Rome, 10 October 2024
MANIFESTO
We, Civil Society Organisations of Catholic inspiration belonging to the Forum Roma, who every day and all over the world encourage the welcome and inclusion of vulnerable people in order to make the world more and more a common home, wish to share with the International Community gathered in International and Regional Organisations, with policy makers in National Governments, with the Leaders of Civil Society and of Indigenous Peoples, with Private Sector and Foundation Representatives and with every Man and Woman in the world, this
CALL
so as to continue to work with concrete and incisive measures to eliminate hunger and misery in the world and to ensure access to and availability of adequate food in quantity and quality for all, allowing each person to lead a life of dignity.
Recalling the exhortation of Pope Francis, presented in the Encyclical Fratelli Tutti, confirmed at the FAO in the Message for World Food Day 2020 and renewed in the Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025, to work to eradicate hunger, as a ‘scandal, an open wound on the body of our humanity’, and to take action to establish ‘with the money that is spent on arms and other military expenditures [… ] a global fund that can finally put an end to hunger and favour development in the most impoverished countries, so that their citizens will not resort to violent or illusory situations, or have to leave their countries in order to seek a more dignified life”.’;
Considering the Goals the international community has set in Agenda 2030 to ‘transform our world and make it sustainable for future generations’, in particular Sustainable Development Goal No. 2, which calls for ‘ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture’;
Bearing in mind the importance of promoting timely and far-sighted actions that start ‘from the bottom’ and consider the many aggregations and organisations of civil society as credible and necessary interlocutors to ensure the social participation of all and experiences of solidarity that are truly incisive in improving the living conditions of many people;
In view of the significant FAO data that show that ‘between 713 and 757 million people may have gone hungry in2023’ and that ‘in 2023, it is estimated that 28.9% of the world’s population – 2.33 billion people – will be moderately or severely food insecure’ (see FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 – Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms, Rome 2024);
we declare the need for urgent and tenacious action:
1 – to establish, by accepting the Pope’s wish, a global fund that can finally put an end to hunger and favour development in the most impoverished
countries with the money that is spent on arms and other military expenditures;
2 – to realise the commitment expressed by donor countries to allocate 0.70% of their Gross National Income to official development assistance by 2030;
3 – for all public and private actors to operate responsibly in the agri-food sector and avoid and discourage as much as possible direct and indirect involvement in the financing of conflicts and military spending;
4 – to give greater visibility, by means of multiple initiatives with different targets, to the countless realities that bear witness to situations of extreme poverty, hunger and social injustice, as well as to the good practices that so many Civil Society Organisations, Movements and Catholic Associations carry out in the world.
5 – to foster sustainable, resilient and inclusive food production systems that involve local communities and indigenous peoples and offer them opportunities to create added value and diversified income.
6 – To adopt models of management in local communities that respect human rights, to contribute locally to the achievement of universal fraternity, social
amity and sustainability for future generations. Confident that we can make the cries of the Earth be heard and prepare a better future for all, to leave no one behind, we, Catholic-inspired Organisations, hope that this manifesto will take to a mutual and reciprocal encouragement for a more solidary, cohesive, fraternal and hopeful collaboration every day.
Confident that we can make the cries of the Earth be heard and prepare a better future for all, to leave no one behind, we, Catholic-inspired Organisations, hope that this manifesto will take to a mutual and reciprocal encouragement for a more solidary, cohesive, fraternal and hopeful collaboration every day.
The Forum Roma of Non-Governmental Organisations of Catholic inspiration
