World Food Prize Announcement Ceremony 2009

"The issue of chronic hunger and food security is at the top of the agenda that we’re pursuing here in the State Department and in the Obama Administration. This morning, one billion people around the world woke up hungry. Tonight, they will go to sleep hungry. Today, in a village in Niger, a woman will walk for miles in search of water to irrigate crops that are parched by drought. Today, in Haiti, a farmer’s surplus fruit will go to waste because he has no way to store it or to bring it to market. Today, in Congo, a family will flee a conflict that has left their farms and fields fallow. And today, in a schoolhouse in Bangladesh, children will struggle to learn because their bodies are struggling to survive on insufficient nutrition.

The effects of chronic hunger cannot be overstated. Hunger is not only a physical condition, it is a drain on economic development, a threat to global security, a barrier to health and education, and a trap for the millions of people worldwide who work from sunup to sundown every single day but can barely produce enough food to sustain their lives and the lives of their families. Most of all, hunger belies our planet’s bounty. It challenges our common humanity and resolve. We do have the resources to give every person in the world the tools they need to feed themselves and their children.

So the question is not whether we can end hunger, it’s whether we will.

The Obama Administration is committed to providing leadership in developing a new global approach to hunger. For too long, our primary response has been to send emergency aid when the crisis is at its worst. This saves lives, but it doesn't address hunger’s root causes. It is, at best, a short-term fix."

- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Read the full speech here.

Treating Malaria Before it Starts

A program in Ethiopia supported by The Global Fund and other partners has distributed almost 20 million insecticite treated nets in an effort to combat malaria. The project stemmed from another simple idea: training two high school graduates in every village to teach health skills to the communities. As a result, the number of deaths from the disease has gone down by half in only three years. With this plan, The Global Fund was able to not only prevent malaria, but also to treat it if any early signs were detected. The unexpected success of this project shows that malaria is definitely a treatable disease, if it is addressed immediately and not ignored.

Source: The Global Fund

How Social Media Built a Movement

With more than 1.2 billion people living on less than a dollar a day, it’s hard not to ask the most powerful nation to do more. That’s exactly what The Borgen Project, arguably one of the most tech-savvy nonprofit organizations on the internet, set out to do.

Launched in 2003 by Clint Borgen, The Borgen Project works to bring U.S. political attention to global poverty, and is now headquartered in Seattle. In 1999, the founder and president of the organization was a 21-year old volunteer working in a Kosovo refugee camp, during the war and genocide. From his harrowing experience on the ground, and through the atrocities he witnessed, Borgen found a need for a powerful force that could put pressure on Congress and the White House to increase efforts to address global poverty. Today, one man’s project has evolved into a web-based movement that utilizes social media to raise awareness for the cause.

The nonpartisan organization is known for having access to congressional leaders on a national level. Using the Web to mobilize people across the globe, The Borgen Project encourages people to call their congressional leaders to urge them to support specific poverty-reduction bills. Connecting with people through over 180 social media sites, The Borgen Project effectively uses internet platforms like YouTube, social networking sites like MySpace, and its blog to mobilize and educate citizens on basic advocacy skills so that they can communicate with their government to make poverty a political priority.

Some of the ways The Borgen Project successfully uses social media include demonstrating how to perform a hero call through a YouTube video, and having interviews and event videos available online. The nonprofit’s Facebook group is growing daily, and new links on poverty-reduction are regularly updated on the forum. The blog is also educational and newsworthy. Through all these various web channels, The Borgen Project continues to build buzz for the cause, mobilize people to contact congressional leaders and raise money for the rising movement.

-- Jaimie Hwang

Engineers Helping the Developing World

Created in 2002, Engineers Without Borders is a nonprofit organization comprised of people with diverse technical expertise, whose goal is to provide those in the developing world with the tools and resources they need to fight poverty. They consist of several small groups around the world, who oversee various engineering projects. “Sustainable development will be impossible without the full input by the engineering profession,” said Maurice Strong, Secretary General, at 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development. The organization is trying to directly address this issue. Read more about them here.

Day of the African Child

Today, thousands of children around Africa are taking part in the Day of the African Child, petitioning their governments to work harder to boost child health and survival. According to UNICEF, one in seven children in sub-Saharan Africa dies before he or she reaches the age of five. Liberia has made a stride towards reversing this trend by eliminating health care fees in 2007. As a result, they have seen a significant reduction in the number of deaths of young children over the last few years. If more countries start following their example, the results would be well worth it.

Source: Reuters AlertNet

Don't Eliminate Aid; Make it More Effective.

Geoffrey York uses the example of a recent Canadian-funded water project in Malawi to discuss the issue of effective aid. Since there is a lot of controversy going on currently with Dambisa Moyo's book, he argues that aid will never truly be stopped, so our task should be to focus on how to make it more effective rather than trying to eliminate it altogether as Moyo argues. The project in Malawi has been successful in providing clean water for people, but for its $13 million price tag, York says that it should have seen better results. A lot of the newly installed water taps worked well for the first year, but in the second year less than half of them functioned properly. In order for this situation to have been avoided, there should have been better training of the villagers and more communication between the decision makers and the workers in the field who were to respond to any issues with the water taps. Read the full article here.

Cholera Still a Risk

The worst cholera crisis in Zimbabwe is finally seeing significant improvement. Unfortunately, however, the upcoming rainy season poses a major threat to the eradication of the disease. Since cholera is a water-borne illness, the first rains might create problems when it causes contaminated water to flow towards the open sources where people go to drink. Hopefully, this year's $22 million grant from the World Bank will help the country in its struggle against the failing economy and cholera.

Source: CNN.com