Britain’s leading aid and development charities have welcomed the progress made at Prime Minister David Cameron’s Olympics Hunger Event, and urged world leaders to keep the global food crisis at the top of their agenda in the run-up to next year’s G8 summit in the UK.
A joint statement signed by ten leading NGOs praised the Prime Minister’s leadership but urged him to take further steps on this issue over the coming year.
The charities said:
“At a time when the World’s spotlight is on Britain, we have shown as a nation not only that we can stage the greatest Olympics in history, but that we believe in a legacy for the games which is about more than medals and arenas.
“That global spotlight has today shone on one of the biggest crises we share as a world: the fact that - despite there being enough food in the world to feed everyone - one in seven people go to bed hungry every night, over two million children die from malnutrition each year, and around 180 million children are suffering from stunting due to lack of nutrition.
“There is real hope now that – with the momentum from this meeting building towards next year’s G8 summit – we can mount the biggest-ever effort to end global hunger and fix the broken food system. The meeting acknowledged that this is a crisis with complex structural causes, but with the political will seen today, we know the solutions are at hand.
“At a time when Britain is being praised around the world for delivering a great Olympic Games and producing so many world-beating athletes, when the British people are rightly proud of what we have achieved, we have the opportunity as a country to show that same leadership and take that same pride in tackling one of the world’s great shared problems. That global leadership and the millions of lives it will save would be the greatest legacy the UK Olympics could ever leave.”
The charities that signed the joint statement are ActionAid, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Global Poverty Project, Oxfam GB, Progressio, Save The Children UK, Tearfund and UNICEF UK.
Michelle Garutsa (2) on the back of Jane Mudiiwa (20) demonstrating how she tends her Irish potatoes. Environment Africa is supporting small-scale farmers in Chigondo, Wedza. Credit: Macpherson Photography/ Progressio.
