1960 through 1965 (later extended to 1970) under the leadership and general
co-ordination of FAO (FAO, 1960a). The resolution noted that `under its Consti-
tution FAO was the principal agency within the United Nations family of inter-
national agencies responsible for the encouragement of aid to countries in raising
levels of food production, consumption, and nutrition'. Invitations to parti-
cipate in the FFHC would be made, `as appropriate and approved by FAO', to
member countries of FAO and the UN, the UN specialized agencies, international
NGOs, religious groups, and individuals and private organizations. The resolu-
tion emphasized that the objectives of the FFHC could only be reached if the
less developed countries formulated effective and useful projects, which would
increase support for the campaign in the more highly developed countries. The
resolution also authorized the director-general to make preparations for a World
Food Congress in 1963, as Sen had proposed. A FFHC Trust Fund was created to
finance activities carried out under the campaign.
member countries (Sen, 1982, pp. 1478). In his view, the problems of hunger
and malnutrition had `always been with man and has made man's history'. But
they had been invested with a new dimension and new urgency by the explosive
rate of population growth following the advance of science and social hygiene.
The FFHC was intended to be `primarily educational in character to make the
Governments and peoples all over the world aware of the nature of the problem
so that integrated efforts can be made both nationally and internationally to
overcome it'. Sen placed great store on people's participation in the FFHC. National
FFHC committees were established in many developing and developed countries,
including the United States, to help make people aware of the magnitude and
dimensions of hunger, and of the measures needed to overcome it. Fund-raising
was not the primary objective, although action projects had an important part to
play by providing a means through which developed countries could express their
solidarity with developing countries, assisting their efforts to implement their
national development plans, and making available an additional source of skills,
technical know-how and foreign exchange, which in developing counties could
`make all the difference'.
of the campaign was therefore on transforming subsistence agriculture into a
market economy, on increasing productivity, and on quantitative and qualitative
increases in food production. Hidden hunger, or malnutrition, the parent of many
diseases prevalent in large segments of the world's population, could be cured only
with provision of more plentiful supplies of food. Agricultural development had to
be the `spearhead' of economic and social development in developing countries,
where the bulk of the population lived on the land. The essential savings required
for investment in development programmes could accrue only if the income levels