The Bundestag, the national parliament of Germany, has approved additional spending of one billion euros to tackle the global food crisis in the coming year. After more than 17 hours of deliberations, the Budget Committee of the Bundestag adopted the federal budget for 2023 early Friday morning.
According to the German Foreign Office, the additional funds approved by lawmakers to address the global food and hunger crisis, amounting to 1 billion, will be divided between several ministries. EUR 495 million will be allocated to the Federal Foreign Office as the department responsible for humanitarian aid, and another EUR 495 million will go to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. The remaining EUR 10 million will be allocated to the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
The additional funds are intended to alleviate the current global crisis in food security. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will receive 207 million euros, nearly half the amount allocated to the Foreign Ministry, to provide food aid to people in need.
"The world finds itself in the midst of a food crisis of historic proportions. At present, 828 million people around the globe are malnourished – that is more people than live in the whole of Europe. Russia has aggravated this situation further with its war of aggression against Ukraine. Especially for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, this is therefore quite literally a matter of life and death," said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in response to the decision.
"It is not only our responsibility but also in our interest not to abandon these people to their fate – not least to prevent further instability in our neighborhood. The German Government will therefore mobilize an additional billion euro before the end of this year to tackle this acute crisis. The Federal Foreign Office will use just under half of this sum to increase its humanitarian assistance, thus providing millions of people in need with basic foodstuffs within a short space of time," said the German Foreign Minister.
Germany is the largest national donor of humanitarian aid after the United States. This year, the budget for humanitarian aid amounts to some 2.7 billion euros, according to the Foreign Office. With the additional dedication of 495 million euros, German humanitarian aid will reach a new high of nearly 3.2 billion euros in 2023. Prior to this decision, the Bundestag had already revised key aspects of the government's draft Foreign Office budget for next year, which envisaged a massive cut, and approved an increase of 708 million euros in funding for humanitarian aid abroad to 2.71 billion euros.
Further information
Full text: Statement by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on the decision to provide an additional one billion euro to tackle the global food crisis, press release of the Federal Foreign Office, published on November 11, 2022.
https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/newsroom/news/-/2562796
Full text: Budget 2023: Funds for humanitarian aid significantly increased, heute im Bundestag 653/2022, published November 11, 2022 (in German)
https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-920664