MARCH 23, 2001

Report to the Global Board of Directors

Joan Holmes, President

Executive Summary

Since our last meeting, The Hunger Project has entered a new era of its work. In this era, The Hunger Project is focusing its efforts on catalyzing breakthroughs in two remaining major issues which constitute the "final milestone" in humanity's effort to end hunger - the decentralization of democracy and the empowerment of women.

During the past six months since we first articulated this new era, we have:

• Launched the first new program of this era - the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative;
• Laid the groundwork for major new programs for the empowerment of grassroots women's leadership in India and Bangladesh;
• Continued to expand the scope and impact of our Strategic Planning-in-Action (SPIA) programs for the end of hunger in Asia, Africa and Latin America;
• Communicated this new era widely and powerfully throughout our worldwide constituency;
• And completed our most successful financial year of the past decade, completing a sixth straight year of solid income growth and increasing expenditures on international programs dramatically without increasing our administrative and fund-raising costs.

During the remainder of this year, our highest priority will be our new programs in South Asia. This year, our annual gala dinner on September 23, 2000 will be devoted to the international launching of our new South Asian Initiative for the empowerment of women and their leadership.

Focus of our work for achieving the final milestone

As we discussed at the October 1999 Global Board meeting, the past decade has seen a remarkable shift in thinking about the approach to development that will be required to achieve a sustainable end of hunger. At least in its understanding – if not yet in implementation - the world community has made the transition a from top-down, service-delivery paradigm of development to a people-centered paradigm based on the empowerment of grassroots people as the principle authors and actors in their own development.

The Hunger Project has played an important role in this transition. The Strategic Planning-in-Action (SPIA) methodology that is at the heart of our work in Asia, Africa and Latin America has demonstrated in practice how effective the people-centered approach can be. In more than 2,000 villages, The Hunger Project has empowered local people to create self-reliant, sustainable solutions to improving health, education, nutrition, food production and family incomes.

By the late 1990s, however, it was apparent to us that - as important as it is - the people-centered approach will not, in and of itself, carry the day. Hungry people not only lack opportunity to end their own hunger, they are systematically denied that opportunity by their social environment. People-centered development therefore can only succeed when coupled with powerful strategies for social transformation.

As we discussed last October, strategies for social transformation must address two critical issues:

1. Local democracy – ensuring that local people have the resources and the authority to manage programs to meet their basic needs.
2. A fundamental transformation in gender relations – women need to be able to participate as full and equal partners in the process of development, and gain voice in the decisions that affect their lives.

Catalyzing breakthroughs in these two issues will be a top priority for The Hunger Project in this decade.

The African Woman Food Farmer Initiative

Our first initiative of this new era is designed to cause a breakthrough in the economic empowerment of the most important - and least supported - producers on the African continent - the women who produce Africa's food. Last year's Africa Prize award ceremony was devoted to launching a new three-prong strategy, initially in five countries in West Africa.

During the past six months:

• On the ground: We’ve begun the credit, savings and investment component of this new initiative. This year we will continue to strengthen and expand it in West Africa, while preparing to launch this initiative next year in Eastern and Southern Africa.
• Mobilization for advocacy – Burkina Faso: A delegation of The Hunger Project's investors traveled to Burkina Faso with Mme Aisseta, who received the Prize on behalf of all of her sisters in Africa last October. For the first time in history, the issue of the African Woman Food Farmer dominated radio, television and newspapers. More than 100,000 people took to the streets with banners, processions and rallies in four regions of the country. Political leaders declared their commitment to change policies and reallocate budgets in support of women farmers. The impact has been so great that Mme Aisseta – formerly a shy and illiterate rural farmer – is now an outspoken national leader, and was named the 1999 Woman of the Year in Burkina Faso.
• Benin: On February 6, Mme Aisseta carried the Africa Prize statue - like the Olympic torch - to Benin, where she placed it into the hands of Mme Donhou, who represents her sisters across Benin. Again, massive rallies and processions were held, and an international delegation of investors accompanied her as she met for more than an hour with President Kerekou. Each night during the events in Benin, Hunger Project activists around the world were informed of the accomplishments of the day by telephone conference call and internet reports.
• Coordination: A new staff position has been created in the Global Office to facilitate the work of this initiative.

