IFAD President Urges Scaling Up Support to Smallholder Farmers to Address Food Crisis [viewed]
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June 2008: Lennart Båge, President of the International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD), told the High-Level Conference on World Food Security, at
its 3-5 June 2008 meeting in Rome, Italy, that “complacency” with food
surpluses has led to underinvestment in agriculture, for which the world is now
“literally paying the price.” Drawing attention to the under-utilized capacity
of smallholder farmers, he called for investments in rural agriculture,
including: improved access to essential inputs, such as seeds and fertilizer;
microfinance institutions; rural infrastructure; market linkages and access to
market information; and food processing.
29 May 2008: Climate change poses “particularly serious macroeconomic, fiscal, and financial challenges for low-income countries,” said Takatoshi Kato, Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IV), which convened in Yokohama, Japan, from 28-30 May 2008. 
29 May 2008: In an address to the European Parliament's Temporary Committee on Climate Change, World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy highlighted and reviewed different approaches regarding the WTO's role in combating climate change. 
14 May 2008: In his opening statement to the thirty-fourth session of UNIDO's Industrial Development Board, UNIDO Director-General Kandeh K. Yumkella said the accelerating process of global climate change is “ possibly the most pervasive and irreversible global crisis.” He said the global energy crisis was also significant because of its widespread implications, especially on industry, and pointed out other global challenges, including food and global instability, as the major challenges that UNIDO has been asked to assist the international community to resolve. 
23 May 2008: Representatives from 40 donor and developing countries, meeting in Potsdam, Germany, reached an agreement on the creation of two international investment funds that will provide innovative financing for developing countries to pursue cleaner development paths and protect themselves from the impacts of climate change. 
24 May 2008: Warning of the potential risks of climate change to human health, the sixty-first World Health Assembly adopted a resolution (WHA61/19) urging member states to take decisive action to address the health impacts of climate change. Climate change was discussed on Thursday, 22 May, when the plenary considered the Executive Board resolution on health and climate change (E122.R4) and a report by the WHO Secretariat. 
18 May 2008: The Fifth European Union (EU) / Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Summit took place in Lima, Peru, from 16-17 May 2008. The Summit developed the “Lima Declaration on Addressing our Peoples' Priorities Together,” which addresses, among others, poverty, inequality, inclusion, climate change, environment and energy. 
21 May 2008: The Global Renewable Energy Forum was held at the Bourbon Cataratas Hotel, in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, from 18-21 May 2008. 
