Food Security Panel – Community Led Development

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The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 aims to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” by 2030. But as hunger refuses to fall amid conflict, climate challenges and inequality, the global development community is increasingly recognizing that hunger is not just a technical problem. It is a human one that requires integrated action across a range of initiatives through strong global partnerships (SDG 17). After all, according to John Coonrod at The Hunger Project, hunger is tied to every SDG.

It should be alarming, then, that in 2018, nearly 11 percent of the world population – or about 822 million people – did not have enough to eat, according to this year’s State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). That’s up from about 811 million the previous year, marking the third year of increase in a row.

In addition, more than 2 billion people, or 26 percent of the world, are food insecure, meaning they do not have regular access to enough safe and nutritious food. Although most of these people are in low- and middle-income countries, food insecurity is also affecting about 8 percent of people in North America and Europe.

To address these new challenges, the UN agency heads say it requires bolder action, “not only in scale but also in terms of multisectoral collaboration,” bringing food solutions together with agriculture, education, economic empowerment, gender issues, water and sanitation – all the SDGs. In essence, hunger and food security cannot be solved without the holistic development of communities, and vice versa.

That’s why it’s so exciting that Global Washington has members from across the development spectrum who are all contributing to food security in innovative, sustainable and integrated ways. Join us for this informative panel to learn more on how Global Washington members are using a community-led approach to tackle the complex issue of food security.