1. What is the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, and who is participating?
The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition is a commitment by G-8 members, African countries, and private sector partners to achieve sustained and inclusive agricultural growth to lift 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years. It builds upon the progress and commitments made in 2009 at the L'Aquila G-8 Summit, and offers a broad and innovative path to strengthen food security and nutrition.
The New Alliance includes specific commitments from:
- African leaders to refine policies in order to improve investment opportunities and drive their country-led plans on food security; - Private sector partners, who have collectively committed more than $3 billion to increase investments; and - G-8 members, who will support Africa's potential… more »
On May 18-19, 2012, the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the EU joined President Barack Obama at Camp David for the annual G8 Summit. The leaders met to address major global economic, political, and security challenges, including energy and climate change, food security and nutrition, Afghanistan's economic transition and transitions taking place across the Middle East and North Africa.
In his remarks at the closing of the Summit, President Obama said, "For the past three years, our nations have worked together and with others first to rescue a global economy from freefall, then to wrestle it back to a path of recovery and growth. Our progress has been tested… more »
You may have noticed a lot of increased talk about "food security" lately, particularly in the international development realm. There's good reason for that.
A family experiences food security when it lives without hunger or even fear of hunger. In essence, it means that people have enough food to live happy, healthy lives. It's a right I'm sure we all wish were accessible to every man, woman, and child on the planet.
Yet global hunger and chronic malnutrition remain two of the greatest development challenges today. Nearly 20 percent of all people in the world live on less than $1.25 a day, and almost one billion suffer from chronic hunger. Compounding this problem is the fact that, by 2050, the global population is expected to grow to more than nine billion people, requiring up to a 70 percent increase in agricultural production to feed us all. Given increasingly… more »
This week, urgently needed food -- 33,700 tons of sorghum from American farmers -- will depart the United States for West Africa, as a part of the U.S. government's response to the drought in the Sahel.
Due to poor harvests, high food prices, and a number of conflicts in the region, a dire humanitarian situation is looming for chronically vulnerable populations across the Sahel region of western Africa.
The food we are shipping this week should arrive by late April, just four to five weeks from now. USAID's speedy contribution complements efforts of the UN World Food Program and other agencies to procure food for the hungry regionally. Because markets in the Sahel are currently stretched to meet the demand for food, internationally sourced assistance is vital to ensure that food prices don't rise even higher. With 7 to 12 million people in need of assistance,… more »
Our "Photo of the Week" comes to us from Elizabeth Petrovski at the U.S. Mission to the UN Agencies in Rome, Italy. Elizabeth recently had the opportunity to visit Kenya, where she observed projects run by the World Food Program (WFP) and its cooperating partner, the Kenya Child Fund, in the northeastern district of Turkana. In the photograph, Turkana women sing and dance as they build a trapezoidal bund, an instrument along with water pans that Kenyan herders and farmers use to collect and preserve rainwater for human and livestock consumption and crop irrigation in areas regularly impacted by droughts.
Water issues are integral to many U.S. foreign policy goals, from advancing food security to empowering women and… more »
For weeks now, my teenage daughter and her friends have been buzzing about the release of the new film The Hunger Games. I asked her recently about the trilogy -- she'd already read the books -- and I was struck by how much the premise relates to the very heart of what we are trying to address at USAID and through Feed the Future. Among other themes, the book touches on the fundamental right everyone should have: access to food.
As a father, nothing is more important to me than ensuring my daughter has a happy life. Sure, this includes her ability to hang out with friends at the movies (after her homework is done, of course). But more importantly, it means she's healthy enough to go to school and work toward opportunities for a bright future. Kids all over the world deserve the… more »
As part of Secretary Clinton's Economic Statecraft agenda, every one of our diplomatic posts around the world and every office at the Department of State has been tasked with ensuring economics is at the center of our foreign policy. For the dedicated staff of the Bureau Economic and Business Affairs, this has always been our mission. And so, I am challenging my colleagues to implement the Secretary's vision through innovative approaches to persisting problems.
Today, I am introducing one small piece of that effort. Through a series of short videos, I will highlight key economic policy issues and the efforts of my Bureau to address them. The first is on our work helping countries address the problem… more »
Though one sounds like a medical contraption and the other a geometry problem, water pans and trapezoidal bunds are actually vital instruments Kenyan herders and farmers can use to collect and preserve rainwater for human and livestock consumption and crop irrigation in areas regularly impacted by droughts.
I recently had the opportunity to visit Kenya, and view a couple of projects run by the World Food Program (WFP) and its cooperating partner, the Kenya Child Fund, near Lodwar in the northeastern district of Turkana. The WFP, which has been working in Kenya for a long time, began a program in 2009 aimed at rebuilding the livelihoods of populations living in the arid and semi-arid lands of Kenya, of which Turkana is one, that have been severely affected by recurring droughts. With this program,… more »
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Mexico to participate in the first G-20 Ministers of Foreign Affairs informal meeting in Los Cabos, February 18-20. The Secretary discussed issues the United States and other G-20 members face individually and as partners on global economic matters, including principles for the international economic system, green growth and sustainable development, food security, and human development. In a press availability… more »
May 23: The State Department, through its office of the U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), is pleased to announce $1.5 million in funding to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to support open governance and political participation in the Middle East and North Africa. more »
May 23: Today, Russia was invited to join the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) at a ceremony hosted by its parent body, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris. ã more »
![U.S. President Barack Obama announces the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition at the Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security on May 18, 2012, at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. [Chicago Council photo]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0423_potus_food_security_m.jpg)
![President Barack Obama along with other world leaders wave during a photo opportunity at the G-8 Summit on May 19, 2012 at Camp David, Maryland. [AP Photo]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0522_g8_obam1_m.jpg)
![A child reacts after receiving food distributed at a refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan on Aug. 14, 2010. [AP File Photo]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0511_food_child_m.jpg)
![A Peace Corps Volunteer works with a hospital in Senegal to grow gardens in order to provide vitamins to patients who cannot afford pills. [Peace Corps photo]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0426_food_m.jpg)
![A laborer works at a grain store inside the world food programme (WFP) warehouse in Maradi, Niger, on Aug. 7, 2005. [AP File Photo]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0330_sahel_wfp_m.jpg)
![Turkana women sing and dance as they pat down the trapezoidal bund they built in Kenya. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0324_water_africa_m.jpg)
![A farmer sows wheat at Chunnikhel, Katmandu, Nepal, Nov. 15, 2011. [AP File Photo]](http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2012_0322_wheat_farmer_m.jpg)
