G8 pledges $20bn to African food fund
Updated on 10 July 2009
As the G8 summit draws to a close world leaders pledge $20bn to help poor African countries on the road to food self-sufficiency.
The cash, equivalent to £12.3bn, is $5bn more than expected thanks to last-minute offers during discussions at the L'Aquila summit.
The money is intended 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.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who had already promised £1.1bn from Britain for agriculture and food security, said that today's pledges would help tackle a "hunger emergency that is gripping over a billion people around the world".
Development charities welcomed the expanded package, which will be targeted at smallholders rather than major agribusiness companies, but warned the money would not match the scale of need in the poor world, which has been hard hit by the global recession.
The aid announcement came at the end of a three-day summit which also saw the G8 - Britain, the US, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia - join with emerging economies China and India to agree that average global temperatures should not be allowed to rise by more than 2C, though agreement on greenhouse emission cuts for non-G8 countries was put off until the Copenhagen climate change conference in December.
There was also agreement to seek a conclusion to long-running trade talks by next year, and to hold a nuclear non-proliferation conference in Washington in the spring, at which reductions in Britain's Trident deterrent may be up for negotiation as part of a multilateral agreement.
Speaking at a press conference at the conclusion of the L'Aquila summit, Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed the agreement on food aid.
He said there was "an urgent need for decisive action to free humankind from hunger and poverty".
Turning Africa from a net importer to a net exporter of food would deliver benefits not only for the African people but for consumers around the world, he said.
The global downturn has led to a sharp increase in food shortages, with the numbers of chronically hungry estimated to be growing at a rate of around 275,000 a day throughout 2008.
From Libya with love
Colonel Gaddafy at G8
This morning, Mr Brown met Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafy for the first time and asked him to help with the case of British girl Nadia Fawzi, who was abducted by her Libyan father in 2007 and taken to his country.
Mr Brown told Colonel Gaddafy that Britain wanted the six-year-old returned to the UK to be reunited with her mother, Sarah Taylor, of Wigan, and the Libyan leader undertook to look into the case and see what he could do.
Mr Brown also voiced his "admiration and gratitude" for the Libyan leader's "brave" decision to scrap weapons of mass destruction programmes in 2003 - a step which allowed the country to re-engage with the international community following years of isolation after the Lockerbie bombing.
In an apparent reference to Iran and North Korea, Mr Brown said that it was now necessary to try to persuade other countries to follow Libya's example in the run-up to the Washington non-proliferation summit.
Col Gaddafy raised the case of jailed Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who is seeking to return to Libya, but Mr Brown said that was a matter for the Scottish Government.
