33. aðalfundur Matvæla- og landbúnaðarstofnunar Sameinuðu þjóðanna, FAO
Address of H. E. Einar K. Guðfinnsson, Minister of Fisheries of Iceland
at the 33. Conference of the FAO, 19 - 25 November 2005.
Mr. Chairman, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates.
Allow me, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Vice Chairmen to congratulate you upon your election to chair this Conference. It is also a great pleasure for me to welcome the people of the Belarus to the FAO family. Last but not least, I would like to congratulate Dr Jacques Diouf on his third term of office as Director-General of our Organization.
On its Sixtieth Anniversary, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is at a cross-roads. Confronted with achieving the Millennium Development Goals of halving, before the year 2015, the number of people suffering from hunger and extreme poverty, the member countries will have to, jointly, make a more concentrated effort to bring this number down.
In order to do so the Organization needs to go through a process of reform and modernization, advocated by several member states, including my country. Iceland welcomes the Director General's reform proposal and considers it as a positive step. However, we would like to state clearly that the Independent External Evaluation of FAO is to be taken equally seriously by FAO. We sincerely believe that these two formidable efforts will lead to the strengthening of our organization, making it more effective and vigorous in carrying out its important work.
In the fight against hunger in the world, all countries have a role to play. First of all to maintain and secure sustainable food security for their own people and, secondly, to participate the world market in food stuffs. Iceland wishes to see the developing countries as more active participants in the global food markets.
Being a Minister of Fisheries in my country, I would like to emphasize their importance. Fisheries are of great significance to both developed and developing countries around the world, making a contribution to food security and economic well-being. Fish products provide 15 percent of animal proteins consumed in the world. Of the 30 countries most dependent on fish protein, all but four are in the developing world. Fish is a great potential source for protein consumption in several developing countries, as well as being a potential quality product for their export to world markets.
One of the main pillars of Iceland’s developing cooperation is to build up capacity in the field of fisheries in order to enable countries to sustainably utilize their living resources of the ocean. We are host to the United Nations University Fisheries Training Programme and we take pride in having invited professionals from numerous developing countries to come to Iceland to train in fishing, processing and marketing of fish products.
My country attaches great importance to the work of the FAO´s Fisheries Department and we want to supports its work. Our latest effort was an agreement on supporting the FAO Fisheries Department to the tune of one million US$ in assisting developing countries in capacity building in fisheries. We are also active partners in the recently established World Bank Global Programme on Fisheries, PROFISH.
I would like to emphasize the role of the FAO as the appropriate forum for addressing global issues in fisheries, which makes our organization very important for fisheries around the world. Having said that, it should be stressed that responsible management of living marine resources is best carried out at the national and regional level, and should be in the hands of those with most at stake and who are most affected by the decisions taken. Rights-based and market-driven fisheries, free of state subsidies, built on the best available scientific information, is the only solution to secure sustainable utilization of the fish stocks and the economic well-being of the people involved. It should be our aim to fully utilize our living marine resources, which should not be confused with over-utilizing fish-stocks.
Iceland shares many of the concerns expressed over the state of the oceans and of fish stocks in some regions. While these concerns make it incumbent on states to work together, they are not best addressed with additional global instruments or solutions. On the contrary, such an approach would in fact be counter-productive and harmful. There are no global fish stocks. The necessary legal framework for management of the living marine resources is in place in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. What needs to be done is to implement effectively existing instruments.
Mr Chairman.
My Government has made a concentrated effort to strengthen our development cooperation. Iceland’s Policy on development co-operation entails more than a doubling of current levels of Icelandic Official Development Assistance (ODA). It is our wish to work together with member states of our organization for the promotion of sustainable use of natural resources, including the implementation of an ecosystem approach to fisheries. In this endeavor we are guided by, among other things, the Reykjavík Declaration on Responsible Fisheries in the Marine Ecosystem. By working together in this way we contribute to the food security and economic well-being of humankind.