Campaigning works! See what you've achieved

With ten per cent of the world’s population regularly going to bed hungry, we urgently need to transform the way we grow, distribute and consume food. CAFOD’s Fix the Food System campaign, launched in 2022, aims to build a global food system that ensures everyone in the world can access the food they need to thrive, wherever in the world they live.

CAFOD has been working with small-scale farmers around the world to focus on seeds - the root of our food system.

Specifically, we have been campaigning to demand the World Bank ends their harmful policies that limit smallholder farmers' access to seeds.

In 2023, 70,000 Catholics stood in solidarity with a farmer called Salina in Bangladesh, calling for small-scale farmers to have their right to swap and share seeds protected. For centuries, farmers have swapped and shared a wide variety of seeds to produce nutritious food and ensure crops are resilient in a changing climate. CAFOD’s report Sowing the Seeds of Poverty found that these rights are under threat form the actions of global players such as the World Bank.

Following our campaign, the World Bank has begun to listen! In our meetings with World Bank officials, they said that our policy document and direct actions had given rise to the most internal conversation about these policies. We are proud to say that this remains an ongoing conversation.

Parliament in your Parish

Throughout 2021, CAFOD supporters in England and Wales organised virtual meetings with their Member of Parliament as part of Parliament in your Parish.

CAFOD supporters lobbed 110 MPs, where they discussed the catastrophic impact that COVID-19 has had on the world’s poorest communities, as well as the climate crisis and Britain’s role in hosting both the G7 and the COP26 that year.

Parliament in your Parish was a great success, not only in terms of lobbying MPs, but giving CAFOD supporters the confidence to lobby their own MPs and make their voices heard.

Ending government support for fossil fuels overseas

At the end of 2020, the British government announced that it would end its support for fossil fuels overseas. This was a significant step forward, as greenhouse gas emissions – which are released from fossil fuels – are warming the earth and causing the climate emergency.

This was the result of years of campaigning with our partners and other organisations, aided by the work of volunteers and supporters throughout England and Wales.

Net Zero

In 2019 we saw a historic breakthrough when Britain became the first major economy in the world to commit to ending its contribution to climate change.

This was aided by over 34,000 people an action with CAFOD to demand that the government urgently tackle the climate crisis.

Thousands of supporters gathered in Westminster for The Time is Now mass lobby of Parliament. 12,000 people, many of them CAFOD supporters, lobbied their MPs on Parliament Square. Over 380 MPs were lobbied, making it one of the largest of any mass lobby of Parliament.

Share the Journey - UN Global Compacts agreed

Our campaign urging world leaders to support refugees and migrants resulted in tens of thousands of people responding to Pope Francis’s message on migration and world leaders adopted the UN Global Compacts. 

More than 40,000 CAFOD supporters walked in solidarity with people on the move, such as refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, walking more than four times around the world in the process. 

And we took your message to Prime Minister Theresa May in Downing Street, calling on the government to play a leading role in the two agreements which became the UN refugee and migration pacts. 

Power to be - World Bank acts on energy to tackle poverty

It’s a scandal that one in six people worldwide still live without electricity, when local, renewable energy can help lift communities out of poverty. In 2017, over 30,000 of you spoke up loud and clear to the World Bank and to the UK government – and they are starting to respond.

In replies to questions from MPs, former Secretary of State Priti Patel stressed the strong influence the UK government has as a major shareholder at the World Bank. She also emphasised the importance of speaking up for energy spending that benefits the world’s poorest people. In December 2017 the World Bank took a big step to protect the planet and the poorest people by stating it will stop support for oil and gas after 2019. Your voice has been heard! 

Eviction stopped in Brazil

For months, almost a thousand people in the Mauá community in São Paulo – including older people, pregnant women, and children – have lived in fear of being thrown onto the streets. Over 4,000 of you signed petitions, sent emails, and shared #FicaMaua photos on social media – all calling for a halt to the eviction. Your actions boosted a successful international campaign. Hundreds of families now have a roof over their heads for good.

One Climate, One World - Paris climate deal agreed

In 2015, we responded to Pope Francis' call to care for our common home by campaigning for an ambitious global climate change deal which put the poorest people at its heart. Nearly half of all MPs in the UK were lobbied on climate change when 9,000 passionate people turned up at Parliament to make a stand. CAFOD supporters from all over the country were there in force to speak up about the impact climate change is having on people living in poverty. Later in the year, over 40,000 people in the UK added their names to a global Catholic petition calling for action at the Paris climate change talks.

Public pressure like ours contributed to the agreement of a strong climate deal in Paris, which put the world on the path to a low-carbon future, stated that temperature increases must stay well below 2°C, and ideally be kept to 1.5°C, and reaffirmed the commitment of developed countries to support poorer countries financially to cope with the impacts of climate change.

Hungry for Change and Enough Food For Everyone IF

In 2013-14, 60,000 of you joined us in asking the Prime Minister to take action to help alleviate the suffering of the 870 million people who don't have enough to eat.

During the campaign, you encouraged rich country leaders to pledge £2.7 billion to tackle child malnutrition between now and 2020; you helped secure a commitment from the UK government to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on international development aid (see below); and thanks to pressure placed by you, a hard-won reform of EU law was agreed, requiring large, publicly-listed companies in all EU countries to be more transparent. This will include some global food companies, bringing us one step closer to a fairer food system.

UK Climate Change Act

In 2008, the UK became the first country in the world to make carbon emission cuts a legal requirement. As part of our Climate Justice campaign, you lobbied MPs for three key changes – annual checkpoints, more ambitious emission cuts and the inclusion of emissions from shipping and aviation. And we got them all!

Loss and damage fund 

When world leaders met in 2022 for COP27, CAFOD supporters let them know that the governments that are most responsible for the climate emergency should commit to adequate financial support for nations in the global south that are suffering the most.

These countries not only face the cost of the climate crisis - a crisis they did not cause – they also do not have enough money to rebuild from disasters and prepare for future ones. CAFOD partners and staff were present at the talks to amplify the calls from CAFOD supporters and lobby decision makers directly.

This campaigning work helped lead to a breakthrough agreement to set up a ‘loss and damage fund’ to provide financial assistance to those low-income countries feeling the brunt of the climate crisis. In 2023, at COP28, CAFOD supporters built on their existing calls for the detail of the fund to be sufficient to respond to the needs of the global south.

Sadly the $700 million pledged covers less than the 0.2 per cent needed, but we will continue to call for sufficient funding arrangements.