Response to the IDC inquiry on the Government’s work on achieving SDG 2: Zero Hunger

Plan International UK, November 2023

Contact: Ngaire Reynolds, Public Affairs Officer – ngaire.reynolds@plan-uk.org.

About Plan International UK

Plan International UK is a global children’s organisation, working for children’s rights and equality for girls through international development and humanitarian action. For 84 years, we’ve worked to deliver and protect the rights of millions of children - especially girls - across Latin America, Africa and Asia and the UK.

The world is experiencing a devastating global hunger crisis, fueled by the growing climate emergency (including record global warming and droughts, wildfires, flooding and storms), conflict, and inequality. At least 345 million people across 82 countries – half of them children – are currently facing or are at risk of acute food insecurity, with 50 million people on the brink of starvation and teetering on the edge of famine.

For them, sufficient, safe and nutritious food remains alarmingly out of reach. As a result, instead of being on track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 of Zero Hunger by 2030, we are now facing the worst global hunger crisis in history. We therefore warmly welcome the International Development Select Committee’s inquiry into this important issue.

Key reflections on Government’s approach to SDG 2 

• A number of Government strategies over the past few years have provided positive words and commitments. Particularly since the re-appointment of a Minister for Development, there has been a welcome increase in positive political rhetoric surrounding ambition to achieve the SDGs, and a desire for the UK to “re-insert” itself on the global stage. However, what has been lacking alongside these words, is the concrete action and funding that is desperately needed – especially for the most vulnerable and those experiencing extreme poverty. Without rapid scale-up, including through the UK’s wider diplomatic leverage, the SDGs will not be met. 
• Too often, gender equality is viewed as a standalone strand of work, rather than being integrated into all areas of the Government’s development and humanitarian interventions. Gender equality is a key factor that will determine the success of the SDG targets, and must be viewed as such. When it comes to the various strands of its SDG 2 work, the Government would benefit from a review and refresh of its approach to gender, to ensure that girls and women are not left behind.
• The Government’s short-term interventions on food security and hunger need to be delivered at scale much quicker than they currently are, and more of this aid must reach local responders. For example, whilst reports that funding for humanitarian and development aid budgets for Africa are set to more than double next financial year, millions across East Africa face unmet humanitarian needs right now. As of 28th November, for example, the UN-led Somalia 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan remains only 41.7% funded, with $1.5 billion in funding needs still outstanding. Crises of this scale must be urgently prioritised in terms of planning and funding flows, and simultaneously the Government must also put adequate financial and staff resourcing in place to enable effective longer-term planning, such as building resilience to climate change.

1. The effectiveness of the FCDO and UK Government’s approach to achieving SDG 2 in countries eligible for Official Development Assistance (ODA)

1.1 Whether FCDO sufficiently targets and reaches the most in-need communities

Girls and women continue to be disproportionately impacted by the global hunger crisis, with girls' rights and progress on gender equality at risk as a result. Analysis of data from 109 countries has shown that the higher the levels of gender inequality in a country, the hungrier people are.

Plan International’s research on the gendered impact of the global hunger crisis earlier this year explored gendered access to food, as well as the heightened knock-on gender risks that food insecurity can lead to, such as sexual and gender-based violence, and child marriage. Evidence compiled from across eight of some of the most hunger crisis-affected countries in the world (Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Haiti), included the following:

• In Niger and Ethiopia, it was reported that girls and women were typically last to eat within the household, while in Haiti, Mali, Niger and Ethiopia, girls and women were found to receive less food than boys and men in the same household.
• In Haiti, it was reported that girls and women are physically abused at water collection sites, while in South Sudan, a litany of safety concerns surrounding water points were described with both women and men, including frequent disputes, armed robberies and being raped.
• In Niger, girls and women reported being sexually exploited by state security forces in order to obtain food, and in discussions with boys and young men in Burkina Faso, over half reported to have sometimes or often observed girls and young women being sexually exploited.
• In Mali, Niger and Ethiopia, Child Early and Forced Marriage had increased in the context of the current crisis - reasons given mostly focused on the need to reduce the number of mouths to feed, or as a source of dowry.
• In most cases, data shows that school enrolment and/or attendance has reduced since the onset of the drought. In Kenya, for example: school attendance amongst households surveyed had fallen by 10.4% on average since before the drought started, to 51.1%.