India: Empowering Women in Panchayati Raj.

The issues of local democracy and women's empowerment come together powerfully in India. Since our last meeting, I've traveled twice to India to meet with our leadership there to formulate new strategies to empower women in local democracy.

For the first time in history, there is an enormous opening to transform the powerlessness of women in India. After centuries of some of the worst subjugation in the world, in December 1992, India passed the 73rd and 74th amendments to its constitution. These amendments mandate that significant power and resources be put into the hands of elected village councils called "panchayats" - and that 1/3 of all panchayat members must be women.

This transfer of power to more than one-million rural women - most of whom are malnourished - many of whom are illiterate and many who have never before stepped outside their homes – is, in my view, the greatest social experiment of our age.

The Hunger Project has commissioned studies that show that, despite enormous obstacles, women's participation in local councils in India is working. Five million women have entered the political process by standing for elections. One million women are serving as panchayat leaders – and they are beginning to make a difference. Women’s participation is beginning to shift the local development agenda towards human issues like health and education. For the first time, village women have someone to go to when they have problems such as domestic violence.

At the same time, women panchayat members face enormous obstacles. Village women who stand for local elections must find within themselves the courage to face at least condemnation and humiliation – often physical abuse and sometimes even murder. Women are literally risking their lives for the privilege of serving their community.

The Hunger Project is in an excellent position to play a catalytic role in seizing the opportunity to empower women to succeed in their leadership. We are launching a new program to empower women’s participation in local democracy as the pathway to social, economic, and political transformation. There will be at least four elements to this strategy:

• Leadership training: By this summer we will develop and pilot-test a new training and empowerment program for women panchayat leaders that unlocks their leadership, calls forth their vision, and develops their ability to work with others to make things happen. We will initially launch this program in states where we believe there is sufficient government support of women in panchayats to achieve success, including Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

• Media: The media is critical. It has the power to either overcome or reinforce cynical attitudes towards the difference women can make. In Karnataka, we have completed an all-day workshop to educate journalists on this issue – the first of its kind in all India. I recently met with the head of the Press Trust of India to design a national media strategy which we intend to announce in September.

• Mobilizing support from other institutions: The Hunger Project will take action to mobilize support – and in some cases overcome opposition – from other sectors of society, including NGOs, state agencies, women’s associations and academia. For example, in Rajasthan, NGOs have distrusted panchayats and perceive them as a threat to their position as service providers. We recent held the first-ever roundtable of leaders of panchayats and NGOs to establish an authentic partnership for empowering people’s self-reliance.
• Mobilizing international support: As has proven successful with the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative, we will focus an international spotlight on the importance of this issue. We will internationally launch these new initiatives for women in South Asia at the September 23rd event, where we will hear directly from women panchayat leaders. An international delegation of investors will return with these women for mobilization events.

Women animators in Bangladesh

There is no country in The Hunger Project where transforming the subjugation of women will be more demanding than in Bangladesh. As our country director, Prof. Badiul Majumdar says – taking on this issue requires The Hunger Project in Bangladesh to transform our organization and ourselves. At the same time – there is no country in The Hunger Project with greater commitment to the end of hunger and a greater ability to mobilize people for transformation than Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, we have a two prong strategy: (1) at the grassroots level, to have as many women as possible take The Hunger Project’s 4-day animator training and be empowered as agents of change in their villages, and (2) to make an impact at the national level.

When I met with women who have taken the animator training last November, they testified to a profound shift in a sense of themselves and their ability to improve their own lives and the lives of other women. Women animators have formed women’s self-help groups, created their own enterprises and increased their incomes. They have facilitated other women to step out of their household, become literate and learn their legal rights – in the home and in society.

