Meet the U.S. Government Team Making a Difference in the Fight to End Global Hunger

When the United States rallied the world behind a renewed commitment in 2009 to ramp up the fight againstglobal hunger and poverty, no one expected that fight would be easy. Hunger and poverty have been around for a long time, and our goals to put them behind us were ambitious.

But teaming up against hunger and poverty is not only the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do. So we brought our A-game to the task of advancing global food security and nutrition by harnessing the expertise of not one, but 11 different U.S. Government departments and agencies through Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s cornerstone global hunger and food security initiative. Building on decades of U.S. leadership in providing assistance to fight hunger, Feed the Future grew out of the recognition that we needed to do more if we wanted to make lasting progress against hunger and poverty.

With a sharpened focus on smallholder farmers – particularly women – as the backbone of agriculture-led growth and prosperity, our U.S. Government team forged partnerships with host country governments, businesses, research institutions and civil society organizations to address the root causes of hunger and undernutrition.

Building a more food-secure world is a task that requires the full scope of U.S. leadership. It encompasses diplomacy and policymaking in the halls of national legislatures at home and abroad, trade and investment in markets spanning the globe, and scientific innovation in the laboratories of an international network of researchers. Small-scale farmers are first at the plate to knock hunger out of the ballpark, but the batting lineup also includes students, CEOs, community health workers, data wizards, activists and entrepreneurs.

It’s a team effort to tackle one of the world’s most intractable problems, and it’s working.

Our combined efforts are empowering rural farming families around the globe to lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. Each of our contributions matters, but together our impact is more than the sum of its parts: in just a few short years, we’ve helped countries achieve exciting, measurable progress. Later this year, we’ll be releasing new data that show some important declines in rates of poverty and child stunting in the countries where Feed the Future works.

We believe that U.S. Government efforts are making significant contributions to this game-changing progress and we’re proud to be part of a global team effort that is picking up steam in the fight to end hunger.