International Conferences

The organizations of the UN system were seen to have a ‘special responsibility’ for the pursuit of the goals and objectives of the IDS for the 1990s. The IDS called for ‘greater coherence by closer inter-agency co-operation and co-ordination and by organizational measures that strengthened the contribution of the [UN] system to development’. It was noted that major conferences of the UN system had already been scheduled for the initial years of the IDS, and that others would follow (UN, 1991). These would be ‘important occasions’ for reaching agreements that would give more specific content to the actions and commitments needed to realize the goals of the IDS and to develop priorities for the twenty-first century (UN, 1997). They would also serve to establish or restate the leadership positions of various UN agencies within their respective fields. These international conferences were to give a special context in which the quest for food security was considered along with other major issues during the 1990s and beyond. They also became the target of heated controversy and disputed perspectives in the vast literature that was to emerge on the subject of the value of these UN-sponsored world conference.1