Desmond Tutu Backs End Hunger Forever Campaign

Over 100 organizations, including Save the Children, Action Against Hunger, Oxfam and UNICEF, have joined forces to end hunger forever.

The Enough Food For Everyone IF campaign launched last week in the UK.

“Hunger is not an incurable disease or an unavoidable tragedy,” says Desmond Tutu, a supporter of the campaign.

The IF strategy looks at four specific elements: aid, land, tax and transparency. They want the UK government to keep its aid promises, including to spend .7 percent of its national income on aid from 2013. They want “the issue of large-scale corporate land grabs in developing countries on the G8’s agenda” so that the poorest people don’t lose their land, so bio fuel doesn’t replace food growth, and so food prices don’t increase. They want a UK Finance Bill and a G8 Convention on Tax Transparency to force the reporting of tax schemes that impact developing countries and to assist developing countries in recovering the money owed to them. And IF wants the UK government to use its presidency of the G8 to push for greater financial, environmental, social and human rights transparency of land acquisitions, corporate investors and developing country governments.

“We can make sure no child goes to bed hungry,” says Tutu. “We can stop mothers from starving themselves to feed their families. We can save lives. We can do all this, if we challenge our leaders to take action. If they listen to us.”