Humanitarian groups call on G8 to address food security at upcoming summit

Several humanitarian groups say that despite the G8's pledge made at the 2009 L'Aquila Summit to provide $22 billion over three years to improve agriculture and food security, "the commitment is about to expire" and "much more needs to be done to end hunger," VOA News reports. Neil Watkins, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid, said he expects G8 leaders at their upcoming summit at Camp David later this month will promote a new food security initiative with greater private sector involvement, according to VOA. "Gawain Kripke of Oxfam America praised President Obama's food security efforts since 2009," the news service writes, adding that Kripke said, "[W]e've been calling for President Obama to keep that momentum up -- to keep pushing for bigger and better and more ambitious goals and more ambitious resource commitments."

Tom Hart, senior director of U.S. government policy at ONE, called efforts to get donors to fulfill their pledges to L'Aquila a "challenge," and he added, "Donors so far have distributed, disbursed, about 22 percent of the $22 billion that they pledged. We expect that number -- that 22 percent delivery -- to go up over the course of the next few months as pledges are indeed turned into disbursements on the ground," according to VOA. "Michael Klosson of Save the Children wants G8 leaders to make a major commitment to ending malnutrition affecting millions of children," the news service writes, noting Obama has invited four African leaders to the summit to discuss food security (DeCapua, 5/4).