OKLAHOMA CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Larry Jones, the President of Feed The Children, today endorsed President Obama’s pledge made at the G-20 Summit in London for $448 million for immediate food assistance for hungry people in poor nations and an additional $1 billion for global food security investments through additional technical assistance in agriculture and development.

“I have witnessed firsthand the incredible suffering of hungry children in Africa, Latin America and Asia. I applaud President Obama’s proposal to make real investments in international food assistance and the new initiatives that will help developing nations increase their own agricultural production to reduce hunger in the long term,” said Larry Jones, President of Feed The Children. “While Feed The Children continues its work to care for those in need here in the United States through our ‘Americans Feeding Americans’ program and other efforts, we can’t forget that the current economic crisis is also affecting the very poorest of the poor in African nations and other developing regions. Far too often it is the children that suffer the most while we debate policies."

President Obama’s call for increased aid to developing nations comes on the heels of his pledge to end childhood hunger in the United States by 2015. The issue of international food insecurity has received prominent attention recently with a recent World Food Program report that finds that nearly one billion people around the world are now hungry, reversing a thirty year trend of reducing the proportion of hungry people in poorer nations. Feed The Children, in collaboration with more than 40 other leading humanitarian relief organizations, recently supported The Roadmap to End Hunger, which contains many of the policies announced by the President.

Earlier this week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed through committee the “Global Food Security Act”, S.384, legislation endorsed by Feed The Children that focuses on alleviating global hunger through investments in long-term solutions and greater coordination of efforts across the government and with non-profit organizations. The Global Food Security Act, introduced by Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Bob Casey (D-PA) creates a Special Coordinator for Global Food Security at the White House, increases emergency assistance for people living in extreme poverty through the establishment of a new Emergency Food Assistance Fund, and creates a new program for the development of farming in famine prone areas by tapping into agricultural science and research collaborations with U.S. universities and colleges.

Despite economic certainties here at home, American voters have signaled their willingness to make additional investments in global food security and hunger relief. According to recent polling conducted for the Alliance to End Hunger, a coalition of leading nonprofit, religious, corporate and academic institutions that includes Feed The Children, a strong majority (69 percent) of voters polled said they support dedicating an additional one percent of the U.S. budget to foreign aid to combat hunger in the developing world.

“It is critical that the Congress takes action to pass the Global Food Security Act and implement the President’s plan," said Larry Jones. “Time is of the essence and every day that we delay more hungry children will suffer.”

About Feed The Children

Founded in 1979 by Larry and Frances Jones, Feed The Children is consistently ranked as one of the 10 largest international charities in the U.S., based on private, non-government support. Feed The Children is a Christian, international, nonprofit relief organization with headquarters in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, that delivers food, medicine, clothing and other necessities to individuals, children and families who lack these essentials due to famine, war, poverty or natural disasters. In FY 2008, Feed The Children distributed more than 100 million pounds of food and other essentials to children and their families in all 50 states and internationally, supplementing almost 900,000 meals each day. For more information, please visit

www.feedthechildren.org

www.givingisgood.org

www.larryjones.tv

www.feedthechildren.org/abandonedbabies