Food security and Millennium Development Goals
Despite all efforts, food insecurity remains a serious concern in many parts of the world. The EU has demonstrated its continued commitment to address such concern.
The adopted Food Facility and other existing measures, including the CAP reform process and Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) contribute to address the food security issue.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been once again high on the political agenda since the Accra meeting in September 2008 and the Doha Financing for Development Conference in November 2008. When reviewing progress in achieving the MDGs halfway towards the target date of 2015, it becomes clear that a lot still needs to be done. Significant work and efforts are, for example, still required on MDG 1 (eradicating extreme poverty) and MDG 7 (environmental sustainability). These topics were discussed within the context of the 17th session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UN-CSD).
The MDG report released by the UN in 2009 
, warns that despite many successes, overall progress has been too slow for most of the targets to be met by 2015. Major advances in the fight against poverty and hunger have begun to slow or even reverse as a result of the global economic and food crises. Coming amid mixed progress toward the goals and new crises that threaten the global effort to halve extreme poverty, in September 2010 world leaders will attend a summit to boost efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (2010 MDG Review Summit).
In March 2010 the EU has adopted a Communication on the EU policy framework to assist developing countries in addressing food security challenges
, which will feed into the preparation of a common EU position for the September event; it is part of a wider package of thematic papers on other MDG issues – health, education, gender, taxation as well as the 2010 Spring development package which will highlight progress so far towards the MDGs.
EU-Africa Strategy
In order to achieve positive results reinforced international cooperation and a common response is required. A good example could be the Joint Africa-EU Strategy which provides an overarching long-term framework for Africa-EU relations, while its first Action Plan specifies concrete proposals for 2008-2010, structured along 8 Africa-EU strategic partnerships in the following areas: peace and security, democratic governance and human rights, trade and regional integration, achieving the MDGs, and energy, as well as science, the information society and space (more information). From an agriculture point of view the following three partnerships are important: trade and regional integration, achieving the MDGs, and climate change. The 3rd Africa-EU Summit is due on 29-30 November 2010 in Tripoli, Libya where the second Action Plan for 2011-2013 will be endorsed.
EU role in agriculture sector
Agriculture is key to food security. In order to ease the global pressure on food security, the EU has reduced significantly its export refunds. The days when the EC used export subsidies to be an active player on world commodity markets and expand its market share are long gone. In 1980, export subsidies and market support took up the whole CAP budget. By contrast, in 2009, export subsidies and market support represented just 10% of the budget with export subsidies now representing less than 2% of the CAP budget.
As of on 1 June 2010, the only main commodities where refunds are still applied are poultry, eggs, pork meat and beef.
The table below illustrates the direction that the CAP has been following for more than a decade: payments decoupled from production have been introduced and their share has been increasing while traditional market support, which is trade distortive, is in constant decline.
In addition to this, the funds allocated to rural development measures, which aim at boosting farm competitiveness, environment and quality of life in rural areas, are on the increase (see Graph).
