The U.S. Government Responds to Hunger and Malnutrition

The Bangladesh Homestead Gardening program, supported by USAID and Helen Keller International, combined agriculture and nutrition programming in one. The program targeted women, the primary caregivers of the malnourished children.

Feed the Future, a bold new U.S. government initiative, will significantly increase investments in improving the productivity and livelihoods of smallholder farmers, a neglected area of U.S. development assistance that pays direct dividends in lower rates of hunger and poverty. Feed the Future also focuses on improving dietary quality, paying special attention to the nutritional status of mothers and children.

The initiative started with 20 countries, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa with the remainder in Asia, Central America, and the Caribbean. Feed the Future has adopted a country-led approach, meaning that partner countries set priorities for how they want the aid to be invested—whether school nutrition programming; agricultural research; improving access to inputs, extension services, and rural credit; or another area related to food security. National governments consult with nongovernmental stakeholders to set the investment priorities together. Next, the governments coordinate with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and its implementing partners on a strategy that ensures effective monitoring and evaluation. An integral part of a country-led approach is building the institutional capacity of national governments to sustain the progress begun using foreign assistance.

The establishment of Feed the Future does not correct the structural weaknesses that limit the effectiveness of other U.S. development assistance programs. In fact, one such weakness cuts across all programs, including Feed the Future: the erosion of technical expertise at USAID, the lead development agency in the U.S. government. The main cause of this loss of technical capacity for agricultural programming is staff attrition. For nearly 20 years before the launch of Feed the Future, agricultural programming was not a priority for USAID.

Other structural weaknesses in U.S. development assistance run deeper—they can only be overcome if they are addressed by policymakers. Rewriting the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) is the most effective way to achieve comprehensive reform of U.S. development assistance. The FAA was enacted in 1961. Legislation written 50 years ago cannot reflect the changed circumstances and emerging priorities the country faces in the 21st century. The U.S. government is committed to helping poor countries develop. Congress should pass foreign assistance legislation that clearly establishes the importance of poverty reduction and development in U.S. foreign policy. Rewriting the FAA will improve the quality of development assistance and strengthen the case for funding it to ensure success.