The latest from WDM

Welcome to the World Development Movement news pages. You can view our news by category in each campaign section, or get the whole lot below. For press inquiries please contact the press office.

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News

G20 finance ministers fail to tackle soaring food prices

17 October 2011

George Osborne and his G20 counterparts failed to commit to the controls needed to curb soaring food prices at their Paris meeting which concluded on Saturday.

The finance ministers promised better regulation of commodity markets, where banks and hedge funds bet on the price of basic foods – but campaigners say the measures are not strong enough to prevent speculators driving up prices.

450 economists call on G20 finance ministers to stop speculation fuelling hunger

11 October 2011

More than 450 economists from over 40 countries have called on the G20 finance ministers, who are meeting in Paris this week, to take urgent action to stop financial speculation in commodity markets driving up food prices and fuelling hunger.

Blogs we read

22 September 2011

Below is a list of RSS feeds to blogs and website that we read (although not necessarily agree with). If you want to recommend a blog or suggest that we read yours, please post it in in the comments.

Regulators’ rules ‘too weak’ to tackle speculation on food

15 September 2011

International financial regulators have called today for tighter controls on financial speculation in commodity markets, but anti-poverty campaigners the World Development Movement have branded the regulators’ rules as ‘too weak’, saying they will not tackle the growing hunger and poverty caused by speculation on food prices.

‘Broken’ markets driving up food prices as bread soars

13 September 2011

‘Broken’ financial markets are driving up food prices, reveals a new report released today, as inflation figures show UK consumers are now paying over seven per cent more for bread than a year ago.[1]

Donations to crisis appeals buy half as much food as in 2001

28 July 2011

The World Development Movement has called for urgent measures to regulate financial speculation on food prices in the wake of the Horn of Africa famine, revealing that the price of food aid has doubled since 2001.

The World Food Programme paid $390 per tonne of food last year, compared with $200 in 2001. On Monday the organisation said it needed an extra $360 million in order to tackle the crisis now affecting more than 12 million people.

Climate loan sharks

18 July 2011

Emma Rubach. This article originally appeared in The Big Issue

There’s been a lot in the press recently about the fact Britain’s aid budget is one of the few areas of public spending not facing cuts. Despite detractors wondering how we can spend money overseas when we don’t seem to have much to spend at home, the government has been vocally proud of its commitment to helping poor countries out of poverty and to reaching the Millennium Development Goals.

Oil giant Total pauses Madagascar tar sands plans – for now

7 July 2011

This Monday WDM campaigners came to the office with big smiles on their faces. Over the weekend, we’d heard that French Oil giant Total, subject to one of our latest online actions, had apparently cancelled its plans to mine tar sands in Madagascar.

High fives all around. Or?

Developing country groups slam UK’s climate loans

27 June 2011

Groups from 13 developing countries have today slammed UK climate loans, set to be agreed in South Africa this week. The loans are to be given through the World Bank.

Community leaders in countries including Nepal, Bangladesh, Mozambique and Yemen have written to British cabinet ministers Chris Huhne and Andrew Mitchell rejecting the loans the UK is providing to their countries to help them cope with climate change.

G20 fails to tackle food price speculation

23 June 2011

An action plan supposed to address food insecurity launched today by the G20 agriculture ministers has been criticised by campaigners, who say it fails to fully address the root causes of volatile food prices, including financial speculation, which is driving up prices.

Anti-poverty group the World Development Movement said that opposition from countries including the UK had led to the watering down of proposals that could have seen countries commit to setting limits on speculators’ share of the market.

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement said: