Ask your MP to Turn up/Save lives!

Friday 5 December is the third reading of a bill which will enshrine in law, 0.7% of our annual budget to overseas aid. More than 100 MPs in Parliament would guarantee a vote. Please would you contact your MP and ask him/her to ‘Turn up/Save lives’ on that day and vote in favour of the Bill so that it can pass to the House of Lords and subsequently onto the statute books?

Sister Gillian Price FC writes: In the UK shops, Christmas has arrived with a vengeance and the excitement is growing long before Advent begins. Young children often measure things by how many sleeps it is until their birthday, a holiday, Christmas etc. then they ask us how many! The first 1,000 sleeps of a child’s life from conception to the second birthday are crucial for development. During these 1,000 days and nights malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies can be particularly harmful to children, leaving them vulnerable to infectious disease and ultimately causing both physical and cognitive impairment. Chronic undernutrition can cause physical stunting—low height-for-age—and wasting— low weight-for-height. Diets that do not provide enough micronutrients can lead to severe illness, including anemia, cognitive deficiencies and permanent blindness. 161 million children are stunted due to chronic malnutrition; 99 million children are underweight, while 45% of child deaths are caused by child and maternal malnutrition.

Last week Government leaders and civil society from 172 countries met in Rome for the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2). Pope Francis addressed the delegates and told them to make sure their pledges to assure food security to all citizens are put into concrete practice saying that the right to a healthy diet was about dignity, not charitable handouts.

"When solidarity is lacking in one country, it's felt around the world," he said.

I am proud of the way that British aid has led the way in solidarity committing to give 0.7% of our GDP in aid. Every day British aid saves and changes lives for the better. Even in some of the most difficult places on earth, British aid is helping. The British public have dug deep to help children caught up in Syria’s civil war, and their generosity has been ‘match-funded’ by the British government, meaning that together we have reached more than one million children with blankets and other supplies. We in Britain are really are turning the tide. Since the year 2000 the number of children’s lives lost to malaria has halved. Since 1990 we’ve halved the rate of child mortality overall. There are now only three countries in the world where polio is still endemic. Amidst so much bad news about things we can’t change, it is time to celebrate the things we already have changed, together.

All three major political parties committed in their manifestos to enshrine 0.7% in law. Legislation is better than simply having a policy commitment for two main reasons. Firstly, increasing the predictability of aid to poor countries helps doctors, nurses, teachers and other providers of services in those countries to plan their work better, and means that our government can make good long- term investments, ensuring we get better value for money for every pound spent. Secondly, the cross-party consensus on the amount of aid we give shouldn’t be revisited every year when the really important debate is about how we spend the money. Putting our promises to the poorest beyond the day to day debates of party politics means policy-makers can focus on how we continue to improve the quality of aid, instead of having an annual debate on whether we intend to stick to our commitments. In his address Pope Francis said, ‘We ask for dignity, not for charity’. He knows that humanitarian aid alone is not enough to end extreme poverty; this is why enshrining the target in law will ensure that aid is used to enable future UK governments to make smart long-term investments that address the root causes of poverty

Please contact your MP and ask him/her to ‘Turn up/Save lives’ on that day and vote in favour of the Bill so that it can pass to the House of Lords and subsequently onto the statute books?

What a Christmas present that would be to the undernourished children of our world!

For more information see: www.turnupsavelives.org.uk/in-black-and-white