By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Cutting world hunger needs to be a top priority for the Obama administration and Congress, despite the sagging economy and pressing domestic initiatives, aid groups said on Tuesday. The United States should boost spending on food and agricultural aid by 60 percent in 2010 to $6.36 billion, and commit to further increases to $13.31 billion by 2014, a broad coalition of aid and development organizations said. Two lawmakers said they would introduce legislation in coming weeks based on the plan, which also calls for a shift in the type of food aid donated by the United States to the world's nearly 1 billion chronically hungry people. "The budgets need to reflect the priorities that are in this road map," said Representative Jim McGovern, co-chair of the Congressional Hunger Caucus and a member of the House Budget Committee. "Hungry people around the world don't need members of Congress to feel their pain. They want us to help them respond to the crisis," said McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat. Lawmakers will have a chance in the agriculture appropriations bill to look for ways to "tweak" aid spending, said Representative Jo Ann Emerson, co-chair of the hunger caucus, and a member of the House Appropriations Committee. "There are things in ... our congressional budget that aren't necessarily as important as this issue," said Emerson, a Missouri Republican. Better aid can help improve the world economy and speed geopolitical security, the lawmakers said. Soaring food prices last year had a devastating impact on the world's poor, sparking food riots in some nations. Now, the global economic crisis threatens to cut aid at a time when aid groups say they can least afford it. The United States and other nations promised in 1996 to work to cut hunger in half by 2015, but aid efforts have lacked coordination and funding, groups said. Since that pledge was made, an estimated 54 million children have died from starvation and malnutrition, said Charles MacCormack, president of Save the Children. "It really is time to bring this to an end once and for all," MacCormack said. The more than 30 members of the coalition, which includes CARE, Catholic Relief Services, and Mercy Corps, have often differed on how best to feed the world's hungry. But groups have forged consensus that traditional emergency shipments of U.S.-grown farm commodities should be balanced with longer-term cash and development programs, said Karen Sendelback, president of Friends of the World Food Program. Farm groups and shippers may fight the move, said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, but cash-based aid can often be faster, cheaper, and more appropriate. "If you're trying to feed babies, corn isn't what you need," Beckmann said. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; editing by Jim Marshall)
Trucks loaded with food drive through a crowded street in Bakara market in Somalia's capital Mogadishu February 17, 2009. Hardline Islamist insurgents in southern Somalia told international aid agencies on Tuesday ...
