ternational community to provide the High Commissioner with the financial means required by the tasks incumbent upon him,

1. Requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to pursue his efforts with a view to ensuring an adequate international protection of refugees and to providing satisfactory permanent solutions to the problems affecting the various groups of refugees within his competence;

2. Invites States Members of the United Nations and members of specialized agencies:

(a) To increase their support to the humanitarian action of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and to continue to co-operate with the High Commissioner in this respect;

(b) To make available to the High Commissioner the financial means required to ensure the full implementation of his programmes.*

1390th plenary meeting.

4 As of Apr. 30, 1965, 44 governments had paid or pledged contributions totaling $2,549,962 (including $600,000 by the United States) to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees program for 1965; annex VII to U.N. doc. A/6011/Rev.1.

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION

Document II-78

Statement Made by the U.S. Representative (Roosevelt) in Committee II of the U.N. General Assembly, December 10, 1965 (Excerpts)1

United States Support
for the Continuation of
the World Food Program

In spite of its small size thus far, the World Food Program is in our view one of the most constructive undertakings ever launched by the United Nations and its related organizations. It is an imaginative and resourceful use of voluntary contributions of surplus foods, shipping services, and financing. The resulting program has promoted economic and social objectives and effectively served the cause of development.

During the 3-year experimental period in which this program has been in operation, it has proved that it is possible to carry out, on a multilateral basis, food assistance programs directed not only at meeting emergency food needs and assisting in preschool and school feeding but also to stimulate economic and social development. . .

During its 3-year experimental period the program has used the pledges by some 70 countries amounting to just under $100 million. $68,700,000 was in the form of pledges of foodstuffs, $5,400,000 in services, principally shipping and handling, and $19,600,000 in the form of cash, to meet the administrative costs of the program.

1 Department of State Bulletin, Jan. 24, 1966, pp. 130-133.

2 See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1963, p. 173, and footnote 11 thereon.

One important feature of the program is that it involves such a close degree of cooperation among SO many parts of the U.N. family. Not only was it jointly created by the United Nations and FAO; it is being jointly executed by them with the help of the International Labor Organization, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Moreover, the regional economic commissions have been involved in its planning. This joint action is a feature which may well become an example for other U.N. activities.

The pledges of food consist principally (or about 60 percent) of cereals and cereal products, followed by dairy products, protein foods in the form of canned fish and meat, vegetable oils, and even some coffee and tea. These contributions have been used to assist in some 29 emergency situations in 22 countries. In addition, over 114 projects in more than 50 countries have been approved. In all of these, food is being and will be used to feed preschoolage children or to assist in development activities. 36 of the projects are in Africa, 43 in Asia, 20 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 15 in Europe. More than 17 different types of projects are included in the total. Some of these are projects to provide better nutrition for expectant mothers and for school lunches. There is a wide variety of projects in which food is being used for partial wage payments, while other projects involve land reform, land reclamation and development, afforestation, and a variety of public works projects and industrial projects.

We should not overlook the value of the WFP efforts that include assistance to refugee settlement, community improvement, and support to public health programs.

An important function of the World Food Program is to supply food to countries that have experienced disasters such as earthquakes or prolonged drought. Here food can be used not only to feed hungry people but as partial wages during

periods that they are working to rebuild their homes and replanting their farms. This is indeed a momentous record for a small, new program.

3

Speaking for my delegation, Mr. Chairman, I want to express our congratulations to the able Director of the World Food Program for the imaginative uses of the slender resources of the program for such a rich variety of activities that are contributing so directly to economic development. It is our hope that, when the program is extended and when, as we hope, its size is substantially increased by increased contributions in response to the new target of $275 million which will be established, it can go on to greater, more useful, and more varied activities.

I want to stress, that the ultimate solution to the problem of food deficiency lies in self-sustaining economic growth of developing countries, in order that they would find it possible to meet their food requirements from their food-producing industries or from the proceeds of their expanding export trade, and that the utilization of surplus foodstuffs therefore represented an important transitional means of helping these countries in their economic development.

. . . I am unashamedly proud of the role that my Government has had in making its food surpluses available to further the goals of economic development, not only through its own Food for Peace program but by helping in the establishment of this international effort. The U.S. contribution represents $50 million, or about half of the budget of the experimental 3-year period. This $50 million consisted of $40 million in foodstuffs and $10 million in cash and services.

In my statement in the general debate of this committee, I said that the United States is prepared to contribute up to 50 percent of the required commodities and up to 40 percent of the needed cash and

Addeke Hendrik Boerma (Netherlands), Executive Director, World Food Program, Food and Agriculture Organization, from 1962. (For his statement in Committee II of the UN. General Assembly, Dec. 10, 1965, on the operation of the program during 1963-1965, see U.N. doc. A/C.2/L.845.)

services. I would like now to be a little more specific with regard to the second part of that offer; Insofar as administrative costs are concerned, the United States is prepared to pledge up to $6 million over the 3-year period 1966-68, subject to the necessary congressional action. The shipping services additionally included in this part of the offer will be sufficient to cover the ocean freight on the commodities provided to the program by the United States.

