Hamdan stresses food for needy

Abu Dhabi: Shaikh Hamdan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the UAE Red Crescent Authority (RCA), has expressed hope the current global crisis would not hinder the sustained international efforts to avert humanitarian catastrophe.

Marking the World Food Day, Shaikh Hamdan called on the international community to shoulder its full responsibility to ease poverty and famine at the crisis zones. He warned about "the repercussions of the world food gap, soaring prices of commodities and the financial global crisis" in a statement on the World Food Day, which will be marked today.

He stressed the "pivotal role of the UAE in improving the living conditions and human dignity worldwide", emphasising the sustained role of the country in alleviating poverty, malnutrition and suffering in poor countries through provision of food.

He noted that joined regional and international efforts were required to keep poverty at bay, adding that the RCA has been aware about those risks and it was now executing the humanitarian programmes at the crisis zones and regions struck by the natural calamities.

Shaikh Hamdan called on all sectors in the UAE to back the humanitarian and relief operations of the RCA to help victims of catastrophes, hailing the existing partnership between the RCA and the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation, which was set up in 1945 to provide food and decent living to people in need.

The two sides work together to curb poverty, famine and provide good living conditions, he added.