“Today, more than one　 billion people are hungry,” he told the assembled leaders, calling for immediate action on long-term remedies, a day after he himself fasted for 24 hours in solidarity with all those billion. “It was not easy. But, for too many people, it is a daily reality.”

The leaders unanimously adopted a declaration pledging renewed commitment to eradicate hunger from the face of the earth sustainably and at the earliest date. They agreed to work to reverse the decline in domestic and international funding for agriculture, promote new investment, and proactively face the challenges of climate change to food security.

Mr. Ban laid out a full, comprehensive spectrum of measures to combat a scourge gravely exacerbated by climate change and population growth that will see two billion more mouths to feed in 2050 – 9.1 billion in all – with an overall need to grow 70 per cent more food.

The steps range from immediate needs such as food aid, safety nets and social protection to the longer-term goals achieved through increased investments in agricultural development, including provision of seeds, water supplies and land to ensure higher productivity, better market access, and fairer trade, above all for smallholder farmers, especially women.

“These smallholder farmers are the heart and soul of food security and poverty reduction,” Mr. Ban declared. “We must resist protectionism and end subsidies that distort markets. This, ladies and gentlemen, lies at the core of food security. Our job is not just to feed the hungry, but to empower the hungry to feed themselves.”

He warned of a chain reaction over the past year that threatens the very foundations of life for millions of people, with rising energy prices driving up food costs and eating away the savings that would otherwise be spent on health care or education.

“It is a vicious cycle that impoverishes not onl　y its immediate victims but all people,” he said. “Millions of families have been pushed into poverty and hunger. Suffering on this scale spills over borders. It sets back development and undercuts social order, as we well know. Over the past year and a half, food insecurity led to political unrest in some 30 countries.”

But it is not enough just to deal with the crisis when it arrives, even though the world responded with the greatest-ever food aid, pledging funding and improved policies at various summits, and even worse potential damage was averted.

“Because the underlying problems persist, we will continue to experience such crises, again and again – unless we act,” Mr. Ban said. “The food crisis of today is a wake-up call for tomorrow.”

He stressed the inter-relationship between the food and global warming crises, pleading for agreement at next month’s climate change summit in Copenhagen on curbing greenhouse gas emissions to keep the temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius.

The melting of Himalayan glaciers would affect the livelihoods and survival of 300 million people in China and up to 1 billion people throughout Asia, while Africa's small farmers, who produce most of the continent's food and depend mostly on rain, could see harvests drop by 50 per cent by 2020, he warned.

“Today’s event is critical. So is the climate change conference in Copenhagen next month. There can be no food security without climate security,” Mr. Ban declared. “They must produce results – real results for people in real need, results for the one　 billion people who are hungry today, real results so millions more will not have to suffer when the next shock hits.

“The world is impatient for us to make a difference. I, too, am impatient. And I am committed.”

UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Jacques Diouf said eliminating hunger require $44 billion of official development assistance (ODA) per year to be invested in infrastructure, technology and modern inputs.

“It is a small amount if we consider the $365 billion of agriculture producer support [subsidies] in OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries in 2007, and if we consider the $1,340 billion of military expenditures by the world in the same year,” he added.

UN World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Josette Sheeran told a First Ladies’ summit in Rome yesterday that empowering women, who do much of the agricultural work in the developing world, was vital. “Women are the secret weapon to fight hunger,” she said.

She called on 700 million women who have enough food to contribute 1 euro a week to the 700 million women who are hungry as part of WFP’s “Billion for a Billion” Citizens’ Action Campaign. Launching an onl　ine version of the campaign (www.wfp.org/1billion) on Saturday, she said: “Now you can fill the cup of a hungry child with a simple click of a mouse. If a billion internet users donate a dollar or a euro a week, we can literally transform the live of a billion hungry people across the world.”

At a news conference later in the day, Mr. Ban said he remained positive about Copenhagen, citing much convergence in the areas of adaptation, technology and capacity building. “I am fighting for a real deal in Copenhagen, a deal that paves the way for a binding global climate treaty,” he stressed.

Also today, he visited WFP headquarters to pay tribute to the five colleagues recently killed in Pakistan. He has also held bilateral meetings with a number of leaders, including the Brazilian, Chilean, Egyptian, Italian, Libyan and Tanzanian presidents.

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UN agency calls for global day-long fast as symbol of war on hunger

So it was no surprise to them that in the early hours of 28 October, when militants armed with automatic weapons, grenades and suicide vests burst into a guest house in Kabul, Afghanistan, Lawrence rushed to protect the 34 UN workers staying inside.

Armed onl　y with pistols, Lawrence and fellow UN security officer Louis Maxwell fought a fierce, long-running battle in the corridors and on the rooftops of the guest house before losing their lives with three other UN staff members they were defending.

“Their actions saved lives – many, many lives,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told UN staff gathered at Headquarters in New York to commemorate their fallen colleagues. “I am so grateful for their courage and bravery and sacrifice.”

These women and men went to Afghanistan with many talents, but they shared a common goal, that is, to help the Afghan people

Jossie Esto of the Philippines and Yah Lydia Wonyene of Liberia, volunteers with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), were the other staffers known to have died in the attack.

The fifth victim has not yet been identified but Ann M. Veneman, Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said last Friday that the agency is gravely concerned about the fate of a colleague who was staying in the guest house and has not been accounted for.

Lawrence Mefful with his wife Emma

“He was passionate about his religion,” said Benjamin Owusu-Firempong, who knew Lawrence from their college days in the early 1980s, time together in the Ghanaian army and as a colleague at the UN.

Lawrence was known by both his congregation and the Ghanaian community in Englewood, New Jersey, as a generous man who often placed his hand in his own pocket to assist other people’s relatives or help put someone else’s kids through school. Onc　e he gave away his car to a parishioner.

“He had this thing for academia,” Benjamin also told the UN News Centre. “I used to tell him he should go back and teach in some school – he earned a postgraduate diploma in mass communications, after that he went to law school and he is enrolled in a master’s course in risk management at Leicester University.”

Before arriving at UN Headquarters in New York in 2004 to work for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) as a legal officer, Lawrence reached the rank of major and served as Deputy Director for Legal Affairs in the Ghanaian army.

Louis Maxwell

Like Lawrence, close protection officer Louis Maxwell fought heroically on 28 October, fending off the terrorists for over an hour in a bid to buy time for his civilian colleagues to reach safety.

The 28-year-old African-American from the US city of Miami turned down a university music scholarship in favour of enlisting in the US Navy, before eventually joining the UN in 2007.

“We talked about it onc　e. I was making fun of him being in a marching band… you know, typical male bonding banter – we laughed it off,” UN security officer Henry Meza said.

“In this line of work you make bonds pretty quick – strong bonds,” said Henry, stressing that Louis’ fun-loving and charismatic manner made it easy to become close to him. “He was a great guy. He looked after me and I looked after him.”

Working together every day, after long shifts guarding UN officials, Louis would relax with the rest of the close protection team by listening to hip-hop and rap music, and talking about the day.

“We would goof on each other and laugh,” Henry recalled. “I whupped his butt a few times at dominoes. If you asked him right now, he’d tell you that’s not how it went down.”

The banter between the two men started on their first day together in mid-July after Henry picked up Louis from the airport in Kabul. “I just kept looking at him. He looked at me and I said ‘I don’t know… the name Maxwell. I just kind of figured you were bigger – you’re kind of small, dude!’ I started laughing.”

He was, in fact, around 5 foot 10 inches and in very good physical shape, into fitness and healthy eating. “He ran, we’d go to the gym, run around the compound, do some PT, one　 day we played soccer.”

Louis was a family man always ready to talk about his mother, father and sisters. “He had two boys and he was raising his fiancée’s daughter with her, and he was all about them,” said Henry. “Under the circumstances of where we were and what we were doing, having people like Louis Maxwell made it liveable.”

Jossie Esto

The recent Afghan election was not the first time Jossie, a 40-year-old from the Philippines, and Yah Lydia, a 47-year-old from Liberia, had left the comfort of their homes and family to help people in war-torn countries emerge from conflict and turn to democracy.

Until last week, the two mothers had spent over a year in Afghanistan as part of a UN Volunteers (UNV) team of more than 50 staff working as electoral outreach and training coordinators.

Jossie, who learned about UNV from a cousin serving in Kosovo, was a schoolteacher in the 1990s before undertaking stints as a polling official in the Philippines and serving as a volunteer during elections in Liberia, Timor-Leste and Nepal.

“Jossie was everyone’s best friend,” Stuart Moran, UNV Programme Manager in Afghanistan, said. “I swear she could literally light up a room with her sparkling personality.”

The life and soul of social gatherings, especially when it came to karaoke and dancing, Jossie would often invite other UNV staff to the guest house, where she would take over the kitchen to cook traditional Filipino food.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that everyone loved Jossie,” said Stuart, who also worked with her in Nepal. “She regularly stayed late in the office and came to work six days per week. Her office was next to mine in the project headquarters and every day I still expect to see her smiling face at my desk.”

Jossie leaves behind a husband and two children, a 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son.

Yah Lydia Wonyene

Yah Lydia, popularly known as Lydia or Mum to her friends and younger colleagues, had also served as a volunteer for elections in Timor-Leste and Sierra Leone before arriving in Afghanistan.

Lydia took the difficult security situation in Afghanistan in her stride, describing to colleagues over lunch one　 day the brutal violence and bloodshed she had witnessed in her homeland, Liberia.

