Banco Mundial

Kristin Davis, Angelique Kidjo and Paul Theroux and others join the call on World Bank to temporarily freeze land deals in developing countries.

Land eight times the size of the UK was sold off globally in the last decade, enough to grow food for a billion people, or the equivalent to the number of people who go hungry in the world today.

Oxfam today calls for greater scrutiny and control of the funding for development channeled through financial intermediaries such as private equity funds, banks and credit agencies.

International agency Oxfam welcomed the selection of Jim Yong Kim as World Bank president, but said the sham appointment process had damaged the institution.

Oxfam welcomes the World Bank’s call that UK-based New Forests Company (NFC) must open up to a full investigation into claims of bad practice in its Uganda forestry projects.

World leaders have an historic opportunity to reform the global economy to ensure that the one in six people who live in extreme poverty benefit from economic recovery, international agency Oxfam said today ahead of the G20 summit in Seoul.

Oxfam spokesperson Mark Fried said:
 

The UN could drastically reduce the 24,000 deaths occurring daily around the world from hunger-related causes, provided countries agree that it coordinates all the different initiatives to fight hunger.

G20 finance ministers meeting in London this weekend should provide a $280 billion bailout for millions of poor people struggling to survive the economic crisis. We provide three easy ways the G20 could deliver this up.

The $8.42 trillion promised by rich country governments to bailout banks would be enough to end global extreme poverty for 50 years and a massive step towards ending it forever.