Christian Groups Hail $20 Billion Commitment to Fight World Hunger
July 14, 2009
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July 13, 2009
Christian humanitarian groups over the weekend hailed news of the G-8's commitment to investing $20 billion to help fight world hunger.
"We welcome President Obama's lead on this issue and the renewed focus by the G-8 on fighting global hunger," said Robert Zachritz, World Vision's director for advocacy and government relations in the United States.
"We have the audacity to believe that we can end global hunger if governments make these sorts of major commitments to join in the fight," added Bill O'Keefe, Catholic Relief Services' senior director for advocacy.
And according to the Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, the agreement by G-8 leaders last week to contribute $20 billion over three years to a new "food security" initiative to combat global hunger is a sign of hope for tens of millions of the world's most vulnerable people.
The additional resources would go both toward rebuilding international capacity to address agricultural issues, and toward directly assisting farmers through improved access to higher-yielding seeds, fertilizer, credit and marketing.
It also comes as the global food and financial crises have pushed the number of people suffering from chronic hunger past the one billion mark for the first time in recorded history.
According to estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, there are around 642 million suffering from chronic hunger in Asia and the Pacific, 265 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, 53 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, 42 million in the Near East and North Africa; and 15 million in developed countries.
This year, mainly due to the shocks of the economic crisis combined with often high national food prices, FAO expects the number of hungry people to grow overall by about 11 percent.
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