." He urged the U.N. to find "sustainable models of food security and nutrition" to end hunger for nearly 1 billion people worldwide particularly when the international community can "produce sufficient food for every human being." He also described world hunger and malnutrition as "all the more egregious when we grasp the reality that malnutrition remains the world's biggest health risk -- claiming more victims each year than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined." The archbishop called the lack of access to adequate food and nutrition "a moral and humanitarian crisis exacerbated by manmade policies and practices" such as failing to provide access to markets for producers in developing countries, diverting food resources from consumption to energy production, waste of food resources and armed conflicts. "In face of the world's hungry, the grotesque spectacle of foodstuffs being forcibly destroyed in order to preserve higher market prices for producers, primarily in developed countries, constitutes a reprehensible practice which prioritizes economic profit over the needs of those starving," Archbishop Chullikatt said. (Source: CNS)