From our experience, we see some of the main barriers currently preventing the FCDO from sufficiently reaching the hunger crisis needs of girls and women as the following:

a)      Food security data from around the world is not sufficiently sex, age and disability disaggregated, with no global sex-disaggregated food security data available on under 15s. The result of this is that, despite the specific and complex needs of adolescent girls and school-aged children, programmes are designed which do not sufficiently acknowledge or respond to these needs.

Recommendation: Whilst this is a global problem that all donors and humanitarian agencies must work on, the Government could play a much greater role in both improving the disaggregation of its own data and driving the international system towards improvement, especially through its funding arrangements with UN and INGO partners (for example, setting more ambitious stipulations on the disaggregation of data when entering funding agreements, or consistently using past data disaggregation performance as a metric for the selection of partners).

b)     Linked to this, hunger crisis funding is often not sufficiently gender-responsive, neglecting the needs of girls and women.

Recommendation: To tackle the secondary impacts of hunger which disproportionately impact girls and women, FCDO must adequately and swiftly fund interventions which tackle knock-on impacts from the outset. This includes designing and implementing programming that tackles gender-based violence; protects children from risks such as Child Early and Forced Marriage, sexual exploitation, and child labour; protects the sexual and reproductive health and rights of girls and women in times of disaster; and keeps children, especially girls, in school through provisions including critical school meals programmes. Given the complexity and scale of these issues, FCDO’s offices around the world must be supported with capacity and expertise to help them consider and effectively respond to these gendered dimensions in a systematic and comprehensive way.

Recommendation: Within its wider development work, the Government and other donors must also help women and girls overcome structural and power barriers, such as gender inequality in land ownership and agricultural resources.

c)       Not enough resources are reaching local partners, especially girl-led, youth-led and women-led groups. Supporting inclusive youth-led and feminist collective action is key to humanitarian and climate action, with local partners often the best placed to understand and effectively respond to local needs. However, it is well documented that feminist organisations – particularly those led by girls and young people – are excluded in the current system. In a recent report by Plan International UK and The Feminist Circle, youth-led and feminist organisations/movements reported that donors too often set the agenda and funding landscape, and often exclude young people in dialogue and co-creation when designing programmes and developing policy.

Recommendation: With more international support and empowerment, including from the Government, girl- and women-led organisations, young people, and local communities will be able to address the worst impacts of the hunger crisis, respond to climate change and build a better, more equal, future.

Recommendation: As part of this, the Government must also ensure that children, adolescents and young people are consulted and engaged in the design of humanitarian programming in contexts of acute food insecurity, so that their needs can be better met. Current levels of FCDO public consultation on humanitarian programme design are limited, especially for young people.

1.2 Relevant strategies, aid spending and programming, and other work

1. Relevant strategies

We have seen recent welcome commitments from the Government in the form of the recent White Paper, as well as the FCDO International Development Strategy 2022 and the Women and Girls’ Strategy 2023, all setting out visions to 2030[1]. They have women and girls and humanitarian response at the “center” of them, pledging to “tackling the underlying drivers of crises, instability and extreme food insecurity”.

The Government’s new White Paper on International Development, was particularly welcome. It commits the FCDO to re-focus on the importance of tackling extreme poverty to achieve the SDGs, and prioritise the lowest-income countries. This has been lacking for the past few years and is a greatly welcome assurance.

The Paper also rightly recognises the hunger crisis that the world currently faces, and reaffirms the UK's commitment towards SDG 2. It also rightly recognises that the international system must respond better and earlier to food security crises, and that anticipatory approaches must be improved and social protection systems scaled up.

