Pushing for change

Hunger promise

In the spring, hundreds of you campaigned with us to ensure that the UK government to keeps its hunger promise by giving £1.1 billion in aid. Amazingly, over 100 MPs wrote to Secretary of State Andrew Mitchell, who re-affirmed the pledge in response. Even better, the UK led the way on transparency around the pledge and encouraged other donor countries to keep the commitment at the G8.

Aid to agriculture

Over the last two months we’ve been running another action, calling on the UK to invest in aid to support smallholder agriculture and to lead the way on this globally. The action sought to build cross-party support by targeting decision makers in all major parties. 

I’d like to sincerely thank the hundreds of you who have once again participated by emailing your MPs. It’s too early yet to see what effect we’ve had, but we’re already in contact with all three parties and we’ll be following up in the new year. 

Much more to be done

We’ve made great progress with this campaign. But, the sad fact is that one in seven people still don't have enough food, and half of these hungry people are smallholder farmers. With the right support, these farmers can feed themselves and their families They can even start to save and employ others. This will help whole communities to thrive. 

Support to poor farmers could even help to prevent a future food crisis like the one in east Africa. In 2012, we’ll be continuing to push for the UK to lead in providing this support. We hope you’ll join us.