Global hunger and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (No. 2)

That this House is concerned by projections from the World Food Programme (WFP) that famine will take hold in parts of Somalia, with 7.1 million people facing acute food insecurity, while UNICEF estimates that a child has been sent to hospital over malnutrition every minute since August 2022; notes that a major cause of the crisis is the worst drought in the Horn of Africa for four decades; emphasises the role of climate change in this; highlights that the crisis has been worsened by conflict, with a correlation between areas projected to fall into famine and those impacted by non-state armed groups; notes that this also restricts humanitarian operations; stresses the impact of the war in Ukraine, with at least 90 per cent of Somalia’s wheat coming from Russia and Ukraine prior to the February 2022 invasion; highlights that this crisis has displaced over a million people, while disease is spreading rapidly in displacement camps; is dismayed that the world is set to fail the UN Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030; emphasises that a senior Somali Government official recently said the UK has lost its leading role on this issue; notes that this is despite the UK’s ongoing commitment to providing security assistance to the Somali Government; and calls on the Government to (a) combine its security role in Somalia with greater humanitarian assistance, (b) support international and non-governmental humanitarian organisations operating in Somalia and (c) restore the commitment to spending 0.7 per cent of GNI on international aid.