“Lydia was very much of a wise African woman and mother,” said Stuart. “She loved to care and nurture her friends and colleagues. She really looked after her UNV colleagues and I know that this made her very happy.”

She was survived by five children ranging in age from six to 28, including 16-year-old twins, as well as one　 granddaughter, aged four. “Her greatest love was for her family,” said Stuart.

The two volunteers were working with UNDP/ELECT, supporting elections in Afghanistan. Working closely with such bodies as the Independent Election Commission (IEC) of Afghanistan, UNDP/ELECT provides project and programme design and management, mobilization of donor funding, activity coordination, reporting and the channelling of funds for electoral support.

UNV has created an onl　ine memoriam for Jossie and Lydia to allow readers to leave their messages of condolences.

Although the five men and women who died in the terrorist attack – for which the Taliban say they are responsible – came from different corners of the world, they were joined by their dedication to the work of the UN in helping vulnerable populations in need.

“These women and men went to Afghanistan with many talents, but they shared a common goal, that is, to help the Afghan people,” said Mr. Ban.

“They went despite the risks. They went to support another election and the opportunity for the Afghan people to shape their destiny,” Mr. Ban added, sending condolences to their families and to the families of the Afghans who lost their lives in the attack.

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Ban expresses solidarity with UN staff during unannounced visit to Kabul

The 15-member body was briefed in a day-long open session by the heads of the three counter-terrorism committees it has set up over the past 10 years, with all three officials calling for regional cooperation and professional workshops that reinforce international collaboration.

“Ten years after the adoption of Security Council resolution 1267, the threat posed by Al-Qaida and the Taliban persists, both worldwide and especially in South Asia,” said Ambassador Thomas Mayr-Harting of Austria, chairman of the 1267 (1999) Committee on sanctions on individuals and entities linked to the two groups.

“At the same time, over the years this threat has evolved considerably and we must ensure that the existing sanctions regime against Al-Qaida and the Taliban remains a relevant and effective tool in countering terrorism,” he added, noting that his committee is reviewing all entries to ensure that the sanctions list “remains dynamic and accurately reflects the current threat.” At present there are 504 entries.

At a separate news conference, the Executive Director of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), Mike Smith, highlighted the work being done in South Asia, a region hit by frequent terrorist attacks, citing a recent three-day professional UN workshop for police and prosecutors from the region.

“It is a region that has suffered a lot from terrorism,” he said. “One of the things we’ve noted as we’ve travelled around the world is the importance of regional cooperation to deal with terrorism because it’s kind of axiomatic when you think about it that most terrorists operate across borders, they seek refuge in other places, neighbouring countries, they very often prepare themselves there, materials are brought across borders, recruits are brought across borders,” he said.

“And we were very aware that actually South Asia is an area where the amount of regional cooperation has been rather limited and we thought that we needed to do something to start building habits of cooperation between the countries…

“So we thought that if at a political level we couldn’t get more cooperation and interaction, we might try to start at a more working level,” he added of the workshop that brought together professionals from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital.

“After three days were pretty gratified to see the way these professionals were interacting with each other in a pretty positive way and a very professional way and they all thought they got something out of it,” he said.

“We’re not saying this is an enormous breakthrough, I’m not saying it’s that, but it’s a small but significant first step at a working level in building cooperation, and it’s something that the UN can do….The truth is I don’t think there’s anybody else who could have done it,” he added, noting that most counter-terrorism is done on a bilateral basis.

Ambassador Jorge Urbina of Costa Rica, Chairman of the Committee established pursuant to resolution 1540 (2004) on combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by non-State actors, highlighted his group’s “outreach activities,” including regional workshops worldwide.

“The focus of the meetings ranged from broad issues of proliferation threats to more specific threats of nuclear, chemical or biological terrorism, from challenges of proliferation financing to export controls and prevention of illicit trafficking, from the implementation of relevant international instruments by domestic legislation to the facilitation of assistance for capacity building,” he told the Council.

Ambassador Ranko Vilovic of Croatia, Chairman of the 1373 (2001) Committee, set up to monitor implementation of the wide-ranging counter-terrorism resolution adopted in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States, also told the Council his Committee has been intensifying its work with international, regional and sub-regional organizations to enhance cooperation, information-sharing and exchanges of expertise.

The Committee has finalized the analysis and adoption of the preliminary implementation assessments of all but one　 of the 192 UN Member States, with the last remaining one　 expected to be adopted in the near future.

“Terrorism remains one　 of the major threats to international peace and security, and the Committee is a crucial instrument of the international community in its efforts to address this scourge,” he said.

Over 30 participants were scheduled to speak during the debate.

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Heads of Security Council counter-terrorism bodies stress need for stocktaking