HungerFREE Campaign

Hunger costs poor countries $450 billion a year.

A new ActionAid report has revealed that hunger could be costing poor nations $450 billion a year - more than ten times the amount needed to halve hunger by 2015 and meet Millennium Development Goal One.

ActionAid's report Who's really fighting hunger? shows the real dates countries will meet MDG1, as well as scoring nations on their efforts to fight hunger.  The report, released on 14th September 2010, a week ahead of the world leaders UN meeting in New York to discuss progress on the Millennium Development Goals.

"If governments don't act now, over a million more children could die by 2015 and half of Africa won't have enough food in ten years."  Joanna Kerr, CEO ActionAid.

ActionAid's report reveals that 20 out of 28 poor nations are off track to halving hunger by 2015 and 12 of these are going backwards, despite UN claims that the world is on track to meeting the Millennium Development Goal.

 DR Congo, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Pakistan and Lesotho rank bottom on the score card.  But surprisingly not just the poorest, war-torn or disaster-struck countries rank low.  Despite a radical and rapid increase in India's economy, drastic cuts in agriculture and support to small farms, means nearly half of the country's children are malnourished and one in five of the population is hungry.

ActionAid says the hunger goal is going backwards globally largely because of a lack of aid to agriculture and rural development, few legal rights to food in poor nations and little or no support services to help farming communities when harvests fail.

"Malawi and Ghana are shining examples of how supporting small scale farmers is key to halving hunger. With only five years left and a billion people hungry it's critical the world follow their example." Henry Malumo, ActionAid's Africa HungerFree Coordinator.

Brazil, China, Ghana, Malawi and Vietnam, who top ActionAid's scorecard slashed hunger by dramatically scaling-up investment in small farms and introducing social protection schemes such as public works employment, cash transfers, food rations, and free school meals. Malawi has reduced the number of people living on food hand outs from 1.5 million to 150,000 in just five years.  Brazil has halved the number of underweight children in less than 10 years.  China will meet its hunger goal five years early.

Rich nations also scored.  Luxembourg, France, Spain, Sweden and Canada who pledged agricultural aid to help fight the 2009 food crisis scored top as donor nations.  Portugal, Korea, Greece, New Zealand and Austria ranked bottom.  G8 nations pledged $22 billion in 2009 to fight hunger, yet ActionAid estimates $14 billion of this is in fact old aid promises repackaged and it is still unclear when or how the money will be spent.

ActionAid's HungerFREE Campaign

ActionAid works with farmers in 30 countries and has spearheaded a global campaign aimed at ensuring governments deliver on the first Millennium Development Goal - to halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.  The ActionAid HungerFREE campaign aims to put the issue of hunger to the top of the political agenda. For more information on HungerFREE go to: www.hungerfreeplanet.org