This briefing paper reviews the findings of the recent World Food Council Conference held in Manila. The Council's President, Arturo Tanco, said that it was the first time that the three-year old, 36-member Council had arrived at a world action programme to begin tackling 'this most critical of the world's problems - hunger and malnutrition'. The paper concludes that although the problem of food supply is part of a much wider problem of development, it is, as the Manila Communique declares, ‘imperative that attacking these problems cannot await the slow process of overall development'.