Why Britain Wishes To Contribute Towards Food Security For Poor Nations
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Alaina
- . September 2, 2020
- . Update: September 2, 2020 9:40 pm
The United Kingdom is out to make history as it promises to lead the fight against famine and corona virus in developing countries. This would be formalized by merging the two government bodies namely, Department of International Development (DfID) and Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to form the new Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
Making this official Dominic Raab announced the aid of £119million to buttress the works of FCDO that will primarily tackle coronavirus and famine. This aid will focus on countries worst affected by extreme hunger in Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Central African Republic, the Sahel region, South Sudan and Sudan. Over 6 million people are suffering on account of lack of medical facilities and hunger driven malnutrition.
The formation was initially announced in June and received heavy criticism from Johnson’s predecessors. Former Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has already described the merger as a “self inflicted act of vandalism”. The only question of every other critics mind was whether DfID would lose its clout as an international office and that the Foreign office might not overshadow it.
There has also seen disgruntle over the absorption of staff. There are selfish stories to be shared where some DfID staff believes their work on poverty reduction could be undermined by diplomatic staff determined to put UK commercial interests first. The dismay over a new FCDO leadership team is evident as five appointees, including political director Tim Barrow come from FCO with only two from DfID officials.
Raab as foreign secretary spoke out clearly that the ‘global Britain’ can only become so, ahead of its taking over presidencies in G7 and COP26 sooner, if it does develop a vision where it can ‘combine diplomatic strength with our world leading aid expertise.’
With the pandemic hitting the underdeveloped and poor nations the worst, there is no surprise when the United Nations has sent out a distress call focusing on the kid of crises the world faces. This is going to be the worst food crisis in 50 years. Fifty million people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty this year, with food systems under threat as never before.
