ONE Partners Propose Strategy to End Global Hunger

Feb 27th, 2009 11:08 AM UTC
By Beth Adler

On Tuesday, a broad-based coalition that includes several of ONE’s partners launched A Roadmap to End Global Hunger – a comprehensive strategy for addressing global hunger through short, medium, and long-term initiatives and reaching the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving hunger by 2015. Representatives Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) joined the co-sponsoring NGOs* at Tuesday’s release on Capitol Hill, and new bipartisan legislation that incorporates the key points of the Roadmap to End Global Hunger is expected to be introduced in the coming weeks.

The Roadmap pitches several strategies for addressing the dire situation of global hunger. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 963 million people are hungry around the world, the majority of whom live in developing countries. As the document notes, despite previous U.S. commitments to end global hunger, the number of hungry people continues to rise as global hunger is exacerbated by continued higher than average food prices and the global economic downturn. The Roadmap calls for a total of approximately $50 billion in U.S. funding for agriculture and food security initiatives over five years.

The document details the need for a faster, more efficient response to food emergencies and emphasizes the importance of flexibility in the provision of emergency food assistance, including options for buying food locally and regionally, and implementing voucher programs where food is available but families are too poor to afford it. The plan calls for donated food aid, like bags of rice or maize, as well as cash assistance that can provide timely and appropriate emergency assistance. The plan also calls for additional funding for safety-net programs – like cash-for-work and school feeding programs – to prevent the most vulnerable populations from descending further into hunger. It also stresses the importance of establishing and expanding early childhood nutrition programs.

In order to promote the development of the agricultural sector in the developing world and break the cycle of hunger and poverty, the Roadmap suggests a more than quadruple investment in market-based agriculture and market development. The suggested $1.38 billion over five years would be aimed at initiatives supporting low-income, smallholder farmers – particularly women. Considering that agriculture employs nearly two-thirds of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa, programs that assist farmers in producing more goods, and helping farmers access markets in which to sell these goods, could have a wide-spread, positive impact on household income and food security.

The Roadmap calls for the U.S. government to collaborate with other governments to fund necessary infrastructure and provide technical assistance to African farmers that will stimulate agricultural production. In addition, it urges the Obama administration to create a White House Office on Global Hunger and appoint a Hunger Coordinator – a position that could later be incorporated into a reformed foreign-assistance structure – in addition to restoring the Congressional Select Committee on Hunger and establishing a Senate Committee on Hunger.

The report stresses that funding for effective hunger initiatives should not come at the expense of other development programming related to the MDGs. We at ONE are very excited to see continued momentum around the issue of food security, agriculture, and hunger, and will keep you updated with further developments.

-Beth Adler

*Co-sponsoring NGOs are: Alliance for Global Food Security, Alliance to End Hunger, American Jewish World Service, Better World Campaign, Bread for the World, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Christian Children’s Fund, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, Church World Service, Concern Worldwide, Congressional Hunger Center, Covenant World Relief, Episcopal Relief and Development, Feed the Children, Food for the Hungry, Friends of the World Food Program, Global Child Nutrition Foundation, Heifer International, The Humpty Dumpty Institute, International Relief and Development, LIFE for Relief and Development, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, Mercy Corps, Oxfam America, Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, PATH, Project Concern International, RESULTS, Save the Children United Methodist Committee on Relief, US Coalition for Child Survival, U.S. Fund for UNICEF, Women Thrive Worldwide, World Vision

TAGS: Agriculture, Development Assistance, Food Aid, Policy News, World Food Crisis