Yahoo News Global Hunger: Government Pledges Extra £375m
The Government has committed to giving an extra £375 million to help feed the world's poorest children as a protest rally in London called for an end to global hunger.
The aid is part of a £2.7 billion international agreement aimed at preventing millions of infant deaths and boosting the chances of millions more, the Department for International Development said.
The announcement came as Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and director Danny Boyle addressed the rally, attended by 45,000 people in Hyde Park, demanding the G8 act on combating world hunger.
Boyle said achieving the goal would be "the greatest gold medal Britain could win in 2013".
He said: "Anyone who says that we can't crack the hunger crisis is wrong. This is my dream - it's a passionate dream - that in Olympics to come there will be no-one dying of hunger in any of the countries whose wonderful flags wave in the wind. And it is a fight that will be won."
Thousands turned up to the event, which was organised by lobby group Enough Food For Everyone, and marked 10 days before Mr Cameron takes charge of the G8 meeting in Northern Ireland.
Mr Gates praised the UK for "leading the way" on tackling hunger.
He told the rally: "The UK is keeping its promise to the world's poor, largely because all of you remind your leaders regularly, and loudly, that this stuff matters. Now is our chance to make a significant difference."
Earlier, Prime Minister David Cameron urged more investment to tackle global hunger at the Nutrition Summit in London, which he hosted.
Mr Cameron acknowledged concerns over UK aid budgets as the country suffers austerity, but said it was equivalent to just 1p from every £1 of tax paid.
He said: "When people are dying, we don't believe in finding excuses. We believe in trying to do something about it ... and that makes me proud to be British."
He said the UK was one of the few countries in the world to meet a promise to spend 0.7% of GDP on development.
The participants at the summit signed a Global Nutrition for Growth deal, committing their countries and organisations to the following goals by 2020:
:: Improving the nutrition of 500 million pregnant women and young children.
:: Reducing the number of children under the age five whose growth is stunted by an additional 20 million.
:: Saving the lives of at least 1.7 million children by preventing stunting, increasing breastfeeding and providing better treatment of severe and acute malnutrition.
There are three key summits leading up to the G8 meeting which could tackle the causes of hunger.
There are plans for a 'visual petition' of 250,000 spinning flowers, featuring two million petals to represent the two million children who die every year because of malnutrition.
Sally Copley, a spokeswoman for Enough Food for Everyone IF, said: "The Hunger Summit and the G8 summit following it must take ambitious action to end hunger.
"That means clamping down on tax dodging in poor countries, tackling malnutrition and cracking down on land grabs."
