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Fiji’s Prime Minister and other world leaders attending a "Hunger Summit" to be hosted by the UN food agency next week will not have the company of key world leaders.
Aid groups and associations say the absence of Group of Eight leaders, at the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation, means the summit will fall short of its goals, according to AFP.
"It's a tragedy,” AFP reports one Daniel Berman of Doctors Without Borders saying.
The FAO, which includes 193 member states, is hosting the gathering formally titled the World Summit on Food Security from Monday through Wednesday.
The international small farmers movement Via Campesina said in a statement: "This is a major concern, and we call upon the G8 governments (to) take up your responsibility, your economic and political strength gives you a major responsibility on this issue!"
More than 60 heads of state and government will attend the summit, according to an FAO statement.
Apart from Pope Benedict XVI and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the only heads of state or government who have confirmed their planned attendance are the Brazilian and Paraguayan presidents, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Fernando Lugo.
The presidents Moamer Kadhafi of Libya, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez are also expected.
