World leaders must act after number of people at risk of starvation doubles in two years

18 September 2008

As world leaders prepare for next week's global summit on tackling poverty, CARE is calling for an overhaul of the system where aid is too late, too short-term and focused too heavily on saving lives rather than protecting people's livelihoods and building their resilience.

CARE International, one of the three biggest aid agencies worldwide, says failure to resolve the underlying issues trapping people in extreme poverty has left millions unable to cope with recent price hikes. Among the worst hit are Ethiopia and Somalia, currently facing full-blown emergency. Across the world, the poorest people are rapidly descending into food crisis.

CARE experts in the UK have produced an authoritative report ‘Living on the edge of emergency: Paying the price of inaction’ in the run-up to the high-level event on the Millennium Development Goals in New York next week. The meeting will discuss progress – or lack of - on the commitment to halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

This comes two years after the charity released ‘Living on the edge of emergency: An agenda for change’, a widely respected report, warning of the dangers of failing to tackle emergencies in Africa.

CARE believes some progress has been made since 2006, for example the UK Department for International Development’s investment in disaster risk reduction and support to social protection programmes in Kenya and Zambia.

But the new report has found that by 2015, £100 billion will have already been spent this century fighting emergencies, some of which would have been preventable. And surging food prices have reversed the world’s already faltering progress towards this goal.

"The world’s inaction on food emergencies has proved costly and it is the world’s poorest people – stripped of enough to eat - who are paying the price," said Geoffrey Dennis, Chief Executive of CARE International UK. "Governments, the UN, donors and aid agencies must take this opportunity to deliver the long-term structural reforms to the aid system that will protect the most vulnerable from emergency and build their resilience to food price rises, drought and other shocks."

The report warns that billions of emergency spending will have been wasted, unless the following recommendations are heeded:

• Donors must meet existing aid commitments, and then deliver significant new funds to meet the specific needs of the 100 million newly hungry.
• Aid money must focus on disaster risk reduction, investing in food production and providing long-term safety nets to prevent the poorest falling over the edge into starvation.
• The international aid system, including the UN must bridge the divide between emergency and development, ensuring that aid responses are better coordinated, avoid gaps and duplications and provide early and adequate funding.

The report also highlights new challenges facing the aid system in its fight against hunger, including:

• Food prices have risen by an average 83 per cent in the last three years. This has a disproportionate effect on the poor who currently spend as much as 80 per cent of their expenditure on food, compared to 10 per cent in the UK.
• The impact of climate change is being felt most in developing countries, where large populations depend on agriculture.
• Biofuels are competing for land that could otherwise be used for food production.
• Urban communities are facing large-scale food emergency for the first time.

In 2006, CARE warned of the dangers of failing to tackle emergencies in Africa. Today it says we are facing those consequences– a hunger crisis that has become more entrenched in Africa and is spreading globally.

"It is a disgrace that, despite warnings, money is still being spent in the wrong ways," said Dennis. "Leaders at the MDG meeting must ensure that the aid system can rise to the challenge of the global food crisis. Or they will measure the cost in billions of wasted emergency funds and the suffering of millions of people pushed to and beyond the edge of yet more needless emergencies."

About CARE International: CARE is one of the world’s largest aid agencies, working 70 countries to fight poverty and helping more than 55 million people every year. Our long-term programmes tackle the deep-seated causes of poverty and we are always among the first to respond when disaster strikes. We remain with communities to help them rebuild their lives long after the cameras have gone. For more information, visit www.careinternational.org.uk/lote

Download the report (PDF 304KB) >>

For more information, or interviews with spokespeople in London or in the field, please contact:

Amber Meikle, , 0207 9349348 or 07867 585879
Deborah Underdown, , 0207 9349417