Women animators have become elected leaders in local government. They have campaigned against domestic violence and sex trafficking. They speak out, challenge old ideas, and create new partnerships between women and men.

We will dramatically increase the number of women animators that we train. It took us 5 years to train the first 800. This year alone, we will train 700 more. In order to do this, The Hunger Project-Bangladesh is retooling its whole organization. They are dramatically increasing the number of women trainers, hiring more women staff members, establishing ongoing programs of empowerment for women animators, and rewriting the curriculum of all our programs.

At the national level, we will create and widely disseminate a brochure in Bangla that educates Bangladeshis about women's issues and the high cost that their society pays for continuing to subjugate their women.

Also, we are carrying out a campaign to have Bangladesh establish a National Girl Child Day - a day of total national mobilization for the rights and improved conditions of female children.

Expansion and strengthening of Strategic Planning-in-Action (SPIA)

It is important to note that, as we bring on line new initiatives, we are continuing to expand and strengthen our existing programs for the end of hunger in Africa, Asia and Latin America. As you will see in the accompanying program reports from around the world:

• Expansion in Eastern and Southern Africa: The Hunger Project’s new operations in Uganda and Malawi have taken hold and are producing concrete results. In November we held National Strategic Forums in each country that resulted in a broad alignment on priority action areas in each country.
• Expansion of the Vision, Commitment and Action (VCA) Workshop: Following the introduction of this workshop early last year in 4 countries of West Africa, the country directors in each country have continued to lead it in more and more villages. Dr. Tadesse also introduced the VCA workshop in our work with the Women’s Initiative in Nigeria. The VCA workshop has thus become the centerpiece of all our mobilization work in West Africa, Mexico and Bangladesh, and we will introduce it later this year in Uganda and Malawi.
• Catalyst trainings: The Hunger Project has developed a two-year program of training and empowerment for "advanced" volunteer grassroots animators in Mexico and Bangladesh who have taken responsibility for leading campaigns to achieve hunger-free zones.

Expansion of our Global Investor Movement

The Hunger Project is unique in many ways, and one of the most distinct aspects of our work is that we are funded almost entirely by highly-committed individuals. In particular, our steady financial growth through the past decade has come about by expanding the number of individuals in our Global Investment Group (GIG) - individuals contributing the equivalent of $5,000 and more each year.

The close of the year 1999 saw The Hunger Project achieve several important milestones in our investor movement.

• We fulfilled a long-term goal of expanding GIG membership to more than 1,000 members. GIG membership has grown from approximately 430 at the end of 1997, to 581 at the end of 1998, to 1,003 at the end of 1999.
• We achieved most of this expansion in 1999 by training and empowering some 200 GIG members to serve as volunteer activists - reaching out to their friends and colleagues and enlisting them as high-level donors.
• We fulfilled our commitment to raise more than $1,000,000 to launch the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative from charter-level investors, most of whom were investing at this level for the first time.
• The first year of the expansion of our program in Uganda was entirely underwritten by a new team of investors led by Sandie Logie in Australia.

• The success of this activist-based strategy was also demonstrated in expanding the number of participants in our annual dinner in New York to 1500, and in holding a telephone conference call to launch this new era on January 20th with more than 1,170 participants.

Our strategy for further growth in our income and investor movement this year includes:

• GIG activism: Most of our GIG activism and upgrade activity has come from that fraction of our GIG members who are most frequently in communication with our staff. We have launched a campaign to establish closer communications with all our GIG members, in a way that generates increased pledges, increased activism and a higher renewal rate.
• Effectiveness: Over the past two years, the staff who make up the Global Development Team have achieved important breakthroughs in overcoming national differences and discovering how to work together as a powerful global team. This year, they are building on this strength by analyzing and improving the effectiveness of their practices, policies and systems.

Women’s Leadership Fund: Last October, we announced our intention to create a "Women’s Leadership Fund" – a special appeal to raise $4 million through charter-level investment, thus giving The Hunger Project the increased financial strength it needs to launch new initiatives for the empowerment of women’s leadership.