food chrisis petition

BAN KI-MOON WELCOMES MASSIVE GLOBAL PETITION CHALLENGING RICH COUNTRIES ON FOOD CRISIS

"Planetary Emergency Demands More Than Band-Aid Fixes"

Hi-res photos of Ban with petition available now from media@avaaz.org, or from the UN pool

Avaaz spokespeople available for interview - call +44 7879 424547

Avaaz, the world's largest international online advocacy network, hand-delivered a global emergency petition containing hundreds of

thousands of signatures to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and other senior officials at the Rome food summit this Wednesday, assisted by Sierra Leone's agriculture minister Sam Sesay and GCAP, the alliance of anti-poverty campaigns. The petition is gathering thousands of names an hour.

"This petition is very helpful to show that people are pushing for this, and to help build the political will for governments to act," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, receiving the petition before his press conference at the summit.

"The food crisis is a planetary emergency - you can't put a band-aid on it," said Avaaz's Executive Director Ricken Patel. "Rich countries need to stop obstructing and start investing massively in developing nations' food production."

The campaign was launched with a YouTube appeal for help from Sierra Leone's foreign minister Zainab Bangura. "My appeal is for you to talk to your governments and please, please support the campaign," says Bangura, "I am speaking on behalf of the voiceless millions of Africans who cannot speak for themselves."

Launched just one month ago, the petition has already been signed by over 330,000 citizens of every country in the world. Addressed to leaders attending the Rome summit, it says:

"We call on you to take immediate action to address the world food crisis by mobilizing emergency funding to prevent starvation, removing perverse incentives to turn food into biofuels and managing financial speculation, and to tackle the underlying causes by ending harmful trade policies and investing massively in sustainable agricultural productivity in developing nations."

Available for interview in Rome or via telephone:

Ricken Patel, Executive Director of Avaaz

To book interviews or for more information in Rome contact:

Paul Hilder (Avaaz), Cell +44 7879 424547 / +1 888 YA AVAAZ (+1 888 922 8229), media@avaaz.org

About Avaaz

Avaaz, meaning "voice" in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages, was launched in January 2007 with a mission to harness new technologies to help ensure that the views and values of the world's peoples better shape global decision-making. It has since grown to more than 3 million members from every country on earth.

The Economist wrote last year of Avaaz's power to "give the world leaders a deafening wake-up call", while the Indian Express heralded "the biggest web campaigner across the world, rooting for crucial global issues." David Miliband, the UK foreign secretary who asked Avaaz to co-host his first major speech, calls the organization "the best of the new in foreign policy."

In the days following the Burmese cyclone, while governments and aid organisations waited for the junta to let them in, Avaaz members raised over $2 million in emergency funds, channelled immediately to the monks and other relief networks already operating inside Burma. http://www.avaaz.org/en/burma_aid_report

Avaaz's 'Stop the Clash of Civilizations' video recently won the YouTube political video of the year award, gaining more votes than other videos centered on the US Presidential race. www.youtube.com/ytawards07winners