London will use its spotlight to illuminate more than just the world's greatest athletes during the 2012 Olympics.
British Prime Minister David Cameron announced Wednesday plans to hold a hunger summit during this summer's games, the Guardian reports.
Specifics surrounding the hunger summit haven't been revealed, but a Downing Street spokeswoman told the Guardian that the aim is to build off of G8's promise. "We'll look to follow up on the Camp David [G8] initiative," the spokeswoman said, "focusing on how good governance and private sector investment can help improve access to food and nutrition."
Earlier this year, Save the Children urged British Prime Minister David Cameron to hold a "world hunger summit" during the London Olympics in the wake of a survey launched by the children's charity that highlighted the high rates of child malnutrition around the world.
The survey, which was launched in February, was conducted by Save the Children in India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru and Bangladesh. Entitled "A Life Free from Hunger: Tackling child malnutrition", the survey found that one third of children do not have enough to eat and one in six skip school to work for food.
"Every hour of every day, 300 children die because of malnutrition, often simply because they don't have access to the basic, nutritious foods that we take for granted in rich countries," Justin Forsyth, the chief executive of Save the Children, told the Press Association. "By acting on hunger and malnutrition, world leaders have the chance to change this for millions of children across the world."
According to Save the Children, though progress has been made in reducing child mortality, malnutrition is still the underlying cause of a third of child deaths.
The charity warned that rising food prices and a lack of global investment in tackling malnutrition will put improvements of child mortality at serious risk.
Following Cameron's announcement, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also released a statement calling upon the forthcoming summit to focus on investments in agriculture:
"We hope this event will build on the momentum generated by President Barack Obama’s increased commitment to nutrition and smallholder farmer productivity announced at the G8 last week. By making long-term investments in agriculture, the private sector, governments, and the wider development community can help reduce hunger and poverty, and build self-sufficiency for millions of poor farming families."
Cameron's announcement comes after last week's G8 summit, during which time eight of the world's industrialized leaders met in Maryland to pledge to fight hunger, poverty and other global issues.
Aid groups expressed disappointment with the outcome of this year's G8 meeting, which focused on the tension between austerity and growth. The meeting failed to pledge more money and looked to the private sector in the fight against hunger, Reuters reported.
The G8 at L'Aquila in Italy in 2009 pledged $22 billion to help end hunger for 50 million people through agriculture and new investments by the end of this year. The Guardian reported aid groups were upset that more money wasn't pledged and that much of it hasn't been disbursed.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article listed David Cameron as London Prime Minister instead of British Prime Minister. The story has been updated to reflect the change.