To combat world food shortages the UK Government have announced a package of assistance worth over £908 million to tackle high food prices. This included both short and long-term measures:
£400 million for agricultural research over five years
£30 million to the World Food Programme
£22 million extra for the Ethiopia safety net (July 08)
£8 million for nutrition monitoring
£76 million for road building in DRC
£32 million for social protection in Mozambique and Bangladesh
£6.5 million for food aid and agricultural inputs for Afghanistan
£217 million in budget support for Ghana, Uganda and Malawi.
More information and analysis of progress towards meeting the MDG 1 Hunger target and what the UK is doing to achieve this target is available in the DFID Hunger Factsheet.
Global food price rises at the end of 2007 and throughout 2008 have hit the poorest people in developing countries the hardest. While international prices for most food commodities have come down, they remain high, especially at country level, and over 900 million people cannot meet their food needs. Globally the number of hungry people is forecast to top one billion this year. Food security is now threatened by the global economic crisis. The problem continues not just because prices remain high in many developing countries, but also because recession is reducing people's incomes.
The UK has led the international response and has called for all donors, international organisations, private sector and civil society to double efforts to tackle global hunger and poverty. UK has announced a package of assistance worth over £908 million to tackle high food prices. The UK Prime Minister has emphasised it would be wrong to reduce support for poor countries at this time.
More information and analysis of progress towards meeting the MDG 1 Hunger target and what the UK is doing to achieve this target is available in the DFID Hunger Factsheet.