Action

Heidi Chow, food campaigner

For the last year, WDM has been leading the UK campaign to get new rules introduced to tackle food speculation. We've been focusing our efforts on exposing the role of banks, like Barclays, in driving up food prices and we've been mobilising public pressure to get the UK government to support effective regulation on food speculation. 

The European Commission is set to publish a set of financial reform proposals in the autumn which will include measures to address excessive financial speculation which is causing food prices to rocket to record levels. 

European partners

As a UK based organisation, we are focusing targeting our own government, whose policies we know is a major obstacle to getting effective legislation approved. However, the fight for regulation is not one that we can win alone. And so we have been also investing our energies into building a European-wide coalition of campaigners...

Kirsty Wright, climate campaigner

Decades of increasing emissions have meant the UK owes a massive climate debt to the world’s poorest people to compensate for climate devastation already caused. With every ton of carbon dioxide released, crops continue to be destroyed, water becomes scarcer, disease continues to spread at an unprecedented level, and weather related disasters become more common. Ultimately, more and more lives are wrecked, and the climate debt continues to increase. 

When I speak with campaigners from the global south about climate debt, it quickly becomes apparent that whist they believe paying the debt is critical, it is also essential that the debt does not continue to grow. This is why WDM played a critical role in campaigning for the Climate Change Bill, which became an Act in 2008. Together with our allies around the UK, we pushed for, and won, the strongest climate change legislation in the world. What made this such a powerful piece of legislation was that it was supported by all political parties, not only the ruling Labour party. 

During his time in opposition, David Cameron spearheaded the Tories in speaking out on climate change. He revamped his party’s image...

DfID shows no signs of withdrawing its support to the World Bank, despite the Bank financing a record amount of dirty energy projects in developing countries over 2010 and pushing unjust loans onto developing countries for climate adaptation. Meanwhile, the UK’s commitment to supporting more democratic and effective energy and climate adaptation finance mechanisms via the UN hangs in the balance.

WDM’s forty years of experience have shown us that using UK aid money to pursue our own security interests, push British business, privatise vital services and fund World Bank loans will do more harm than good.

Do you really think this is the best solution to overcoming poverty? It's not too late to click the back button and vote for long term solutions to poverty and injustice instead. If you're sure, however, click 'vote' in the button on the right.

After you've voted, please email development secretary Andrew Mitchell. You can send the email as it is or, if you have time, you can make it even more powerful by changing the wording.

“DfID Minister Andrew Mitchell has said that the government “will take an unashamedly pro-business approach to development”, and has talked of expanding the remit of the notorious Commonwealth Development Corporation, which has been previously linked to facilitating land grabs in the world’s poorest countries for corporate agribusiness.

WDM’s forty years of experience have shown us that using UK aid money to pursue our own security interests, push British business, privatise vital services and fund World Bank loans will do more harm than good.

Do you really think this is the best solution to overcoming poverty? It's not too late to click the back button and vote for long term solutions to poverty and injustice instead. If you're sure, however, click 'vote' in the button on the right.

After you've voted, please email development secretary Andrew Mitchell. You can send the email as it is or, if you have time, you can make it even more powerful by changing the wording.

The UK government has made a lot of noise about delivering ‘value for money’ on aid for the British taxpayer. DfID Minister Andrew Mitchell has said “We will take an unashamedly pro-business approach to development” by “encouraging investment from British companies”. This, of course, is music to the ears to some of Britain’s largest corporations, such as major retail chains, with plans for expansion into emerging markets.

WDM’s forty years of experience have shown us that using UK aid money to pursue our own security interests, push British business, privatise vital services and fund World Bank loans will do more harm than good.

Do you really think this is the best solution to overcoming poverty? It's not too late to click the back button and vote for long term solutions to poverty and injustice instead. If you're sure, however, click 'vote' in the button on the right.

After you've voted, please email development secretary Andrew Mitchell. You can send the email as it is or, if you have time, you can make it even more powerful by changing the wording.

The European Commission and the French and US governments have all said they want to bring food speculation into the open and regulate it to stabilise prices. We need to you to help pressure the UK government to ensure that it backs proposals for regulation and not to take sides with the banks to block reform.

Email George Osborne at the Treasury, asking him to support strong and effective regulation to stop banks from betting on hunger. The Treasury is the government department which decides whether the UK will support international regulation to rein in excessive speculation on food prices

On Monday we’ll be launching a week of phone calls to the Financial Services Authority, raising the alarm about food speculation and telling them to stop investment banks from betting on hunger. 

Investment banks drive huge sums of money into food speculation, pushing up the price of food, and destabilising economies.

Goldman Sachs profited from speculation to the tune of $5billion in 2009, and lobbied for the deregulation in the 1990s which allowed excessive betting on food to begin.”

Because of this careless gambling on food, Ethiopia’s wheat bill shot up from $84million to $465million in two years. Thousands became malnourished and families that were just getting by were pushed into poverty. We can’t know how many deaths food speculation is responsible for.

We have regulators to stop banks hurting people and damaging the economy, but they have failed to stop hunger and suffering around the world. We want the regulators’ phones to be ringing off the hook with people demanding action against Goldman Sachs.

Sign up!

To shop the bankers who knowingly cause hunger and poverty, sign up now by SMS or email. We will contact you on Monday 19 July with the phone number and a link to calling tips online.

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Thank you for joining our fight to stop bankers betting on food and causing hunger.

We will keep you updated as the campaign progresses.

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WDM relies on donations to support our campaigning work. Join us from £3 a month online or make a cash donation here.