The Road Forward
To be food secure, a person needs adequate, safe and nutritious food to be available; they need access to this food; they need the physical capacity to utilize this food; and the food production and distribution system must be stable enough to guarantee availability, access, and utilization on an ongoing basis. The following six recommendations build upon U.S. leadership and progress, charting a path forward towards a world with less hunger and greater prosperity for all.
Integration
The U.S. should ensure coordination and integration of food security programs by appointing a Global Food Security Coordinator responsible for overseeing development and implementation of the government-wide global food security strategy, with corresponding budget authority over all global food security programs.
See how P4P is connecting small-scale farmers to markets through investment, training and local procurement.
Resilience
The U.S. should increase support for programs that build resilience to shocks by making dedicated Development Assistance (DA) funding available to be jointly programmed by U.S. Government staff (including staff of all relevant U.S. Agency for International Development Bureaus, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other operational agencies) in countries at high risk of suffering crises.
See how Strengthening the Institutions for Peace and Development (SIPED) helped Ethiopia better withstand severe drought.
Safety Nets
The U.S. should support effective safety net programs and build the capacity of host governments to develop and deploy their own national safety net systems.
See how Bolas Familial is reducing hunger, improving nutrition, increasing school attendance and lifting people out of poverty in Brazil.
Nutrition
The U.S. should strengthen and institutionalize the focus on nutrition across all programs by establishing a high-level focal point for global nutrition as required of all Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement countries, defining the nutrition budget across initiatives and accounts, and developing a global nutrition strategy.
See how the SHOUHARDO program successfully addressed chronic child malnutrition in Bangladesh through a comprehensive approach.
Country-Led Development
The U.S. should strengthen country-led development-planning processes by increasing stakeholder engagement, by helping governments overcome legal and policy constraints and by making criteria for countries and regions targeted more clear and transparent.
See how DAA strengthened entire communities by linking women small-holder farmers with decision makers in Ghana.
Investment
The U.S. should invest $5 billion annually in emergency, safety net, nutrition, and agricultural development programs. This investment constitutes just over one tenth of one percent of the U.S. budget, yet would support increased food security for hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
See how ACORDAR is creating opportunities for rural farmers in Nicaragua and connecting them to profitable markets.
