Introduction
2011 is a time of opportunity to achieve lasting progress against global hunger and malnutrition. For the United States, it is a time to renew its own commitment to this goal and strengthen its partnerships with other countries to accomplish it. Feed the Future, a bold new U.S. government initiative, will significantly increase investments in improving the productivity and livelihoods of smallholder farmers—a sorely neglected area of U.S. development assistance, yet one that can pay off directly in fewer hungry and malnourished people. A dramatic surge in global hunger as a result of a spike in staple food prices in 2007-2008 galvanized support in both rich and poor countries for moving agriculture to the top of their development agendas. It also brought into focus the long-term consequences of a spike in hunger, especially for the youngest children. During the 1,000 days from conception to age two, the consequences of malnutrition are irreversible. U.S. investments must focus on improving dietary quality as much as quantity, paying special attention to the nutritional status of mothers and children. This chapter sets the stage for the rest of the report by highlighting what has occurred over the last few years that created this international consensus and where we go from here.
Chapter One
Feed the Future emphasizes investments in the agriculture sector of poor countries. Three of every four hungry people in the world live in rural areas, and agriculture is their main source of income. But it’s not enough to help poor farm households earn income to consume more food that does not provide the essential protein, vitamins, and minerals they need to be healthy. U.S. investments must take a comprehensive approach that focuses on improving dietary quality as much as quantity, paying special attention to the nutritional status of mothers and children. Malnutrition is a result of poverty: poor families cannot afford healthy food. Malnutrition also causes poverty: workers suffering from malnutrition-induced health problems have lower earning potential. Malnutrition robs children of their ability to learn and do well in school. Rich countries have created safety nets to mitigate the most harmful effects of poverty. Safety nets are less common in developing countries, but aid from donors can help make them more feasible. Besides having safety nets in place—no matter how many people are covered—countries need to be prepared to respond swiftly to hunger in emergencies such as a natural disaster or spike in staple food prices.
Chapter Two
Countries that receive development assistance are getting more say in how the aid is used. This is “country-led” development. Government and nongovernmental actors in the country participate in setting development priorities based on how they want donors to invest their aid. Beyond just giving aid-recipient countries a say, donors have pledged to let more take charge of designing and implementing their own development programs. Some countries may not have the capacity to do this, but donors can help them build capacity with technical assistance and better coordination. Especially for these nations, capacity-building is critical to ensuring that the progress achieved with aid is sustainable. The United States is using a country-led approach for its Feed the Future initiative, and country-led development principles should eventually be incorporated into all U.S. foreign aid programs. In fact, this would be the single biggest thing the United States could do with its aid programs to help poor countries get on a path of economic and social development.
Chapter Three
Polls indicate that the U.S. public supports using foreign aid to relieve suffering around the world and help poor people. But structural problems limit the effectiveness of U.S. development assistance. Some of these are rules that require purchasing goods and services from U.S. providers, even when effective lower-cost alternatives are available closer to where assistance is needed; a profusion of earmarks throughout the aid budget that create a scattershot approach to development at the expense of setting strategic objectives; short-term funding cycles that are unrealistic given the time needed to attain and assess meaningful progress in development; poor coordination between development assistance and trade policy; and finally, loss of skilled personnel and political influence at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the agency charged with leading the implementation of U.S. development programs. Rewriting the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) is the most effective way to solve the problems listed above and reform foreign assistance comprehensively. The current FAA was written in 1961 and does not reflect the changed circumstances and emerging priorities of the 21st century.
Chapter Four
A surge in food prices in 2007-2008 captured global attention and brought the root causes of hunger and malnutrition to the fore. The hunger crisis ginned up political will around the world as policymakers made global hunger and malnutrition the focus of attention. For all the political will that was generated in response to the hunger crisis, hungry and poor people remain on tenuous ground. Donor countries and international institutions have increased their investments in agriculture and nutrition, yet climate change could undermine most or all of the progress to date. International trade talks have stalled. All of these interconnected challenges require coordinated and concerted global action. If U.S. investments to reduce hunger and poverty through Feed the Future are to maximize their impact, the United States will have to lead international efforts to strengthen the capacity of the world to prevent and respond to hunger crises and find solutions to some of these global issues such as climate change and trade. The challenge in 2011 (and beyond) will be how to harness the political will mobilized by the hunger crisis to resolve related problems that also require urgent international cooperation.
Conclusion
During my early years in Congress, I had a life-changing experience that shaped the rest of my years as a public servant. In 1984, I traveled to Ethiopia to witness firsthand the devastating famine that killed more than 1 million people and left millions more destitute. I had seen poverty as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, but I had never seen anything like this. I saw thousands of starving people and many dying children. Thinking that I was a doctor, mothers would shove their babies into my arms asking me to save them. Sadly, many of those children were already dead and others died in my arms—a horrifying experience that I will never forget.
