NOTE: War on Want is a UK-based development group which has been fighting poverty in developing countries for over 60 years. This report shows how DFID's support for agribiz is fuelling poverty in Africa.

The Hunger Games

http://www.waronwant.org/about-us/extra/extra/inform/17755-the-hunger-games

Download the report: The Hunger Games
http://www.waronwant.org/attachments/The%20Hunger%20Games%202012.pdf

The UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) is using the aid budget to tighten the corporate stranglehold over the global food system.

This report reveals how DFID has been using hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money with the express purpose of extending the power of agribusiness over the production of food, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. While this will increase the profits of corporate giants such as Monsanto, Unilever and Syngenta, it threatens to disempower small farmers and rural communities and condemn them to long-term poverty.

The report also lifts the lid on DFID’s support for a complex network of companies and investment funds registered in one of Africa’s foremost tax havens: Mauritius. This means that much UK aid is being routed through a known "conduit haven", allowing companies to avoid paying taxes that could be used by national governments to support small farmers and genuine agricultural development.