On the eve of the World Summit on Food Security, the first ladies of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) met on Sunday at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) headquarters here to discuss women's role in the global fight against hunger.
The meeting was chaired by Suzanne Mubarak of Egypt, wife of President Hosni Mubarak, and focused on how to improve women's access to productive resources in order to reduce famine.
The NAM first ladies identified a series of steps to address through exchange of national experiences in ensuring women's access to land and credit.
According to FAO's data, women worldwide have access to merely 10 percent of credit and 2 percent of arable land, despite the fact that they constitute the backbone of agriculture workers and are responsible for half of global food production.
The meeting was attended by first ladies coming from 20 NAM countries, such as Pakistan's Begum Fauzia Yusuf Raza Gilani and Iran's Azam Al Sadat Farahi, wife of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad (who will not attend the FAO
World Summit on Food Security).
Iran's first lady, in her speech, described Iran as an example in the fight against hunger, saying her country's system, following religious
teachings, guarantees food security for all families.
She also denounced the plight of hungry children in Gaza and denounced capitalism as the source of all poverty and famine.
The first ladies' forum was attended as well by the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD)'s President Kanayo F. Nwanze, FAO's director-general assistant Hafez Ghanem and Isabella Rauti, wife of Rome's mayor and chief of the government's equal opportunities department.
It was the second Non-Aligned Movement summit of first ladies, aimed at providing an opportunity to follow-up and build upon the outcome of the first summit at Sharm el Sheikh on women's role in the food crisis.
The first ladies NAM meeting formerly inaugurated the World Summit on Food Security, opening Monday and closing Wednesday. More than 60 heads of state will gather with the objective of finding solutions to ensure food security and eliminate global famine.
For solidarity with the 1 billion people dying of hunger in the world, Rome's Colosseum was lit up Sunday night.