HungerFREE Scorecard

Over one billion people around the world are hungry. To force governments to work together to end hunger ActionAid has released the Who's Really Fighting Hunger? Scorecard.

Timed to coincide with World Food Day, the scorecard ranks 22 rich and 29 developing countries on their efforts to combat hunger. Australia places a disappointing 17th out of 22.

Why so low?

The scorecard cites Australia's low levels of support to agriculture and the country's policies and action on climate change as the reasons for its poor showing.

Australia is currently one of five countries who rank bottom in their efforts to cut carbon emissions. Despite ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, Kevin Rudd's government has only managed to commit to a binding target of 4 percent reduction of carbon emissions.

The government's short-sightedness has direct consequences for Australia, as major ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef could be lost. Further afield it means that more people will become hungry - already, since 2005, 170 million more people have joined the ranks of the hungry.

Despite signing up to the UN's "halving hunger" goals in 1996 and 2000, donor countries actually reduced the amount of aid they gave towards agriculture. Hunger is not a result of nature. It is a political choice.

Click above to view a slideshow of ActionAid's activity on World Food Day 2009

What we're doing

To launch the report ActionAid coordinated a series of events across the globe. In Australia we emphasised the number of deaths from hunger - a classroom of children every three minutes - by setting up an empty classroom in Circular Quay, as well as personally delivering a copy of the scorecard to the Prime Minister's office.

We want Kevin Rudd to personally attend the Food and Agricultural Organisation's World Food Summit in Rome in November and the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December and commit to reducing Australia's carbon emissions by 40% by 2020 and 80% by 2050.

Among the scorecard's priority actions ActionAid wants governments to:

• Increase donor aid to agriculture, including the prioritisation of investment in poor farmers;
• Enshrine the right to food in national constitutions and framework laws;
• Agree to limit emissions and also support and sustain adaptation and mitigation measures;

We want to force the government to take action. Please join the fight against hunger by downloading a copy of the scorecard and signing the petition.