Bono and ONE praise Irish leadership on agriculture and hunger crisis in Africa; call for reallocation of unspent European funds to save lives.

Today Bono, a member of the Irish Hunger Task Force (IHTF), will join Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and fellow commissioners Sheila Sisulu of the World Food Program, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and IHTF chair Joe Walsh to present the findings of the IHTF at the UN emergency meeting on the Millennium Development Goals in New York.

The IHTF calls on the Irish government to allocate 20 percent of Irish aid to agriculture and nutrition, as Ireland moves to fulfill its promise to give 0.7 per cent of GNI in international development assistance by 2012. The IHTF findings also call for increased investment in smallholder agriculture, better coordination of international bodies dealing with food and hunger issues, increased investment in research and development as well as the appointment of a special Irish envoy on hunger and a special UN envoy on hunger.

In a critically important move today, Ireland also confirmed its support for reallocating 1 billion Euros of CAP under-spend towards helping African nations and farmers currently dealing with a food emergency, in a tremendous act of solidarity.

“This reaffirms Irish generosity and leadership in the fight against hunger and poverty. Irish leadership on this issue is critical as EU leaders will make decisions on the allocation of the unspent CAP funds in the next few weeks. There are 925 million people in the world who will go to bed hungry tonight and 30 countries, mainly in Africa, where there is a food emergency. Investments in seeds and fertilizers can both save lives now and help reduce hunger next year. It’s an historically sound investment,” said Jamie Drummond, Executive Director of ONE.

“If all nations would commit to doing what Ireland is doing today, hunger and extreme poverty could become history in our lifetimes. An increasing number of EU member states are getting behind this practical proposal to reallocate the sums saved from unspent European subsidies to saving lives in Africa.”