President Joe Biden announced that the United States is expanding Feed the Future, the U.S. Governments global hunger and food security initiative, to reach new countries and intensify efforts to directly address and mitigate the impacts of recent shocks to global food security and nutrition.
Countries already reeling from increased poverty, hunger and malnutrition as a result of COVID-19, climatic shocks, severe drought in the Horn of Africa, and protracted conflict now face further suffering from Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Today’s crisis calls for an expansion of our efforts through Feed the Future. The U.S. government is announcing the expansion of Feed the Future to eight new target countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia.
These countries were prioritized based on a combination of underlying food insecurity, poverty and malnutrition, including impacts from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as the opportunity – and each government’s commitment – to tackle these deep-rooted issues in partnership with us.
In these countries, the U.S. Government takes a coordinated approach to its investments and in turn, paves the way for further resources and investments from other actors, such as the private sector, donors and local governments.
This expands Feed the Future’s global footprint from 12 to 20 target countries and delivers on President Biden’s commitment in September 2021 of $5 billion over five years to end global hunger and malnutrition and build sustainable, resilient food systems.
Feed the Future programming responds to each country’s level of need and harnesses the power of agriculture to drive economic growth and transform food systems in the country and the region.
To respond to the global food security crisis, Feed the Future is focusing on four major lines of effort: mitigating the global fertilizer shortage, increasing investments in agricultural capacity and resilience, cushioning the macroeconomic shock and impact on poor people, and sustaining high-level global political engagement.
As a new Feed the Future target country, the U.S. Embassy through USAID/Liberia is contributing to these efforts by strengthening its coordination and collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture by providing technical assistance and policy support, expanding programming to address the key drivers of food insecurity by building household resilience to shocks and stressors, improving agricultural practices, and supporting access and use of agricultural inputs, improved varieties, appropriate technology, equipment, and infrastructure, establishing opportunities for agricultural businesses by co-investing in promising enterprises, strengthening business services, and investing in promising entrepreneurs and initiatives to address Liberia’s food security challenges, and investing in the next generation of farmers and entrepreneurs by expanding school feeding programs in coordination with the Ministry of Education, and promoting agricultural training in schools.
Funded at more than $1 billion per year, Feed the Future has existing technical expertise, programs and partners in more than 35 countries being leveraged to mitigate the impacts of this latest global shock and address the root causes of poverty, hunger and malnutrition.
