Public attention to world hunger and abject poverty is growing, as is a debate about foreign aid. While most of the debate has focused on the amount of aid, there has also been growing controversy about the effectiveness of aid. Supporters of increased foreign aid point to successes such as the eradication of smallpox, yet critics point to the enormous failures. As the economist William Easterly points out in a recent book, with 50 years and US$2.3 trillion in foreign aid, there is very little to show for it.

Easterly’s book underscores what The Hunger Project concluded in 1989 — that conventional top-down planning is not the answer, it is part of the problem. Top-down, service-delivery approaches are not only too inefficient and inflexible to make a dent in world hunger, they actually undermine the most important resource — the creativity and self-reliance of hungry people themselves.

Easterly distinguishes top-down “planners” from “searchers” working to discover solutions from the bottom up. For years, The Hunger Project has worked in partnership with grassroots people in Africa, Asia and Latin America to develop effective bottom-up strategies. We have discovered three critical elements that — when combined — empower people to make rapid progress in overcoming hunger and poverty:

·         Mobilizing grassroots people for self-reliant action

·         Intervening for gender equality

·         Strengthening local democracy

Mobilizing for Self-reliance

Top-down approaches treat people as passive beneficiaries, dependent on government handouts. After decades, people internalize this belief. As promises of assistance fail to materialize, people are left in deep resignation.

The first step in The Hunger Project’s strategies worldwide is to awaken people to a new possibility — the possibility of not waiting to be rescued, but taking action now to meet basic needs. This is achieved through the Vision, Commitment and Action Workshop (VCAW).

Part of the “homework” of the VCAW is to launch a three-month project based entirely on local resources. In achieving this first success, people’s initial inspiration develops into self-confidence.

There are other vital steps in mobilization. We train local volunteer leaders known as “animators,” who become the spark plugs for local action. As people take more substantial action, we provide training in literacy and local laws. We organize people into self-help groups to gain a stronger voice. Success builds on success.

The results of mobilization include the hundreds of village-level projects launched through our epicenter strategy in Africa, as residents of outlying villages build local classrooms, local workshops for income-generating activities, and local food storage for food security.

In Mexico, villages have taken on replanting the forests. In Bolivia, villages build their own irrigation systems. In Bangladesh, clusters of villages launch mass-action campaigns, some of which have ensured that the villages are 100 percent free from dowry-based marriages, and 100 percent literate, and that 100 percent of the households have latrines. In fact, a popular T-shirt in Hunger Project villages in Bangladesh reads — “A person whose spirit is unleashed will never go hungry.”

With few exceptions, conventional top-down plans completely ignore the power of mobilizing people for self-reliant action.

Road-building campaign by Hunger Project animators in Bangladesh.

Early on, The Hunger Project recognized that women are the key to ending hunger. Women bear almost all responsibility for meeting basic needs of the family, yet are systematically denied the resources, information and freedom of action they need to fulfill this responsibility.

In 1997, a UNICEF study triggered the recognition that gender was not only a major factor in hunger — it was a primary root cause. The UNICEF paper demonstrated that the only reason child malnutrition rates in South Asia were twice as high as those in sub-Saharan Africa is that women in South Asia were much more subjugated. Far stronger interventions for gender equality were needed.

The Hunger Project rewrote its VCAWs to emphasize the importance of empowering women. Special women’s animator trainings were created to fit the schedules and needs of women. Every African epicenter committee is required to have equal representation of women.

The African Woman Food Farmer Initiative has provided 70,000 loans, totaling US$4 million, where previously women had no access to credit. More than 400,000 people have taken the HIV/AIDS and Gender Inequality Workshop, in which they not only learn the facts of AIDS, but also confront and transform the gender-based behaviors that fuel the pandemic.

In India, our Women’s Leadership Workshop has empowered 35,000 women elected to local councils to be effective change agents for ending hunger — where before many didn’t even bother to attend council meetings. They are forming district- and state-wide federations to ensure that their voices are heard at top levels of government.

Despite increased rhetoric of gender inequality, most traditional aid resources continue to go to men, essentially widening the gender gap rather than narrowing it.

Elected women representatives in Assam, India, start the five-hour trip to carry the demands of their 500-member federation to the head of the state government on the night before the state assembly session.

Perhaps the most ignored — and even undermined — tool for development is local democracy. Governments have spent millions on rural schools and health centers, yet teachers and health workers fail to show up because they are accountable only to bureaucrats hundreds of miles away. On the flip side, when people at the local level have resources and decision-making authority — and are accountable to the local people — they can mobilize local resources and seize unique local opportunities to preserve the environment, grow more food or improve incomes.

Ending hunger requires effective local democratic structures through which people can meet their basic needs. The Hunger Project works in partnership with local people to ensure that local democratic structures include the leadership of women; are directly accountable to local people; gain access to resources, information and decision-making authority — and are effective at getting the job done.

Unfortunately, local democracy is weak in poor countries. Top-down bureaucracies are loathe to relinquish power and resources to local bodies. The Hunger Project therefore works not only from the bottom up — building alliances and federations of local leaders to lobby for change — but also from the top down, lobbying for state and national law changes, and in some cases court rulings, to shift power to the hands of the people, especially women.

One recent victory in India: the state of Bihar, India, had failed to reserve one-third of local council presidencies for women as required by India’s constitution. The Hunger Project mobilized thousands of elected local representatives to march on the capital, demanding action. We sponsored research studies and participated in litigation. Today, the government has passed new laws, reserving one-half of local council presidencies for women.

Democracy is more than just elections. It is a set of values and behaviors that must be developed from the bottom up.

Candidates meet with indigenous women leaders in Peru.