World Food Day: A Call To Action To End Global Hunger

Posted by Jonathan Shrier / October 16, 2012

Jonathan Shrier serves as Acting Special Representative for Global Food Security.

World Food Day is a reminder and call to action for the international community to strengthen efforts to end world hunger and malnutrition.

Today, nearly one billion people suffer from chronic hunger, which means that they do not get enough food to satisfy their body's basic nutritional needs.

Feed the Future is the U.S. government's global hunger and food security initiative and works with partner countries to support their own agriculture development objectives to increase agricultural productivity and improve nutrition, which can help reduce poverty and hunger. Seventy-five percent of the world's poor live in rural areas in developing countries, where most people's livelihoods rely directly on agriculture, and women in the developing world make up to forty-three percent of the agriculture labor force. By focusing on women and small holder farmers, Feed the Future seeks to improve incomes for the most vulnerable and enhance development results on a larger scale.

Through Feed the Future, we have been able to work with 19 partner countries to develop country plans for agricultural and food security investments to reduce hunger and malnutrition. These efforts, combined with private sector investments and civil society engagement, have helped set the stage for broader partnerships and deeper impact.

The Scaling Up Nutrition Movement and the 1,000 Days Partnership exemplify that close collaboration. Launched by Secretary Clinton during the in 2010 UN General Assembly, the 1,000 Days Partnership is helping mobilize governments, civil society and the private sector to promote action to improve nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a child's life, when adequate nutrition can have a lifelong impact on the child's health, ability to grow and learn.

Under the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition announced at the G-8 Camp David Summit in May, the U.S. government is working in partnership with the private sector and governments in Africa to increase responsible private investments in agriculture and scale innovations that enhance agricultural productivity.

More recently, on the margins of this year's UN General Assembly, Secretary Clinton announced a new commitment by InterAction, an alliance of U.S.-based civil society organizations, which pledged more than one billion dollars of private, non-government funds over the next three years to improve food security and nutrition worldwide.

Under Feed the Future, we are also helping researchers engage directly with farmers to understand how technology can help them , and ensure we take advantage of the scientific research and innovation to provide the world's poor not just with more food, but better, more nutritious food.

We are making progress and are proud of our accomplishments and our partner's efforts in the three years since we launched Feed the Future. Food security remains a high priority for the U.S. government and we are fully committed to strengthening our partnerships with government, civil society and private sector to end world hunger.

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