Campaigners are to call on British Prime Minister David Cameron to use the UK’s presidency of the G8 summit this year to leverage action on ending malnutrition and hunger in the developing world.

A coalition of 100 UK development charities and faith groups will on Wednesday launch a major campaign to lobby Cameron to introduce measures, aimed at tackling the problem of global hunger when Britain hosts the G8 summit in June 2013.

The multiple charity campaign called “Enough Food For Everyone If” is the biggest attempt in almost a decade seeking to end world hunger.

The group warned that the “scandal” of children growing up hungry will drag almost a billion people into poverty by 2025 and cost the developed world £78 billion over the next 15 years.

It added that tackling the “corporation tax gap” by multinational companies could help developing countries raise enough revenue every day to save the lives of 230 children under the age of five.

“We want to make the case that the kinds of rules Britain needs to clamp down on firms like Starbucks are the same kind of laws that will help poorer countries,” said Max Lawson, of anti-poverty charity Oxfam.

The anti-hunger campaign will be formally launched at Somerset House in London on January 23.

SSM/MA/HE