Bill Gates accepts WFP-USA hunger award
Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, today accepted World Food Program USA’s George McGovern Leadership Award for his foundation’s efforts to help small farmers in the developing world overcome hunger and poverty. Gates said the famine in the Horn of Africa, rising food prices, and a growing population make it more important than ever to help poor farm families grow and sell more food.
At next week’s G20 Summit in Cannes, France, Gates will deliver a report outlining how innovations and partnerships in health and agriculture can help increase global stability and put the poorest countries and people on a long-term path to economic growth and equality.
“I’ll be taking a message to the G20 that we can’t turn our backs on the world’s poorest, even in these tough economic times,” Gates said. “Our current fiscal crisis shouldn’t force cuts in programs like agriculture that build self-sufficiency, pay huge returns, and advance stability and economic growth.”
In 2009, in the face of historically high food prices and increasing global hunger, the G20 committed $22 billion to food security. But to date, only about half of these pledges have been disbursed or are on track to be disbursed.
Gates said the famine in the Horn of Africa should be a final wake-up call for the international community.
