Britain has a lot to be proud of. As the only nation to commit to giving 0.7% of GNI to international aid, we have led the world on tackling global poverty. And when the world's spotlight shines on the UK during the Olympics and Paralympics, it's essential that we take this opportunity to show further leadership on extreme poverty and the structures and systems that are obstacles to its eradication. Just yesterday, The Global Poverty Project joined with some of the countries leading agencies to urge David Cameron to make tackling the global food crisis top of the agenda for next years G8 Summit. You can find the statement we signed below.
NGO's CALL FOR END TO GLOBAL HUNGER AS GREATEST OLYMPIC LEGACY
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 alongside Global Poverty Project are ActionAid, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Oxfam GB, Progressio, Save The Children UK, Tearfund and UNICEF UK. |
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