Action Against Hunger, Devex, Global Citizen, Salesforce.org, CRS, CARE, and World Vision brought together leaders for a dynamic, two-day summit last month to reboot and reevaluate our collective efforts in tackling hunger. As part of a new movement called Together Against Hunger, the summit attracted more than 500 people across more than dozens of countries virtually and in person.
Speakers including Sara Menker, Jerry Greenfield, Yusuf Omar, Kate Musimwa, Mwandwe Chileshe, Rev. Heber Brown, and Isobel Coleman inspired participants to:
The convening was held as approximately 828 million people — one in ten worldwide — are undernourished and as many as 50 million people in 45 countries are on the verge of famine. Ongoing conflict, the primary driver of hunger, continues to threaten lives and livelihoods. Climate change is causing increasingly severe and frequent disasters, undermining resilience.
Compounding all of these factors are structural inequalities that systematically exclude vulnerable communities from decision-making and accrue benefits for some to the detriment of most. Ending hunger — especially by 2030 to achieve the United Nation’s Zero Hunger goal — can seem overwhelming.
Despite the concerning reality that confronts us, the Together Against Hunger summit offered some bright spots for opportunities as leaders reevaluated current efforts to fight global hunger, discussed how to take to scale what has worked well, and challenged the status quo.
As Mwande Chileshe, Food Security, Nutrition & Agriculture Global Policy Lead of Global Citizen, said, “We’ve created a false narrative that hunger must always exist.” It doesn’t have to be this way. Hunger is not inevitable. To create a future free from hunger, we need bold and transformative action. Together Against Hunger speakers urged change to transform food systems, tackle related issues such as climate change and deep-rooted inequities, and ensure robust funding that is multi-year, flexible and reflects predictive data about the state of malnutrition months and years from now.
The Together Against Hunger convening also underscored the need for meaningful and deep engagement from a wide range of actors. Isobel Coleman, Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), reinforced the U.S. Government’s commitment to ending severe malnutrition in the wake of USAID’s announcement of $200 million investment to scale up access to treatment, including Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic Food (RUTF) — the largest commitment that has ever been made to treat severely malnourished children.
At the same time, private sector engagement is critical. “Businesses need to be willing to take risks,” said Jerry Greenfield, Co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s. “Businesses understand you need to take risks when making new products. But when it comes to taking risks about social issues, they become very risk adverse. You have to be willing to take risks, make mistakes, and learn from it.”
Sarah Menker, Founder and CEO of Gro Intelligence, said that it’s not just about increased participation, but increased collaboration and a more coordinated donor landscape. Her company is using artificial intelligence and machine learning to create models that predict the future of global food security, national security, and global stability.
Participants at Together Against Hunger
Hunger is fundamentally about power. In every country throughout the world, the hungriest people are the people with the least power.
Solutions to end hunger ultimately depend on dismantling power structures — political, economic, social — that exclude people from accessing their human rights. At the Together Against Hunger event, practitioners, policy makers, and donors emphasized the need to tackle the root causes of inequity and exclusion by working together with affected communities in solidarity.
To this end, a strength-based approach is key. As Reverend Herber Brown III, Executive Director the Black Church Food Security Network, said, “We don’t start with what’s wrong. We start with what’s strong.” Participants emphasized the importance of involving the communities most affected by hunger in the solution.
“As the son of a poor farmer, I know how it feels not knowing when my next meal will be. It’s outraging to see hunger increasing. We need commitment and perseverance to achieve zero hunger. Let’s drop logos and egos and work together,” said Dr. Charles Owubah, CEO of Action Against Hunger.
Together Against Hunger participants agreed that in the face of pressing needs, the world needs to lean into the most impactful interventions to make the greatest difference in fighting hunger. “We need to engage, learn, and innovate based on the success of the solutions,” said Imelda Awino, Deputy Director of the Knowledge and Innovation Hub at Action Against Hunger.
To do this, we need to scale up solutions that have proven effective, especially those identified by the landmark Ceres 2030 study on the most effective and sustainable agricultural interventions to dramatically reduce hunger and increase resilience. Participants also discussed the need to establish real-time and robust data on hunger and malnutrition to track and measure our effectiveness.
Ultimately, the Together Against Hunger event tackled big questions that will require large investments and buy-in from new partners. “Hunger does not receive the investment it deserves because it does not affect people equally” declared Ashwini Kakkar, Global Chairman of Action Against Hunger, in his opening remarks.
Now more than ever, we need to grow a broader movement, challenge traditional ways of thinking, and inspire others to join the fight. Success rests on everyone’s shoulders.
If you missed any of the sessions at Together Against Hunger, they are available to watch online here.
