Since 1990, the number of hungry people in the world has been cut in half. Since 2009, Feed the Future (FtF), President Obama’s signature initiative to combat hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition, has contributed innovation and effort to accomplishing this feat. Despite these successes, nearly 800 million people still suffer from chronic hunger. By 2050, the world’s population will reach nine billion. To ensure all people have enough to eat, agricultural productivity will need to increase sustainably by 60 percent.
Feed the Future, of which ACDI/VOCA is a key implementer, coordinates U.S. government agencies to build these much-needed productive and resilient agricultural systems. FtF leverages the expertise of ten government agencies and works in 19 countries. FtF engages the private sector to reach its twin goals of reducing poverty and childhood stunting. In FY 2014, FtF formed more than 2,000 public-private partnerships and reached millions of smallholder farmers, FtF’s target demographic. These successes illustrate the maturation and full mobilization of FtF, along with the power of partnering with host-country governments, the private sector, and the research community through 23 FtF Innovation Labs.
Development that Works
FtF’s successes are numerous and multi-faceted. The 2015 Results Summary: Achieving Impact: Leadership and Partnership to Feed the Future lists many of them. Highlights include:
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In FY2014, FtF-supported farmers experienced more than a half a billion dollars in new agricultural sales, a 200 percent increase over the prior year
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In FY2014, the number of individuals who received agricultural/food security training increased by 40 percent
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In FY2014, the number of people trained to support child health and nutrition increased by 150 percent
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Agricultural-related public-private partnerships increased by 90 percent in FY 2014
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Since 2011, FtF reached 12.3 million children with nutrition interventions
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Since 2011, 18.9 million rural households directly benefited from U.S. government interventions
For generations, the U.S. government has been a leader in providing development assistance worldwide. FtF is the latest and most powerful of these initiatives. The results presented in the 2015 Results Summary are the project’s most immediate outcomes and hint at the long-lasting changes that will surely benefit generations to come.
To read more about the FtF projects ACDI/VOCA and affiliate ASI implement, read more here:
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Ethiopia – Agricultural Growth Program-Agribusiness and Market Development (AGP-AMDe)
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Ethiopia – Feed Enhancement for Ethiopian Development II (FEED II)
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Ghana – Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement II (ADVANCE II) Project
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Kenya – Resilience and Economic Growth in the Arid Lands–Accelerated Growth
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Zambia – Production, Finance, and Improved Technology Plus (PROFIT+)
Read the 2015 Results Summary: Achieving Impact: Leadership and Partnership to Feed the Future here.
