Lothian MSP Sarah Boyack will lead a Member’s Debate, just after First Minister’s Questions this morning, to call for everyone in Scotland to play their part in the fight to end world hunger.
The debate will highlight the work of the ‘Enough Food for Everyone IF’ campaign and its Scottish manifesto highlighting how Scotland can play its part in the international effort to end world hunger.
The campaign, launched in January by a coalition of over 150 leading development charities and faith groups, has published a report showing that hunger and malnutrition in childhood will trap almost a billion young people in poverty by 2025.
The Lothian MSP, who convenes the Scottish Parliament’s Cross Party Group on International Development, will use the debate to highlight the actions proposed by the group and to encourage the Scottish Government to add its backing.
Speaking ahead of the debate, Sarah Boyack MSP said:
“Hunger is a global scandal and the fact that it is preventable highlights the inequalities in the world that have allowed it to persist.
“Around the world one in eight people are affected by undernourishment and every year, malnutrition claims the lives of 2.3m children who are locked into poverty.
“The coming together of the IF campaign group is a significant moment, representing an urgent mass call for global action to tackle this scandal, and it is vital that all levels of Scottish society listen and play their part.
“The Scottish Government needs to take the lead, ensuring its actions and policies are geared towards protecting the world’s most vulnerable people and encouraging others to follow suit.
“It is important to remember that hunger is not isolated to the developing world. Here in Scotland demand for food banks is on the increase as families struggle through the recession.
“The campaign has gathered tremendous public support and I hope we are reaching a tipping point where the calls for action are so loud they cannot be ignored by world leaders.
“I will be working to encourage the Scottish Government to play its part in this process to make 2013 the beginning of the end for hunger.”
Motion S4M-05450: Sarah Boyack, Lothian, Scottish Labour, Date Lodged: 23/01/2013
Enough Food for Everyone IF Scotland Plays its Part
That the Parliament notes the recent figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations suggesting that 870 million people, or one in eight, were affected by chronic undernourishment in the period 2010 to 2012; welcomes the campaign, Enough Food for Everyone IF, which was launched on 23 January 2013; understands that this has the support of nearly 100 organisations across the UK; notes that a number of these bodies are also members of the Network of International Development Organisations in Scotland, which recently organised the Scotland v Poverty Exhibition that travelled to various venues around the country, including the Lothians, to draw attention to Scotland’s response to global poverty and hunger; understands that the Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign calls on the UK Government to meet its promise of spending 0.7% of national income on overseas aid and to use its presidency of the G8 in 2013 to push for global action to tackle tax dodging by multinational companies, end land grabs affecting poor farmers in developing countries and introduce greater transparency by companies and governments in order to enable citizens to hold the powerful to account and ensure that resources are used to help poor people; understands that the campaign has also launched a Scottish manifesto that argues that the country can play its part in ensuring that there is enough food for everyone if it supports the Climate Justice Fund, actively supports fair and ethical trading through its procurement processes, contributes to the global debate on land rights, invests in global citizenship education and audits the impact of Scotland’s public and private sector on developing countries, and hopes that the Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign is a success.
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