ACDI/VOCA’s Leonard Helps Unveil Roadmap to End Hunger

Feb. 24—Addressing a growing crisis that threatens to destroy the health and nutrition of millions of families worldwide, not to mention the economic fabric of much of the developing world, the nation's top international NGOs joined Representatives Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) today in calling for a new U.S. plan to lead the international community in alleviating global hunger.

"In my 40 plus years of public service, there has never been such a united front, clarity of purpose and general agreement on what actually needs to be done in order to really end hunger," said former Representative Tony Hall (pictured, on left, with ACDI/VOCA Senior Managing Director of Food Security Avram "Buzz" Guroff and ACDI/VOCA President Carl Leonard). He added, “Many of us have been sick and tired and frustrated going to conferences around the world saying we’re responsible for cutting hunger in half by 2015” and not acting to abide by that pledge.

Since that Millennium Development Goal was set, about 54 million children have died from starvation and malnutrition, said Charles MacCormack, president of Save the Children.

"It is a moral outrage that we have not yet produced the level of political will required to end world hunger," said former Senator George McGovern. "I urge Congress and the Obama administration to step up and make hunger a thing of the past. We live in a world where there is enough food to feed every man, woman and child."

Both Hall and George McGovern are former ambassadors to the U.N. food and agriculture agencies in Rome.

ACDI/VOCA’s President Carl Leonard , as chair of the Alliance For Global Food Security, was part of the diverse coalition of almost 40 international relief and development organizations including Bread for the World, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, the Congressional Hunger Center, Friends of the World Food Program, Mercy Corps, Save the Children and World Vision that spearheaded the Roadmap to End Global Hunger campaign. Hall referred to the coalition as “the best and brightest of NGOs in our country and in our world.”

New legislation will incorporate Roadmap recommendations, setting forth a comprehensive plan that addresses world hunger in the short, intermediate and long term, increases funding to alleviate global hunger and ensures coordination among existing U.S. programs. The Roadmap calls for the U.S. to boost spending on food and agricultural aid by 60 percent in 2010 to $6.36 billion, and commit to further increases to $13.31 billion by 2014. Traditional emergency shipments of U.S.-grown farm commodities would be balanced with longer-term cash and development programs.

In ACDI/VOCA and AGFS’s best scenario, language in any forthcoming foreign aid reform bill would direct USAID to make funds available to NGOs and cooperatives for agriculture, rural development and nutrition programs. Also any emergency assistance accounts that specify local/regional purchase of food aid would have sufficient safeguards and provide funding for risk management and not just food aid. Finally, there would be sufficient food aid funding.

"I have long said that hunger is a political condition," said Representative Jim McGovern. "We have the resources to end hunger in our lifetime—what we need is the political will to make it happen. The Roadmap…provides concrete solutions and emphasizes the importance of speed and flexibility."

Rep. McGovern bemoaned the fractionalization of assistance that has led to inefficiency, and welcomed the Roadmap’s unprecedented unity. He said the provisions are “not charity—they’re an investment in our long-term economic interest. The cost of hunger is staggering.” He spoke of a recent trip to Colombia where a mother thanked him for a U.S. school feeding program that relieved pressure to give up her 11-year-old son to the care of guerillas or paramilitaries.

Representative Jo Ann Emerson said, "Hunger is a tremendous problem, and it is not enough…to simply be well-intentioned.” She said that at a recent OECD meeting the consensus was that hunger is a pre-eminent economic issue.

Emerson introduced Leonard, who pointed out the Roadmap’s wisdom in building on food aid programs authorized in the recent Farm Bill and in making NGOs implementers. He said NGOs operate at the level of greatest need, have unmatched commitment and have developed a powerful arsenal of agricultural development and food security tools.

David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, spoke of his visit to Malawi, where he encountered a “great organization called NASFAM (the National Association of Smallholder Farmers of Malawi) founded in the 90s by ACDI/VOCA with U.S. government support.” He said a hundred thousand families in the collective are successfully raising themselves up, but now resources to build on this success are scarce. Beckmann pointed out that only 4 percent of assistance is devoted to agriculture despite the livelihood it represents for most of the world’s poor.

High food prices and financial and economic crises are pushing more people into poverty and hunger. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of hungry people worldwide has increased to nearly 1 billion. Overwhelmingly they live in developing nations.

The United States has responded to the food crisis by designating an additional $1.4 billion in food aid and more than $600 million in cash resources to respond to urgent needs. However, given that global hunger is easily exacerbated by conflict, recurring natural disasters and high food prices, policymakers agree the U.S. government needs a more strategic and comprehensive approach to provide relief in the short term and lay the foundation for a permanent solution.

"It really is time to bring this to an end once and for all," MacCormack said.

The Roadmap and the prospective legislation call on the Obama administration to establish an international hunger coordinator in the White House, and Congress is asked to restore the House Select Committee on Hunger, which was disbanded in 1994, and establish a Senate Select Committee on Hunger.

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For more information:

ACDI/VOCA's Global Food Crisis Team's food crisis position paper

http://www.globalfoodsecurity.info/Default.aspx?tabid=58&metaid=I3OQ3427-557

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN23489065