Before closing, Mr. Chairman, I should like to take a few minutes to sum up. As Mr. Boerma, the Director of the World Food Program, pointed out in Geneva this summer, the final answer to the problem of hunger is increasing the food production of the developing areas to a point where they can meet their own basic needs and in the success of all of our efforts to assist development so that the countries concerned can pay for any food imports they might require. No one, Mr. Boerma continued, is more anxious than he to see a world in which food aid is unnecessary, but, until that time came, food aid would have to be given on a much vaster scale than at present.

In closing, let me repeat that hunger and malnutrition continue to be a major problem in large areas of this world. During the short period since the World Food Program was established by the General Assembly and FAO Conference resolutions of 1960 and 1961, it has done truly great work in using available food to relieve this hunger and contribute to the development efforts throughout the world. We hope that the program will not only continue this good work but that it will give increasing emphasis to using food to improve the agricultural production of developing countries since, as we all know, food aid in itself is not the permanent solution. It can, however, assist greatly in progress toward freedom from hunger by encouraging increased agricultural production in the hungry nations themselves.

My delegation, Mr. Chairman, supports wholeheartedly Resolution L.839, authorizing the continuation

* Oct. 15, 1965; text in the Department of State Bulletin, Nov. 15, 1965, pp. 798-805. 5 See footnote 2, above.

• Infra.

This draft resolution (U.N. doc. A/C.2/ L.841/Rev.1), cosponsored by the United Kingdom and the United States, requested the U.N. Secretary-General in cooperation with other U.N. organs and officials, to undertake a concerted study of multilateral food aid. The UN. General Assembly adopted it as A/RES/2096 (XX), Dec. 20, 1965. (U.N. doc. A/6014, pp. 33-34.)

SU.N. doc. A/6014, pp. 32-33. This resolution, recommended by Committee II of the UN. General Assembly, was adopted by a vote of 93 (including the U.S.) to 0, with 10 abstentions.

Text in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1960, pp. 85-87. 10 Text ibid., 1961, pp. 187-191.

11 See ibid., p. 188 and footnotes 22 and 23 thereon.

12 U.N. doc. E/4060.

Having considered the results obtained by the Programme during its initial phase and the contribution which it is making towards achieving the goals of the United Nations Development Decade and of the Freedom from Hunger Campaign undertaken by the Food and Agriculture Organization,

Taking note with satisfaction of the contributions of food-stuffs, money and services already made by States Members of the United Nations and members and associate members of the Food and Agriculture Organization, as well as the cooperation of recipient countries in the elaboration and implementation of development projects, in which for the first time food aid is being utilized for development in a multilateral framework,

General Assembly resolution 1714 (XVI) and the resolution adopted by the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on 24 November 1961, on a continuing basis for as long as multilateral food aid is found feasible and desirable, on the understanding that the Programme will be regularly reviewed before each pledging conference and that, if circumstances so require, it may be enlarged, curtailed or terminated at the end of any period for which resources have been pledged;

2. Establishes for the three-year period 1966-1968 a target for voluntary contributions of $275 million, of which not less than 33 per cent should be in cash and services, and urges States Members of the United Nations and members and associate members of the Food and Agriculture Organization to make every effort to ensure the early attainment of the target;

17

3. Requests the Secretary-General, in co-operation with the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization, to convene a pledging conference at United Nations Headquarters as soon as feasible;

4. Decides that the next subsequent pledging conference, subject to the review provided for in paragraph 1 above, should be convened in 1967, at which time Governments would be invited to pledge contributions for 1969 and 1970, with a view to reaching such target as may be recommended by the General Assembly and the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization;

5. Reaffirms its previous decision to the effect that the United Nations/FAO Intergovernmental Committee of the World Food Programme shall comprise twenty-four States Members of the United Na

1 At the 44th sess. of the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization at Rome, June 21-July 2, 1965, the U.S. delegation offered to contribute up to 50 percent of the commodities and 40 percent of the cash and shipping of the $275 million World Food Program during 19661968. Contributions of commodities, services, and cash totaling $208 million were offered by 44 governments at a pledging conference at New York, Jan. 18, 1966.

tions or members of the Food and Agriculture Organization, twelve of these members to be elected by the Economic and Social Council and twelve by the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization, it being understood that outgoing members shall be eligible for reelection;

6. Requests the Economic and Social Council and the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization, as soon as possible after the adoption of the present resolution by the General Assembly and the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization, to elect twelve members each, four members each for a term of one year, four members each for a term of two years, and four members each for a term of three years;

7. Decides that thereafter all the members of the United Nations/ FAO Intergovernmental Committee shall be elected for a term of three years, and requests the Economic and Social Council and the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization to make such provisions as will ensure that the terms of office of four members elected by the two Councils respectively shall expire in each calendar year;

8. Further requests the Economic and Social Council and the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization, when electing members of the United Nations/FAO Intergovernmental Committee, to take into account the need for balanced representation of economically developed and developing countries and other relevant factors such as the representation of potential participating countries, both contributing and recipient, equitable geographical distribution, and the representation of both developed and developing countries having commercial interests in international trade in foodstuffs, especially those highly dependent on such trade;

9. Requests a review of the General Regulations of the Programme in the light of the present resolution and calls upon the Economic and Social Council and the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization to take appropriate action.

1404th plenary meeting.