World YWCA joins with Churches to warn G8 that a billion people may face constant hunger

“World leaders must seek justice in solutions to the food crisis that now faces us.” More than 850 million people were already living without enough to eat before the food crisis that began as prices shot up in the early months of 2008. The World Bank estimates that the crisis will put at least another 100 million people into the same situation.

The World Bank President, Robert Zoellick has written to the G8 with his three priority steps for action which respond to the urgent desperate need for food. This need is dire and must be met, not just for those made newly hungry by the crisis, but also for those already living in hunger.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, in his recent message on the food crisis to the summit of world leaders, reminded them of the ancient rule: “Give to eat to the one who is starving of hunger, because, if you do not give to him to eat, you will kill him”.

Church groups have worked to ease hunger for centuries and, while meeting the immediate need, have sought not to lose sight of the roots of the problem which include unjust trade. Archbishop Tutu joined with other church leaders in calling on G8 leaders to take action in three areas to address underlying causes of the food crisis:

“Ensuring people have access to adequate food cannot be left to the mercy of the markets,” declared Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko, General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation. “Promoting and protecting the Right to Food is a fundamental responsibility of governments. There is an obligation on the G8 leaders to support weaker economies in carrying out this responsibility.”

“Governments must take measures to make smallholder farmers and consumers less vulnerable to price shocks,” said Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, General Secretary of the World YWCA. “Doing so will not be easy. It will need to include subsidizing inputs for smallholder farmers, stabilising prices, ensuring women have rights to land and setting up social safety nets for poor consumers. These actions are crucial if we are to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.”

Noting that some have actually profited from the food crisis, Lesley-Anne Knight, Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis, urged G8 leaders to support the creation of competition rules that would regulate international trade, particularly including trade in food. “Trade in food is dominated by a few transnational companies who have immense power,” she explained. “Whether prices go up or down they rarely lose, while at either end of the chain smallholder farmers and individual consumers bear the brunt of the market shocks. The concentration of power of these companies must be diluted.”

Zoellick described the food crisis as a “man-made catastrophe” rather than a natural disaster, which “must be fixed by people”. Churches strongly agree. The General Secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia stated that: “The WCC views the primary cause of the current crisis as inappropriate human actions which have induced climate change and skyrocketing food prices. Human actions that are driven by greed have created poverty, hunger and climate change. Humanity must be challenged to overcome its greed.”

Pope Benedict XVI also encouraged “every People to share the needs of other Peoples, placing in common the goods of the earth that the Creator has destined for the entire human family.”

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