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Unlike the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition scheme developed by the G8, the Zero Hunger programme originated in the global south and looked at improving conditions for small scale farmers. As well as tools, technical assistance, and training the Brazilian government also created government run restaurants, food banks and school feeding programmes that were supplied from the food bought directly from the farmers. Yet the question remains as to whether Zero Hunger has been enough to address the structural causes of hunger that exist in Brazil. 

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What do you think your annual carbon footprint might be?  Maybe around the UK average of 8-9 tonnes. But what if you took into account the emissions resulting from the investments of the bank where your money is? That would give quite a different picture...

If you’re an RBS customer it would give the picture below (we could have also done this calculation for other high street banks like HSBC, Lloyds and Barclays, who also invest heavily in fossil fuels, and probably come up with similarly striking results).

If this picture shocks you, why not have a go at our mini-quiz and see whether you can guess how many times greater the emissions resulting from RBS’s loans to fossil fuel companies are than the entire emissions of Scotland, where the bank is headquartered. 

Or come on our 'Scandalous Edinburgh plc' walking tour where we'll really be bringing our Carbon Capital campaign to life with humour, real life stories and more eye opening facts.  ...

Yesterday morning, EU decision makers met to agree new rules on food speculation. We have been campaigning to ensure our demands for effective rules are heard by decision makers and to counteract the pressure of the financial lobby who are pushing for weak rules.

In advance of this crucial meeting, we've been asking people to sign up to help lengthen our barrier tape (and play our fun snake game at the same time). In the end we got over 4,000 sign ups and our European allies got over 35,000! Our Cardiff WDM group also co-ordinated a petition to Kay Swinburne - a Welsh member of the European parliament who is one of the key negotiators in the meeting.

Joining forces with other European campaigners (Friends of the Earth Europe, SOS Faim, Fairfin, CNCD, Oxfam Germany) we took our extra long barrier tape to Brussels for a stunt just before the start of the meeting. The key European parliamentary negotiators all came to watch our comedic street theatre which involved binding up food speculators with our giant barrier tape. The negotiators were also presented with our detailed demands, a length of the barrier tape and a cob of corn as visual reminders that they need to side with...

(Foreign and Commonwealth Office - Photo credit)

This article comes at an interesting time for the World Development Movement as we recently released an infographic as part of our Carbon Capital Campaign. It reveals that one third of UK minsters have connections to the ‘finance and energy companies responsible for driving climate change’. According to Corporate Watch, some of WEG’s corporate participants include Shell and British Gas owner Centrica.

Fracking is the controversial process of injecting liquid into shale rock underground to crack it and release natural gas. Not only have cases of...

I abandoned my Nokia 6210 way back in the late 90’s and with it the irritatingly addictive game of what I used to call snake-bot (it’s not a snake because it doesn’t wriggle and like a robot because it’s so rigid– snake-bot). However, WDM’s reconstruction of the classic version ahead of the climax to their food speculation campaign has me craving the slender streamlines of my 5 inch Nokia once more. 

photo credit: Jamesshm26

Nostalgia is also a cruel beast, not only has the game forced me to reminisce after my 16-year old life, but has me harking back to the days when I could spend a £1 of my pocket money on a packet of crisps, a bar of chocolate and a can of pop and be left with some money to spare! To my desolation, this is now no longer possible. The price of food has indeed increased. But if I think the price of my junk food staples are shocking, then I would do well to consider the price increase of the raw ingredients that went into producing them. 

Whilst we would all accept that is it a scandal that over 4million people in the UK are...