We Live in a Hungry World

No matter how dramatic the images of people receiving food aid, it’s the daily, personal reminders of what it means to be hungry, and what we are doing to address that hunger for the long-term, which affect me the most…even after more than thirty years in this business.

 

The recent severe drought in the Horn of Africa brought sharply into focus the need to help communities be more resilient. Resilience means supporting communities so they can recover from shocks and disasters and get on with building their lives—so they won’t continue to need food aid.

 

In many ways, USAID’s food aid programs have been doing this for a long time, by helping farmers move beyond subsistence and farm more productively so they have a surplus to store or to sell, and can break the cycle of poverty and hunger. I have seen examples of this every day in my years with USAID, from Ethiopia to Haiti to Burundi. We are not just about handing out food in emergencies, but actively seek to help families become more food secure over the long run. Lessons we have learned from both the Horn of Africa and the Sahel are being applied to improve our relief efforts in part of Southern Africa experiencing worsening drought today.