Solving Global Hunger
Since 2006, the number of hungry people has increased from 870 million to more than 1 billion. Hunger has many faces, from those devastated by natural disasters and urban slum dwellers on the verge of destitution to poorly nourished mothers and children and small-scale farmers struggling to produce enough to feed their families and earn a profit.
During the last several years, a consensus has emerged that U.S. and international efforts to end hunger will be most successful if they tackle the problem comprehensively – in other words, by advancing solutions that address hunger’s many forms.
In 2009, WFP USA helped solidify this consensus by uniting more than 40 organizations around the Roadmap to End Global Hunger, which outlines a comprehensive approach for the U.S. government to address global hunger. Shortly after the Roadmap’s launch, President Obama announced his Feed the Future Initiative, a comprehensive U.S. government initiative to eradicate global hunger, based heavily on the Roadmap.
A comprehensive approach includes the following elements which target the different groups who collectively comprise the 1 billion people suffering from hunger:
- Emergency food assistance programs to meet immediate needs in the wake of disasters
- Safety net programs to help ensure vulnerable populations do not fall into destitution
- Nutrition programs targeted at nutritionally vulnerable populations, particularly mothers, children and those suffering from severe illnesses
- Agricultural development programs, which increase the incomes of small-scale farmers around the world
