BENEFICIARY TURNED DONOR

At the beginning of the 21st century, on the initiative of the UN and its structural division - the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 185 nations of the world adopted a declaration called "Millennium Develop-ment Goals". The main purpose of the document is the tangible reduction of poverty and hunger in the world by 2015. After 13 years, nearly two dozen countries were able to significantly reduce the number of starving people and ensure their own food security. Among them is also Azerbaijan, which received a special FAO prize awarded on 15-22 June at a conference held in Rome.

Employment against poverty

The main theme of the FAO session in Rome was aspects of the international fight against famine - the main mission of the "Millennium Development Goals" adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000. Food shortages and hunger still remain a big scourge for humanity: the FAO report for 2012 says that the vast majority of starving people, namely, 852 million live in developing countries, accounting for about 15% of their population. More than 16 million people suffer from malnutrition in developed countries.

"However, the example of a number of developing countries shows that with political will, coordination and international cooperation, the problem of fast and long-term reduction in the level of hunger is achievable," said FAO General Director Jos? Graziano da Silva.

During the Rome session, which was attended by heads of state and members of governments, including a delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture of Azerbaijan, a ceremony was held to award the states that achieved the best performance in the fight against hunger. By the decision of the FAO management, 18 states received diplomas for the early achievement of the main "millennium development goal" - to halve the number of starving people by 2015, as well as more stringent goals of the World Food Summit (WFS) - the sustainable development of the agricultural complex in order to halve the absolute number of starving people by the required period.

Azerbaijan has confidently joined the countries that achieved both goals. Among other nominees are a number of African, Asian and Latin American states, while the post-Soviet region was also represented by Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Armenia. During the recent awards ceremony, FAO Director General Jos? Graziano da Silva presented the official representatives of governments, including Azerbaijani Minister of Agriculture Ismat Abbasov, with a special award of the organization for their achievements.

What concrete achievements did our country achieve in the implementation of the basic aims of the "Millennium Development Goals"?

The government programmes for the socio-economic development of regions, support for business, industrial development and food security, implemented in the country in the last decade, have substantially reduced unemployment and poverty. For example, last year alone 117,000 new jobs were created in the country and in general, over 1.2 million people have been employed since 2004. But according to UN experts, one of the main causes of hunger in the world is related to high rates of poverty and unemployment. In Azerbaijan, over the last decade, the level of poverty was reduced from 48 to 6% by the end of last year. Given the fact that the UN links the problems of poverty and hunger, FAO experts believe that our country has fully achieved objective number 1.

Food self-sufficiency

Another cause of hunger and food shortages in the world is related to the inability of some developing countries to achieve the proper development of agriculture and the food industry to fully provide the population of the country with needed amounts of food. Such states are highly sensitive to fluctuations in the situation on world food markets. During periods of peak price growth, the poorest countries face a shortage of cheap bread, rice, vegetables and other basic food products, while the multiplying effect fans the rise in prices in other sectors of the agricultural industry, often provoking a prolonged hunger.

In this situation, the activities of the Azerbaijani government were aimed at preventing the "import" of food inflation and other "globalization" negativity into the country. In recent years, Azerbaijan has achieved considerable success in achieving food self-sufficiency. This was aided by the consistent policy of financing agriculture through public funds - the National Fund to Support Entrepreneurship (NFSE) and Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC), the formation of the state leasing unit Agrolizing, subsidies and grants to farmers, the development of irrigation systems, etc. Thanks to government support for the private sector, the country has created dozens of new poultry farms, livestock complexes and greenhouses, built grain elevators and refrigerators and formed large grain-producing agricultural complexes.

Today, Azerbaijan's population gets more than 80% of required food from the domestic food industry, and every year local products oust imported ones more and more. In particular, domestic production almost completely covers the demand for meat and dairy products, vegetable oil, sugar, canned fruits and vegetables and, of course, fresh seasonal crops. Azerbaijan has achieved stability in grain self-sufficiency: last year nearly 2.8 million tons of the crop were collected. Thus, local manufacturers already provide almost 90% of the country's bread and fodder. And according to forecasts by the Ministry of Agriculture, large agricultural complexes created today will make it possible to get more than 3 million tons of grain in the next year or two, thus completely eliminating the need to import it.

The effectiveness of the food safety policy is clearly demonstrated by statistics: in January-March this year, Azerbaijan imported goods worth more than $ 2.2 billion, while the share of food in total imports was slightly above 10%. For comparison - 5-6 years ago food accounted for nearly a quarter of the total imports of the country. According to expert Oqtay Haqverdiyev, this is a very good indicator, because in a number of developing countries the share of food in the structure of imports is close to 50%.

Thus, Azerbaijan, which is developing agriculture and the food industry, was able to fulfill the basic conditions of the WFS. Specifically, the matter is about increasing public and international funding for agriculture, attracting investment in new intensive technologies, as well as partnership between the public and private sectors in the agrarian field.

By the way, in the past FAO experts repeatedly cited as an example our country which has made considerable progress in recent years in the development of agriculture and food security and attained considerable success in overcoming the problem of hunger. Thus, based on the statistics of 2005-2007, more than two years ago FAO included Azerbaijan on the list of states with the lowest level of hunger - less than 5%.

The country's success in achieving food security prompted FAO to include Azerbaijan on the list of donor states. The republic will participate in transactions and co-finance projects in third countries with the UN, providing food security at the regional level. In April last year, the 28th FAO Regional Conference held in Baku decided to open a regional office of this organization in Azerbaijan. The responsibilities of the regional office include not only the implementation of projects in our country, but also assistance to Azerbaijan in establishing technology partnerships with neighbouring countries with the support of UN agencies.

The meeting of the FAO Board in Rome agreed on the final details of the regional office created in Baku, and the ceremony to open the office is planned for the end of the year.