Gordon Brown: No one in the world should have to go hungry – we need to act now
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Independent Minds
My first experience of campaigning was volunteering for the Freedom from Hunger movement as a schoolboy.
My older brother ran a small newspaper to raise money for Oxfam's charity appeal – and I helped him.
We billed it as the only paper whose proceeds were devoted exclusively to helping the hungry.
As an 11-year-old I believed then what I believe now: that in a world so productive and fertile it shames us that so many still face a daily struggle to feed themselves and their families.
In the 1960s when I was first galvanised by this injustice and inspired by the example of President Kennedy, almost 40 per cent of the world's population went hungry. For 40 years we made steady progress and reduced the numbers underfed to 15 per cent of the world's population.
But today there is a new danger that rising food prices and the global recession will cause numbers to rise again. Last month – for the first time – the number going hungry passed one billion people. That's almost one in seven of our fellow human beings who are not guaranteed even basics such as rice and bread to eat each day. A hunger emergency looms and the world must act.
And it is not just the numbers going hungry that are soaring because of these twin crises.
An estimated three million more children could die in the developing world as their families' incomes plummet and they are unable to afford even the basics such as enough food or medicines.
Each child lost is a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister – who someone else loved, cherished and needed.
We need an urgent response from all the world leaders at this week's G8 under the leadership of Prime Minister Berlusconi – and we must deliver.
As a first step we must renew our promises to meet the Gleneagles target of increasing overseas development aid by $50bn by 2010, with half going to Africa.
The G8 must account for progress against the commitments countries have made.
We also need to tackle some of the areas where we have made least progress. It is outrageous that one woman dies in childbirth every minute. That is more than 500,000 each year, despite an agreement to tackle this in 2000.
The G8 should back the global consensus on maternal health, which supports health services free at the point of use and more doctors and nurses.
Britain is willing to front-load more of our aid to provide predictable finance for health systems in the developing world, and I call on other leaders to consider new action in this area.
But, as President Obama has identified, we now also need a major push on food and agriculture. In the poorest countries, seven out of 10 people rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, yet only 4 per cent of global aid is spent on agriculture. That is totally unacceptable and the balance must shift.
This week's G8 should work towards a common international system which allows developing countries to establish costed plans – like those being developed by the African Union's agriculture programme – and then identifies financing to support them.
Last year, the G8 called for a global partnership on agriculture and food security to mobilise governments, donors, scientists, the private sector and international organisations under the remit of the United Nations.
It would help to ensure access to food and support progress on other Millennium Development Goals.
Getting this in place is now ever more urgent.
But changing the architecture is not enough. We need real resources to reverse the trend in hunger levels we have seen in recent months.
President Obama has already announced a major new package in this area and alongside that I can announce that we will increase our aid spending on agriculture and food security to $1.8bn over the next three years.
This is not charity – it is investment in our shared future.
If we are successful, it is not impossible that over time Africa could feed the world.
Effective agriculture in the developing world would also mean less poverty, more global trade and – ultimately – lower prices for consumers, whether in a market in Marrakech or a supermarket in Southampton.
And we know that poverty and desperation is the father of extremism and terror.
So it is vital that we do not withdraw from our moral duty to eliminate hunger from the earth. No one should be going hungry today – we need to act now.
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Comments
pretty much sums up globalism. The west are not in poverty or(relative)depression but we are the persuers of the extreme. We will not tolerate anything but our own desires. It is the west that has consumed the earths resources and fuelled wars in ordre to steal them. It is the west that has huge advertising industries that sell the trinkets and daft schemes that our vanity and greed demands but we do not need. We cosy up to any old dictatorship from Chile to Saudi if its worth a vote on the security council or a nice arms order. We are the problem. We set the standards in consumerism not morals. Meanwhile Israel kidnaps 6 Britons, a nobel peace prize winner,an ex-congresswoman and others from international waters attempting to deliver aid to thepoor and sick of Gaza. Guess what? You have fuck all to say about that!
If it is a general "we", why not say the West. But then again, not all of the West fall into the category you seem to think they do.
As for the six Britons, why do you not put down the reasons they were there, a vessel of the Free Gaza Movement who it appears failed to lay to for the Israeli Navy to inspect the vessel, but more details are due to be released.
Israel was wrong to mount the offensive in the Gaza strip, but equally, the Hamas Militants were wrong to keep firing rockets into Israel ruining a five month cease-fire.
