The Madrid high-level Meeting on Food Security ended on Tuesday with a call for better coordination to combat hunger.

UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon said in his speech at the closing session that the ever-increasing problem of world hunger and poverty is "shocking and intolerable."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon addresses the closing ceremony of the High Level Conference on World Food Security in Madrid, Jan. 27, 2009. The conference was concluded on Tuesday with over 700 delegates attending.[xinhua]

 Ban urged the whole world to join their efforts in fighting hunger and poverty, which are plundering almost 1 billion people into a severer situation by the current global economic crisis with rising food prices, growing unemployment and less access to credit for small-holder farmers.

"It is the time to eradicate hunger for ever," the UN chief said.

Echoing Ban's call for joint efforts against hunger, Spanish President Jose Luis Zapatero promised that he would raise his government's foreign aid to 0.7 percent of the country's GDP in three years from the current 0.5 percent.

Zapatero also promised that his government would donate 200 million euros each year in the coming five years.

Speculation by some transnational companies and institutions is one of the main cause for the current food crisis which is endangering nearly 1 billion people in the world, the Spanish leader said.

Zapatero called for a transparent transaction system in world food trade.

Delegates from 126 countries and international organizations, NGOs attended the Madrid meeting which is a follow-up of the Rome meeting in June 2008.

Delegates pose for a family photo during the closing ceremony of the High Level Conference on World Food Security in Madrid, Jan. 27, 2009. The conference was concluded on Tuesday with over 700 delegates attending.[xinhua]

(Xinhua News Agency Janaury 28, 2009)