G8 nations urged to act on their hunger pledges

Anti-poverty group ONE said the drought crisis in East Africa was a “wake-up call” to governments which pledged to help to feed the hungry in Africa two years ago.

A spokeswoman from the group said leaders of the rich world meeting at the G8 summit in Italy in 2009 pledged $22bn (£13.7bn) to go towards agricultural projects designed to put Africa on the road towards food self-sufficiency, rather than on emergency aid during famines and disasters.

But a new report says that since world leaders pledged the cash, only a fifth of it has been donated.

With only one year to go until the deadline for the donations, the report found that the UK has only lived up to 30 per cent of the $1.7bn (£1.1bn) it promised, a ONE spokeswoman said.

She said that collectively the countries have raised 22 per cent of the financial pledges.

ONE executive director Jamie Drummond said: “World leaders are guilty of letting slide their promises to fight the root causes of hunger, in particular very low agricultural productivity in regions like sub-Saharan Africa.”

The DEC, the umbrella body representing the UK’s 14 leading aid agencies, said acute malnutrition has reached 37 per cent in some parts of north east Kenya