Select committee: International Development Committee
Recommendation 33
3rd Report - The Government’s efforts to achieve SDG2: Zero Hunger
Published 18 Mar 2025
Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
International Development Committee The UK Government’s work on achieving SDG2: Zero Hunger All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Within the Zero Hunger delivery framework we recommend significant attention is paid to increasing local ownership across the breadth of FCDO programming that impacts on, or is impacted by, nutrition and food security: a. As part of the Zero Hunger strategic framework, the Government should set an ambition for the percentage of Zero Hunger related funding to be delivered by local organisations by 2028. b. Specific guidance on local ownership should support staff and partners in setting risk thresholds appropriate to this way of working and flexible approaches to processes. Specifically, the Government needs to consider how it can make its tendering process more accessible for small and medium sized businesses, and local organisations, to apply for and deliver. 56 c. Funding mechanisms should be more flexible to the needs of individual local partners and, where necessary, allow for longer project cycles, higher in direct costs, in order to achieve the capacity-building required to close any gaps between accountability requirements and local capacity. d. We encourage the Government to take every opportunity to support its Official Development Assistance-eligible partners in their own plans around food systems and nutrition. (Recommendation, Paragraph 86)
From: International Development Committee, 3rd Report - The Government’s efforts to achieve SDG2: Zero Hunger (HC 515), 18 March 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 22 May 2025 (deadline 18 May 2025).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government's response to the Committee's report on SDG2 mostly 'partially' agrees with its recommendations, disagrees with reconsidering the cut in ODA, and ties many decisions to the ongoing Spending Review.
- On the reduction in ODA from 0.5% to 0.3% of GNI, the Government says it "disagree[s] with this recommendation", calling the decision "a necessary one", and remains committed to returning to 0.7% "when fiscal circumstances allow".
- It does not think separate assessments of climate finance or of the impact on smallholder farmers are appropriate or warranted "at this stage", but "will consider the case for further impact assessment in 2026", depending on the Spending Review outcome.
- On the Child Nutrition Fund pledge, the Government says it is "not in a position to agree or disagree" and will set out spending plans after the Spending Review.
- It agrees on staffing, saying it "hope[s] to recruit new Food and Agriculture advisory expertise to fill critical gaps in 2025/2026", and has paused the Disability Inclusion and Rights Strategy refresh, to consider "options for updating it" after the Spending Review.