UK joins Brazil’s Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty and announces investment in global food security

• Prime Minister confirms the UK as a founding member of the Brazil-led Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty.
• £70 million package launched to support tackling global food insecurity and poverty.
• Announcements underline the UK’s commitment to more equitable partnerships with the Global South and a new approach to development.

Millions of households grappling with poverty and hunger across the Global South will be supported through the newly launched Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty (the Alliance), as well as new UK investment for the world’s most food insecure countries.

The announcement was confirmed by the Prime Minister while attending the G20 Leaders’ Summit this week [commencing 18 November], taking place in Rio.

The UK is a founding member of the Brazil-led grouping, which has attracted over 80 countries so far, each making important commitments to accelerate action on global food insecurity. Members will share expertise to deliver interventions that work at scale and work together to unlock the crucial finance needed to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty.

The UK will sit on the Alliance’s steering group, the Board of Champions, and invest £70 million over the next eighteen months to enable food-insecure households to withstand shocks, drive green growth in the agriculture sector, and improve social protection for those in need.

Minister for Development Anneliese Dodds said

With the climate emergency increasingly preventing the world’s most vulnerable families from having enough to eat, it’s time for a new approach.

The UK’s partnership with Brazil, our membership of the Alliance and this package of investment demonstrate our unwavering commitment to tackling global hunger.

Only in genuine partnership with the Global South can we move closer to a stable world free of hunger and poverty.

Globally, three quarters of a billion people experienced hunger last year, and emergency levels of food insecurity are at a five-year high, with progress hampered by climate change, conflict and economic stresses.

The announcement includes up to £50 million for the new Resilience and Adaptation Fund, which will harness climate finance to ensure that food-insecure households in countries like Ethiopia, Chad and Bangladesh can withstand shocks and extreme weather.

The package of investment builds on over £30 million of funding announced earlier this autumn. Lord Collins, the Minister for Africa announced £25 million for AgDevCo Ventures in September, to scale-up early-stage African agribusinesses and increase Africa’s resilience to climate change at the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali.

By driving economic development abroad, the UK will continue to deliver for people at home, through creating trade opportunities, stabilising global food prices, and, ultimately, diversifying supply options for the UK’s food security.  

Notes to Editors

The Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty is an ambitious initiative developed by the Brazilian presidency of the G20. Established in July, it launched at the G20 Leaders’ Summit on 18 November 2024 where the Prime Minister made a statement.

PM remarks at the launch of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty 18 November 2024 – GOV.UK

The UK’s new £70m package of support includes

• Up to £50 million for the new Resilience and Adaptation Fund, which will harness climate finance to ensure that food-insecure households in countries like Ethiopia, Chad and Bangladesh can withstand shocks and extreme weather.
• Additionally, a £25.5 million uplift will be invested through the Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness (CASA) programme to help small agribusinesses in Africa and Asia grow, whilst boosting the incomes of smallholder farmers and helping the agriculture sector adapt to climate change.
• A new £3m contribution to the Fragility Window of the World Bank Rapid Social Response Trust Fund to increase the coverage of cash transfer programmes, so that vulnerable people can meet their basic needs and withstand shocks.
• A new joint UN Initiative on the Prevention of Wasting (JUNIPr), developed in partnership with UNICEF, WFP and WHO, to strengthen the evidence base around what works best to prevent child wasting in food insecure contexts.
• Up to £0.5m to sponsor development expertise and analytical work for the Alliance’s Support Mechanism.

Over £30m UK funding previously pledged includes

• A £25m investment to AgDevCo Ventures to scale-up early-stage African agribusinesses and increase Africa’s resilience to climate change – announced at the Africa Food Systems Forum in September.
• £7 million of the aforementioned CASA programme uplift was announced at the Annual Meetings of the World Bank in October.