A/RES/64/224 Reaffirming the goal set out in paragraph 19 of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, 9 to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the world’s people whose income is less than one dollar a day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger, 8F Recalling the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action, 10 the Declaration of the World Food Summit: five years later, 11 including the goal of achieving food security for all through an ongoing effort to eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate view to reducing by half the number of undernourished people by no later than 2015, as well as the commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, 9F 10F Welcoming the outcome of the seventeenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development on the thematic cluster of issues on agriculture, rural development, land, drought, desertification and Africa, 12 1F Recognizing that agriculture plays a crucial role in addressing the needs of a growing global population and is inextricably linked to poverty eradication, especially in developing countries, and stressing that integrated and sustainable agriculture and rural development approaches are therefore essential to achieving enhanced food security and food safety in an environmentally sustainable way, Expressing concern that the number of people suffering from hunger and poverty now exceeds one billion, which is an unacceptable blight on the lives, livelihoods and dignity of one sixth of the world’s population, mostly in developing countries, and noting that the effects of long-standing underinvestment in food security, agriculture, and rural development have recently been further exacerbated by the food, financial and economic crises, among other factors, Striving for a world free from hunger in which countries implement the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security, adopted by the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in November 2004, 13 and supporting the practical application of the guidelines based on the principles of participation, transparency and accountability, 12F Recognizing the importance of an enabling international and national environment to increase and sustain investment in the agriculture sector of developing countries and to create a more level playing field in agriculture through greater market access, substantial reduction of trade-distorting domestic support, and the parallel elimination of all forms of export subsidies and disciplines on all export measures with equivalent effect in accordance with the mandate from the Doha Work Programme of the World Trade Organization, Emphasizing the urgent need to increase efforts at the national, regional and international levels to address food security and agriculture development as an integral part of the international development agenda, _______________ 9 See resolution 55/2. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Report of the World Food Summit, 13– 17 November 1996 (WFS 96/REP), part one, appendix. 11 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Report of the World Food Summit: five years later, 10–13 June 2002, part one, appendix; see also A/57/499, annex. 12 See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 2009, Supplement No. 9 (E/2009/29). 13 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Report of the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Session, Rome, 22– 27 November 2004 (CL 127/REP), appendix D; see also E/CN.4/2005/131, annex. 10 2