Within the 'Ending hunger and malnutrition, and building resilient food systems' section of the Paper, however, we were disappointed in the lack of references to the need for a gender-sensitive approach through this work, with the risk that the specific needs of girls and women will be left behind. The Paper’s objectives surrounding hunger and food security will not be met unless gender is systematically considered throughout all of this work.

We also encourage greater public detail from FCDO on their five commitments in this area at the earliest opportunity.[2]

2. Aid spending

Despite welcome words in strategies, what has often been missing in recent years is the consistent action that is needed following these, and adequate financial pledges and delivery. Ultimately, operating at a reduced budget of 0.5% GNI means that the Government will fall short of its ambition, with aid cuts already undermining its commitments.

For example, new research from the GAGE programme, in partnership with Plan International UK, shows the devastating recent impacts of cuts to UK ODA for adolescent girls’ access to humanitarian assistance, food security and nutrition. The research found that:

• The reduction of UK ODA in 2021 has had a large and disproportionate impact on gender- and adolescent-targeted ODA, with a reduction of 33% compared to the overall budget reduction of 22.1%.
• The sectors most severely affected by funding cuts were emergency response, which decreased by a striking 81% decrease (from $219 million to $41 million[3])  and development food assistance, which was completely cut.
• South Sudan experienced the largest cuts in programming targeting adolescent girls with a huge 89% decrease (from $135 million to $15 million). These cuts mainly impacted support to programmes providing life-saving food, shelter, and health services.
• Disaster prevention and preparedness programming was also significantly impacted, with a 91% decrease. This is especially concerning considering the climate crisis and its impacts on women and girls.

Recommendation: To achieve the White Paper’s stated objectives of putting “women and girls centre stage”, increased levels of investment are desperately needed in programmes that strengthen the resilience of adolescent girls to shocks and crises, and promote equality.

Particularly acute is the food insecurity situation in East Africa, with millions across the region standing on the brink of famine[4]. In 2017, the Government helped to lead an international response to prevent famine across East Africa, including by convening a global summit and providing £861 million to the region. Despite the situation in the region being arguably more dire over the last two years than in 2017 – the Government have not stepped up with the same ambition. This year, the Government allocated just £143 million in humanitarian funding for East Africa – a far cry from what is urgently needed.

While we welcome reports that the UK’s humanitarian and development aid budget for Africa is set to more than double next financial year,[5] the situation remains critical, and an urgent response is needed now.

1.3 Approach over the short-, medium- and long-term: climate change

In the Horn of Africa, analysis shows that climate change made the recent catastrophic drought, and resulting hunger crisis, 100 times more likely.  Between 1990 and 2015, the richest 1 percent of the world’s population were responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest 50 percent or 3.1 billion people.

The Government bears a special responsibility towards global hunger, given its historic role alongside other major emitters in creating and sustaining the global climate crisis. But at present, as well as the immediate gaps (as covered above), not enough is being done to prioritise the long-term solutions that are also desperately needed. The Government needs to recognise the ongoing threat posed by the climate crisis over the coming decade and scale-up investment now. This includes the Government committing to:

• Strengthening early warning systems and anticipatory action ahead of predictable shocks like droughts or floods.
• Investing at scale in gender-responsive social protection to address hunger’s knock-on impacts on the rights of girls to education, protection and health, including through school meal programmes.
• Bolstering support for livelihood programs like agricultural support, pasture and livestock management, and skills training to increase economic opportunities.

Recommendation: Recognising that as a major emitting country, the UK should commit to International Climate Finance (ICF) that is new and additional to ODA, and is made accessible to countries and communities most affected by the impacts of the climate crisis. ICF should have clear mechanisms for financial support to reach local communities, including provisions to increase direct support for youth- and girl-led organisations, and locally led projects that are dedicated to delivering child- and gender-responsive outcomes.

