Keep Up the Pressure to End Global Hunger
“To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.”
Excerpt from President Obama’s Inaugural Address
Last summer, sharp increases in food prices led to riots and turmoil in country after country. World leaders announced new plans to combat hunger, promising increases in foreign aid and new programs to increase food production. Sadly, by year end, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization announced that the number of people living in chronic hunger had actually increased to more than 963 million.
Price rises in 2008 were driven by several factors, including climate change and rising international demand for food crops. They were also the result of decades of neglect of local agricultural production, and of policies that encouraged countries to buy food wherever it was cheapest, rather than growing it themselves. Even though commodity prices have fallen in international markets, food prices paid by consumers remain high. This situation contributes to political tensions, threatens stability and security, and undermines other efforts to promote sustainable development and advance rural livelihoods around the world.
ActionAid works with partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America to find new solutions to the food crisis. Based on their demands, we are calling on the Obama Administration and Congress to:
- Support efforts to increase both the availability of and access to food for hungry people. The US should shift our food aid programs toward local and regional purchase schemes that promote local production. It should increase funding for sustainable agricultural development geared toward food production in developing countries and support local efforts to find innovative solutions to food crises.
- Provide substantial new funding for climate change adaptation, both through US legislation and renewed engagement in the international climate negotiations. Climate adaptation funds should be considered as compensation to help poor countries cope with the impacts of a global climate crisis that they did not create.
- Stop the rush to expand biofuels consumption and assess the impacts on food production, hunger and the environment around the world. Based on those lessons, Congress and the Administration should implement a more sustainable approach that balances the need for food production with the demand for new sources of renewable energy.
