http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/index/ en U.S. Department of State 2009-11-07T00:24:20+00:00 About the Author: David Nelson serves as Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs. Video Text

I am fortunate this week to be missing the snow back in Washington, as I lead the U.S. delegation to the High Level Meeting on Food Security for All held in Madrid, Spain, Jan. 26-27. I am even more fortunate to be working on a critically important issue that makes a real difference in people’s lives around the world.

On Monday, I had the honor to be joined “virtually” here in Madrid by our new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. In a videotaped message to attendees, which you may also view in the player above, she stressed that the United States is committed to building a new partnership among donor states, developing nations, UN agencies, NGO’s, the private sector and others to better coordinate our policies on food security. Numerous delegations sought me out to express appreciation for the video, both for its content and for the concrete demonstration of how important this issue is to the U.S. government.

As Secretary Clinton made clear in her remarks, food security is critically important; alleviating hunger worldwide is a top priority of this Administration. Food insecurity and high food prices threaten the prosperity and security of many developing countries.

With the complex global challenges we share in this new century, we need the collaboration and coordination among nations that is evident at this meeting. The session was convened by the Government of Spain, and it has brought together a broad range of committed stakeholders and Ministers from more than 126 countries.

At this meeting, there are people from national governments, civil society, trade unions, private sector, academia, donor agencies and multilateral organizations. It’s rewarding to be a part of this diverse group, all working together to review progress achieved since the High-Level Conference on World Food Security in Rome in June of last year, to agree on ways to move forward quickly, and to establish mechanisms for better coordination.

I’m confident we are making important steps in our efforts toward furthering global efforts to find a long term solution to hunger. When I get back to Washington, I look forward to continuing to advance our work to decrease hunger and food insecurity.

And who knows, maybe the snow will have melted by the time my plane touches down.]]> http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/entires/food_for_thought/ 2009-01-27T21:33:01+00:00