Guest Blog Post by Danielle Heiberg, with InterAction
The U.S. House of Representatives has proposed a budget that would cut about a quarter from foreign assistance accounts that target poverty worldwide. If these cuts are implemented, they will make it even tougher for the world’s poorest people, who are already struggling with spiraling food prices. Recent World Bank statistics estimate these rising food costs have pushed an additional 44 million people into extreme poverty since June of last year.
To draw attention to these proposed budget cuts and how they would impact the world’s hungry, former ambassador Tony Hall, executive director of the Alliance to End Hunger, began a fast on March 28. “Congress is trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor,” said Hall at an event to launch InterAction’s newest tool to track our members’ food security projects worldwide.
Hall believes the NGO community needs to better inform Americans about what NGOs are doing to combat hunger and to show Congress how these cuts will affect the poor. InterAction’s online mapping tool is designed to do just that.
The Food Security Aid Map demonstrates the breadth of NGOs work in food security and agriculture. InterAction collected project-level data from its members to create a map displaying close to 800 food and agriculture-related projects in 70 countries from some 50 organizations.
Visualizing the data on Food Security Aid Map enables the public to see where funding for food programs is going. Photos and videos bring to life the work NGOs are doing to fight hunger and decrease food insecurity.
At a time of such budget austerity worldwide, this information should help NGOs, donors and the public to make more informed decisions about where best to invest their resources and improve current programs. Using malnutrition or hunger statistics, the public, as well as NGOs and donors, can also see where there might be project overlaps, gaps in funding, or opportunities for coordination.
The Food Security Aid Map is funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and is part of a broader mapping initiative, NGO Aid Map, with an earlier map focused on Haiti.
For more information on the Food Security Aid Map, please contact us at mappinginfo@interaction.org. To learn more about Ambassador Hall’s fast, please see http://hungerfast.org.
**Danielle Heiberg is a senior program associate at InterAction, the largest alliance of U.S.-based international NGOs doing relief and humanitarian work abroad.
