Child hunger is both predictable and preventable yet every year it threatens 19 million children with severe acute malnutrition and death. Today, on Universal Children's Day, humanitarian organisation Action Against Hunger launches the campaign to End Child Hunger, urging the UK government to take a leading role in the international fight against child hunger.

It required a crisis to thrust the issue of hunger to the forefront of the political agenda. Since Spring 2008, there has been significant political momentum in an attempt to provide short- and long-term initiatives to provide food to the millions of people that face hunger as a result of the global food crisis. Yet little has been delivered and the international community has made slow progress in prioritising the need to end child hunger.

Even before the global food crisis made the headlines, 55 million children worldwide were already suffering from acute malnutrition - that's one child in ten worldwide. "Each year around a million children die of severe acute malnutrition worldwide. I find those figures hard to comprehend, especially as these deaths can easily be prevented," says TV presenter Gail Porter, who recently visited Action Against Hunger's programmes in Monrovia, Liberia, to raise awareness about child hunger.

"It is unacceptable that children are still dying simply because they do not have enough to eat," comments Jean Michel Grand, Executive Director for Action Against Hunger. "Child hunger is not inevitable. Today, we know how to end child hunger. With political leadership dedicated to supporting our cause and the appropriate funding, we can make child hunger a thing of the past. No child should die of hunger today. Action Against Hunger's End Child Hunger campaign aims to mobilise public opinion towards ending child hunger and to ask the UK Government to take a leadership role in the fight against child hunger. We therefore ask the UK government to allocate £100 million in new funding to treat children suffering from severe acute malnutrition and life-threatening hunger in countries that the UK has already defined as having a high priority need for aid."

Today acute malnutrition is a treatable condition. New effective tools for both treatment and prevention of malnutrition have evolved. New approaches to address malnutrition and scale-up treatment for severely malnourished children have been adapted.

One of the leading organisations in the fight against hunger, Action Against Hunger witnesses firsthand the dramatic effects of malnutrition on children's lives. Its teams save children's lives and meet immediate needs when food is scarce in places such as the D.R. Congo and Darfur. As always it is children who suffer most.

Child hunger is not inevitable. On Universal Children's Day Action Against Hunger urges the British public and the UK government to ensure that child hunger is ended. To join the campaign, please visit www.aahuk.org or text Endhunger to 62266.

For a full briefing paper about the campaign or to set up an interview, please contact Christine Kahmann on 0208 293 6197 or email c.kahmann@aahuk.org.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

Thanks to the support of ClearChannel Outdoor, posters will be on display across the UK to mobilise public opinion on ending child hunger. The End Child Hunger campaign invites the British public to help end child hunger by making a donation, lobbying Gordon Brown to take a leading role in the fight against child hunger. To find out more, please visit www.aahuk.org/endchildhunger.

At the end of October, TV presenter Gail Porter visited the programmes of Action Against Hunger in Monrovia in Liberia to raise awareness about child hunger. As a spokesperson for Action Against Hunger's BBC Lifeline Appeal - which will be broadcast on 23rd November - Gail visited Action Against Hunger's nutritional activities and saw firsthand how Action Against Hunger is making a difference to the lives of children suffering from severe malnutrition.

Action Against Hunger (ACF) is an international humanitarian organisation working in 43 of the world's poorest countries. Its vocation is to save lives, especially those of malnourished children, and to work with vulnerable populations to preserve and restore their livelihoods with dignity.