For immediate release 13 May 2008

Churches tackle root causes of hunger in new campaign

Christian leaders around the world are calling on the United Nations Secretary-General to seek tangible results in realizing the right to food. The letter to Ban Ki-moon is the first action of a new ecumenical global campaign on food being launched today in Geneva, Switzerland, by the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA).

“Churches have always helped people in need of food, but now we want to tackle the root causes of hunger as a structural problem,” states Rev. Malcolm Damon, chair of the EAA’s Food Strategy Group and Executive Director of the Economic Justice Network of FOCCISA, Southern Africa. “The economic crisis and the climate crisis alone will lead to even more hunger problems,” he continues, “so we need to engage actively with the systems, policies and practices that are at the heart of the problem.”

With nearly one billion people facing chronic hunger in a world that currently produces enough nutritious food to feed everyone, the production, distribution and access to culturally appropriate nourishment is “a fundamental matter of justice”, states the EAA in its campaign framework.

The letter to the UN Secretary-General applauds his recent call to include the Right to Food as the third pillar in the Comprehensive Framework for Action at the High Level Meeting on Food Security for All in Madrid. But the letter urges him to take further steps to “ensure this vision is converted into practical and tangible action.”

The four-year EAA campaign will mobilize people all over the world through their churches and Christian organizations to advocate for:

Just food production systems, including trade and distribution systems
Just and sustainable consumption
Realization of the Right to Food for all people, understood as people’s access and means to procure sufficient and nutritious food for themselves without sacrificing other fundamental rights such as housing, education and health.
In welcoming the EAA’s campaign, Professor Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, affirmed, “Producing more food will not reduce hunger if we neglect to think about the political economy of the food systems and if we do not produce and consume in ways which are both more equitable and more sustainable. Nor will increased production suffice if we do not ground our policies on the right to food – as a means to ensure adequate targeting, monitoring and accountability.”

The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance is an international network of over 50 churches and Christian organizations committed to joint action on critical global issues. EAA members represent tens of millions of Christians across the globe. Members include international and national churches and organizations, including The Lutheran World Federation, World Alliance of YMCAs, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, Tearfund, Catholic Relief Services, Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in West Africa, World Vision International, Norwegian Church Aid, World YWCA, and Churches Health Association of Zambia.

“The good news”, the letter to Ban Ki-moon states after highlighting the broken systems for producing, buying, selling and sharing food, “is that, working together, we can change these policies, practices and structures.”

For more information:

The full text of the letter to UN Secretary General and the list of signatures is at: http://www.e-alliance.ch/en/s/food/unsgsignonletter/

More information on the food campaign can be viewed at: http://www.e-alliance.ch/en/s/food/

For more information contact Sara Speicher, sspeicher@e-alliance.ch, +44 7821 860 723.