More widely, wealthy countries like the UK continue to rely on a large net appropriation of natural resources and commodities from the global South – therefore, responsibility for reducing emissions and financing climate action must be fairly shared by those who have benefited most from globalisation and economic development.

Recommendation: The Government must therefore take bold action to radically reduce its own climate emissions and address the climate emergency, including by putting planet over profit.  In doing this, the Government must consider girls and young people as important stakeholders and place gender equality and children’s rights at the heart of progressing Agenda 2030.

2. The FCDO or other Government departments’ work with other country donors and multilaterally to work on achieving SDG 2 and food security

A noticeable shift since the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is the UK’s turn away from the global stage. Although ministers promised that the merger offered an opportunity to work with donors and partners through diplomacy, so far, this does not appear to have happened. Instead, the UK has reduced its collaborative work with other donors, and vocalness in multilateral spaces.

For example, it was a great shame to see that the UK Prime Minister did not attend the UN General Assembly this year, missing a chance to drive global progress on development and humanitarian goals, including SDG 2.

On a similar note, whilst the UK’s 2021 G7 Presidency ‘Famine Prevention and Humanitarian Compact’ was a welcome move, with a number of positive commitments including on women and girls, we have not seen any comprehensive follow up since the compact was launched. There has not been any public reporting on UK performance against the commitments, and few public signs of international diplomacy by the UK to encourage and remind their fellow G7 members of their commitments.

2.1 East Africa response

As already noted, in 2017, the UK stepped up and led a conference to tackle impending famine across East Africa and provided £861 million to the region. But in 2022, after five consecutive failed rain seasons and a significantly worse outlook for the region, no similar steps were taken.

The UK’s huge reduction in aid in comparison to 2017 created in a vacuum in strong international leadership, with the US having to provide a large proportion of emergency aid to East Africa by itself alone – providing 56% of the total humanitarian aid to Somalia in 2022, by contrast to the UK, which provided 3.7%.

This UK absence in leadership was noted by the presidential envoy for Somalia’s drought response, who stated in 2022: “In the 2017 drought, the UK and its leadership was vital, its advocacy and energy was great… Britain was a great ally to Somalia but that is all gone… when it comes to humanitarian response they are not there, not in leadership or in aid. It’s all gone.”[6]

2.2  Food Security Summit

In the context of this recent absence on the international stage, the Government’s Food Security Summit of 20th November 2023 was welcome, given that it brought together Ministers and officials from around the world to discuss food security and nutrition, renewed international debate on the action needed (including at COP28) and served as a platform for positive UK financial commitments (although greater detail and transparency on exactly where and how this money will be spent, and over what financial years would be welcome). 

Whilst it was positive that the summit was attended by over 20 States, we were disappointed that the Government did not use its convening power to develop concrete collective policy and financial outcomes from the event. Ministers from the UK, United Arab Emirates and Somalia did provide a joint statement as co-partners of the Summit, but this statement does not contain specific commitments, nor does it include new financial or announcements, nor bind other states and parties to action.

We were also disappointed by a lack of focus on gender, women and girls throughout the summit. Given the impact of hunger crises on girls and women that have already been discussed, we would have welcomed consideration of the gendered impacts of hunger and malnutrition throughout each session of the UK’s summit, and more high-level recognition of the need to overcome gender barrier as part of SDG 2.

We would have also liked to see a greater focus on supporting local partners and youth organisations throughout the summit, with local communities and organisations (including youth-led groups) systematically consulted with and listened to, and steps taken to build a platform for more equitable partnerships in the food security and nutrition sectors. 

Recommendation: Following COP28, the Government should consider developing a more specific and strategic international roadmap on food security and hunger through 2024 – to agree priorities, maintain momentum, and hold donors, UN agencies and NGOs to account. Such a roadmap could make use of Italy’s 2024 G7 Presidency and Brazil’s 2024 G20 Presidency, as well as the World Bank Spring and Autumn meetings, and the UN’s Summit of the Future scheduled for September 2024.

8