UK joins Brazil’s Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty and announces investment in global food security

By Government of United Kingdom

UK joins Brazil’s Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty and announces investment in global food security

Millions of households grappling with poverty and hunger across the Global South will be supported through the newly launched Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty (the Alliance), as well as new UK investment for the world’s most food-insecure countries.

The announcement was confirmed by the Prime Minister while attending the G20 Leaders’ Summit, taking place in Rio.

The UK is a founding member of the Brazil-led grouping, which has attracted over 80 countries so far, each making important commitments to accelerate action on global food insecurity. Members will share expertise to deliver interventions that work at scale and work together to unlock the crucial finance needed to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty.

The UK will sit on the Alliance’s steering group, the Board of Champions, and invest £70 million over the next eighteen months to enable food-insecure households to withstand shocks, drive green growth in the agriculture sector, and improve social protection for those in need.

Minister for Development Anneliese Dodds said: ”With the climate emergency increasingly preventing the world’s most vulnerable families from having enough to eat, it’s time for a new approach. The UK’s partnership with Brazil, our membership of the Alliance and this package of investment demonstrate our unwavering commitment to tackling global hunger. Only in genuine partnership with the Global South can we move closer to a stable world free of hunger and poverty”.

Globally, three-quarters of a billion people experienced hunger last year, and emergency levels of food insecurity are at a five-year high, with progress hampered by climate change, conflict, and economic stresses.

The announcement includes up to £50 million for the new Resilience and Adaptation Fund, which will harness climate finance to ensure that food-insecure households in countries like Ethiopia, Chad, and Bangladesh can withstand shocks and extreme weather.

The package of investment builds on over £30 million of funding announced earlier this autumn. Lord Collins, the Minister for Africa announced £25 million for AgDevCo Ventures in September, to scale up early-stage African agribusinesses and increase Africa’s resilience to climate change at the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali.

By driving economic development abroad, the UK will continue to deliver for people at home, by creating trade opportunities, stabilizing global food prices, and, ultimately, diversifying supply options for the UK’s food security.