The Hunger Project Reduces Poverty

Ending world hunger is a complicated goal because it’s not simply a matter of giving hungry people food. There are links between hunger, poverty, unsustainable agricultural methods, lack of education, lack of health care, and the marginalization of women. It is not surprising that areas with the highest level of hunger and malnutrition are also areas where the women are most marginalized. It is a cycle where uneducated malnourished mothers give birth to malnourished babies. 

Too often, people who need aid are not involved in the process because they lack political power. “Top down” programs, where millions of dollars of aid get filtered down through successive layers of bureaucracies, are not the most successful in improving the lives of the people the aid was intended for. 

Rather than feeding people directly, The Hunger Project (THP) breaks the cycle of hunger and poverty at its roots. In many locations, THP starts with the “Epicenter strategy”, clustering 10 – 15 villages together, giving the people a combined voice that has more power to effect local government. That cluster of villages can then partner with community based organizations and local government agencies. They can learn to manage their own programs for microfinance, improved agriculture, food-processing, income generation, adult literacy, food security, and primary health care. (In India, THP focuses more on empowering women politically.) *

“THP carries out its mission with strategies that are affordable, effective, replicable and sustainable. While our strategies are adapted to local conditions in each region where we work and, therefore, differ in detail, they share a unified approach, based on three pillars:

1.    Mobilizing village clusters at the grassroots level to build self-reliance;

2.    Empowering women as key change agents; and

3.    Forging effective partnerships with local government.”

 http://www.thp.org/system/files/Strategic_Direction_Sept_2009.pdfhttp://www.thp.org/system/files/Strategic_Direction_Sept_2009.pdf

As you can see promoting gender equality is a key point in THP’s integrated approach. Women provide 80% of the labor for growing food and getting it to the market. When women’s voices are heard village priorities shift to nutrition, water safety, sanitation and health care.

Combating global hunger is not a “food issue” alone. It must involve community organization, gender equality, education, health care for mothers and children, as well as implementing sustainable farming practices. This is what the integrated approach THP employs. Below are the goals of THP:

“Achieving the sustainable end of hunger means creating a new future for all humanity, a future where

·  every day, every person has enough of the right food to be healthy and productive;

·  babies are born healthy and strong, and girl babies are prized as much as boy babies;

·  children stay alive, so parents can have smaller families;

·  women and girls are full partners in society;

·  people have control over their own lives and destinies, and all individuals have a chance to contribute; and

·  the values of honoring human beings and nature flourish.”

http://www.thp.org/what_we_do/missionhttp://www.thp.org/what_we_do/mission

“Changing mindsets and behaviors is essential to embed lasting change: Once

people truly believe they can change their own destinies, they learn new skills, respond

to opportunities and initiate actions to make changes in their lives and in their

community.”

http://www.thp.org/system/files/Strategic_Direction_Sept_2009.pdf

Changing the mindset of donors is also necessary in attacking global hunger. The “top-down” centralized approach has been proven to be ineffective. Throwing millions of dollars at a problem with an inflexible plan, not involving the people who need the aid, invites misuse of those funds. The Hunger Project’s decentralized approach, calling on the energy of organized communities, utilizing all the people - men and women, using an integrated program that addresses a variety of problems and solutions, has been seen to be very effective.

*Additional Sources:

http://www.thp.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Project