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Rich nations failing on food aid, campaigner says

Most rich countries are reneging on pledges to increase food and farm aid to poor nations, a report by campaign group ActionAid said on Friday.

The report, released on World Food Day, also said that recent pledges by the G8 to spend US$20 billion over the next three years to help poor countries feed themselves were proving elusive, and no clear timetable for action has been set.

With the number of hungry people in the world topping 1 billion this year — 105 million more than last year — ActionAid drew a scorecard of how rich countries are following on promises to increase aid.

The scorecard measures aid for agriculture and food security in 2005 to 2007 against a UN call for an additional US$30 billion per year by 2012.

It says that with the exception of the top three donors — Luxembourg, Sweden and Norway — most rich countries did not fulfill even half of what was expected from them to reach the 2012 target.

The worst performers were Greece, Portugal, Italy, the US and New Zealand.

The report also casts a critical eye on the G8 pledges made at a summit in Italy in July.

“In researching this report, we found that no one could tell us which donors have committed how much towards the US$20 billion or when the funds will be disbursed,” it said.

A G20 summit last month asked the World Bank to create a trust fund to increase agricultural investment in poor countries, but no timeline was set.

The US ambassador to UN food agencies in Rome said this week Washington put the US$3.5 billion it pledged as part of the G8 initiative into that fund, but said the exact form that sum would take had yet to be determined.

The ActionAid report praised Brazil and China for their efforts to tackle hunger at home.
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