The Guardian Australia

Brazil led the way. Now the UK should get behind the assault on hunger and poverty

Last week the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, shattered the mould of G20 meetings. In using the annual summit as a launchpad for a new effort to tackle hunger and extreme poverty, he has provided the world with a chance – a last chance – to breathe new life into a moribund sustainabl­e developmen­t goal (SDG) agenda. He has handed the G20 a cause that could halt its slide into irrelevanc­e.

For the UK, the creation of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty represents an opportunit­y to restore a deeply tarnished reputation on internatio­nal developmen­t.

The foreign secretary, David Lammy, has pledged to put cooperatio­n with the global south at the heart of an agenda for “progressiv­e realism”. Getting behind Lula and the Brazilian initiative would be a good place to start.

The G20 is not an obvious platform for an assault on the twin scourges of hunger and poverty. Like a riderless horse in the Grand National, the forum has plenty of economic and political muscle – its members account for more than three-quarters of world economic output – but no direction.

Since 2009, when the UK’s prime minister Gordon Brown used a G20 summit to avert a global economic depression, meetings have become fractious talking shops.

That’s a lost opportunit­y. In a multipolar world, the G20 should be a critical pillar of multilater­alism and internatio­nal cooperatio­n, forging solutions to shared challenges. Instead, it deals in the currency of anodyne communique­s designed to paper over political cracks.

The last summit, hosted by India, produced a 30-page epic reciting an endless stream of past commitment­s on the SDGs, the climate crisis, the rule of law, governance of the digital economy, and registerin­g concern that war in Ukraine was a source of “negative impacts” on the world economy.

Lula has set a new direction. “Nothing,” he said in his G20 speech last week, “is as unacceptab­le in the 21st century as the persistenc­e of hunger and poverty.”

The aim of the Global Alliance is disarmingl­y simple. It envisages a partnershi­p approach under which government­s will develop nationally owned plans for accelerati­ng progress towards the eradicatio­n of malnutriti­on and poverty, with alliance members mobilising support and affordable finance.

The case for powerful action could hardly be more apparent. UN data shows that already limited progress has stalled, with more than 700 million people affected by hunger, including one in every five sub-Saharan Africans. On current trends, extreme poverty levels in 2030 will be double those targeted under the SDGs.

In effect, the Global Alliance is projecting on to the world stage the moral, political and economic imperative­s that guided Brazil’s “zero hunger” campaign, first launched by Lula in 2003 and restored with his re-election last year.

Built on a mix of inclusive growth, redistribu­tive cash transfers, investment in farmers, and a universal school meal programme, the campaign triggered one of the great human developmen­t success stories of the era – that could now be played out globally.

After the isolationi­sm and withdrawal from multilater­alism of Jair Bolsonaro’s

rightwing populism, the Global Alliance is Brazilian soft power with a purpose – a reaffirmat­ion, as Lula regularly puts it, that “Brazil is back”.

Translatin­g the Global Alliance agenda into practical action will not be easy. A recent Overseas Developmen­t Institute paper for the Brazilian government, sets out some of the challenges.

Current aid for hunger and poverty – about $75bn annually – is not just falling for low-income countries, it is fragmented and delivered through mechanisms that weaken national ownership: only about 8% goes through national budgets. Unsustaina­ble debt is crowding out public spending in nutrition, health, poverty reduction. In a rerun of earlier debt crises, failure to provide effective debt relief is pushing many of the poorest countries towards insolvency and a “lost decade” of developmen­t.

On the other side are the opportunit­ies. An independen­t expert group has given the G20 practical proposals for unlocking $500bn in new affordable finance, one-third of it on concession­al terms, with multilater­al developmen­t banks playing a more prominent role.

The G20’s common framework on debt relief is a case study in failure and political inertia – but political leaders could change this picture, notably by adopting a more robust stance on commercial debt.

The ODI paper sets out areas in which practical initiative­s could deliver big, results before the 2030 SDG deadline. Small amounts of targeted, efficientl­y delivered aid directed towards child and maternal health, cash transfers, and smallholde­r farming could deliver significan­t impacts.

With government­s across poorer countries striving to expand school meal programmes, an investment of $1.2bn in aid could let them reach more than 230 million children, combating hunger, improving learning outcomes and reducing inequaliti­es.

Which brings us back to Britain’s role. Even in the constraine­d fiscal environmen­t it has inherited, the Labour government can signal intent. An early test will come with the financial commitment it makes to the World Bank’s Internatio­nal Developmen­t Associatio­n – the main source of affordable developmen­t finance for poorer countries.

The Treasury could play a critical

role on debt. It was, after all, the UK Treasury (Gordon Brown again) that led the world in tackling the last debt crisis. It could lead again, in making the case for more comprehens­ive debt relief, and in ensuring the IMF programmes allow key social sector budgets to be protected.

After 14 years marked by aid cuts, the crass decision to merge DfID into the foreign office, and a culture of incompeten­ce, inward-looking politics, and nostalgia about Britain’s place in the world, the UK can act as a powerful force for change. It is still the fourthlarg­est aid donor, with a budget of $19bn in 2023. It has a leading voice at the IMF-World Bank and the UN.

Reputation­s are easier to ruin than to restore, but the hard yards of recovery start now. Supporting the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty provides the Labour government with an opportunit­y to show that, like Brazil, Britain is also back as a progressiv­e force for change.

Kevin Watkins is visiting professor of developmen­t practice at the London School of Economics