The Gaza horrors will continue as long as both sides refuse to talk, but then the main stalling point is the non-recognition of Israel by Palestine, and the continued armed contacts by the two sides.
Is it really so bad to live peacefully on this earth with a Christian, Catholic, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, or any other religion, as long as we live in peace?
Inshallah peace will come to all and the killing will stop.
The best thing we could do is gradually reduce the amount of aid provided and at the same time open up our markets and allow genuine free trade. The EU prevents that - well the poor hungry farmers in France MUST continue to get the huge subsidies from the EU so they don't have to live in a genuinely open economic market.
We also need to tackle population growth - but that would mean taking on the various religions - so that isn't going to happen either.
1). Countries in the 3rd world need t ensure their own effective governance
2). the people need to have land rights and effective property laws to allow them to develop
3). Micro credit more wide available
4). More open trade for the 3rd world countries to sell to us while allowing them some protection while they establish themselves.
Aid should be reserved for emergencies.
Stop trying to run the world and stop squandering our money and things that boost you ego and do no good to anyone.
Oh, scrap the CAP, that will help 3rd world countries more than almost anything else you could do. Aid is just a salve to the conscience of western looters of the 3rd world.
Remind me who it was that didn't want ANY banking regulation when The City was creating shed loads of money - and bonuses:
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/newsroom_
Your odious neoliberal beliefs are the main reason for poverty, Mr Brown.
You have screwed up the economy, busted the financial system and STILL you LIE to us about being able to maintain our public services.
You're a charlatan!
Everyone with even half a brain knows that THERE IS NO MORE PUBLIC MONEY - unless of course, Labour are going to do what they always do when they screw up the economy . . . TAX the middle class.
CALL THE BLOODY GENERAL ELECTION - AND TAKE YOUR PLACE IN HISTORY AS THE WORST PM THAT THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER HAD.
What have the poor folk of the 4th and 5th Worlds done (we all know where the 3rd is now, thanks) to deserve your hideous and unwarranted attention? Having seen how you single handedly destroyed a burgeoning economy and frittered away the pension pots you stole from the hard working families you pretend to admire, any sensible penniless African would view your intervention in his blighted life as the final kiss of death.
Concentrate on using the final months before you are marched to the scaffold ( hopefully more than metaphorically) on trying to clear up the shit you've dolloped on all of us before interfering in and fucking up somewhere else.
Get out of our lives, you miserable useless pathetic reckless incompetent loser.
deeds not words
Openly on sale in markets are goods labelled "whatever country(US eg) AID Not For Resale" and investigators have, through thorough investigation, found that the aid is being illegally STOLEN from those who need it. This has a double impact as the "traders" are selling to those with little resources and the suppliers (agencies perhaps) are guaranteed of a continual dual trade (the traders and the world aid programme) plus their wages. Some people become very rich out of poverty!
Theft aside, the running costs of these schemes are so prohibitively expensive that most of the financial monetary aid is effectively wasted. Intermediary companies have major money paid to them to carry out these "humanitarian" contracts.
Gordon Brown, the UK Government, as others, are wrong to give money to these schemes as they are self eroding, requiring more and more money without any real benefit.
Governments need to realise that throwing money at underdeveloped countries is not the answer. We need to put the money into the infra-structure and build on from there.
Many may say, in some respects quite rightly, cut off all aid and sort our own problems out first, but to these people I would ask is it better to have further mass immigration or to try and give the people a life of their own, in their own country?
Inshallah deserts will turn to soil, seeds will flourish and the world will be bountiful.
I have been trying to live on the £64.30 a week that you get when unemployed. Having no savings and also no credit cards. I have virtually nothing to live on each week. Once bills are paid I have £5.00 for food left. This last fortnight I have been for interviews so this week I go hungry as I cannot afford to attend interviews and also eat.
When you get to the point of eating rice and just pasta all the time and the cheapest beans. I would like to see the politicians live on what I have been living on for the past few months.
I am really annoyed that the banks and the government have got us into this state. I want to work and yet I haven't got a job.Not for the want of trying. I got turned down for admin jobs as there have been so many applicants.
There are many more like me out there trying to live and going hungry. When you cannot afford bread or milk then you know that you are in poverty and hunger.
S Taylor
sarah.taylor72@yahoo.co.uk