To: Members of the Global Board of Directors Date: Tuesday, September 07, 1999

From: Joan Holmes, President

Re: The Final Milestone

Executive Summary

As we enter a new millennium, it is clear that the work of The Hunger Project is entering a new era. At our April Board meeting in Chennai, India, Dr. Swaminathan referred to this next period as the "final milestone in ending hunger."

In this report – and in our October 10th meeting in New York – I would like to explore the broad strategic issues that give meaning and definition to the "final milestone" – and that will shape the strategic role of The Hunger Project in this new era.

To begin, we must first review what The Hunger Project has become during the past ten years. As a strategic organization committed to the end of hunger, The Hunger Project has pioneered a people-centered methodology for ending hunger based on certain fundamental human principles. At the same time, we have put in place many "strategic assets" in terms of our organizational strength – both programmatically and financially – from which we will design our future.

Throughout this past decade, as progress has been made in many areas, the obstacles that remain have become clearer. They are deeply entrenched social conditions, such as the extreme subordination and discrimination against women in developing countries. Overcoming these obstacles will be humanity's greatest challenge in the next decade. Discovering how to play a strategic and catalytic role in this process of social transformation is the challenge that now faces The Hunger Project.

These next two years, 2000 and 2001, will be the transition years in which we put in place the programs for this new era. Some of these new programs are already coming into view.

The decade of the 1990s

With the exception of the Africa Prize for Leadership, every program we have today has been put in place during this decade.

The decade began with a sweeping re-evaluation of past development efforts. Apartheid and the Cold War were ending. The struggle between free-market and socialist approaches was decisively settled in favor of free markets. As the world met in Global Summit after Global Summit, the elements of a comprehensive new development agenda came together. As we articulated in 1995, the seven interlinked priorities within this "New Human Agenda" are:

• Empowerment of Women
• People’'s Participation, including decentralization of democracy
• Universal access to primary health and education
• Food Security
• Livelihood Security
• Stabilization of Population Growth
• Restoration of the Natural Environment

The role of The Hunger Project during the 1990s

While there was a growing global consensus as to what needed to be done, it was increasingly clear that the existing top-down, bureaucratic ways of working were too inflexible and inefficient to get the job done.

The Global Board began the decade by reaffirming the distinct nature of The Hunger Project as a strategic organization – an organization that identifies what is missing within global efforts to achieve the sustainable end of hunger, and then launches new initiatives to ensure that what is missing gets provided.

In 1991, The Hunger Project completed its programs of the 1980s, and redesigned itself to pioneer a new, more flexible on-the-ground methodology of ending hunger. For the 1990s, The Hunger Project committed itself to mobilize the leadership, pioneer the strategies, and catalyze grassroots action needed for the end of hunger. That methodology and those new strategies are now well in place, and will continue. Our transition into the next decade will build upon that success by adding a number of major new initiatives.

Strategic Assets: What’'s in place in The Hunger Project today?

Just as a village might begin its process of development by inventorying its own resources, so too The Hunger Project will be well-served by inventorying our "strategic assets" – what we bring now to the global effort of ending hunger.

• A strategic methodology: We have a well-defined and tested methodology of "strategic planning-in-action (SPIA)" that brings together people from all sectors of society to work together to create holistic, sustainable solutions to problems of health, education, nutrition and family income. SPIA has been further refined into "hunger-free zone" strategies, to focus on achieving results in specific areas, and an epicenter-based strategy for expanding grassroots mobilization.
• Clearly articulated principles: Since April of 1996, The Hunger Project worldwide has based all its work on a set of principles (attached). These principles are derived from an authentic confrontation with the commitment to ending hunger, and from a deep examination of what it means to be human.
• Multiplicity of leadership: A direct result of our clearly articulated principles is a new space of freedom and creativity for hundreds of leaders for The Hunger Project’'s work. Through our principles, both volunteer and staff leaders are able to find the source of The Hunger Project within themselves, share it powerfully with others, and take action with confidence that they are working in alignment with the entire global movement.
• Grassroots mobilization: During this decade, The Hunger Project has mobilized grassroots people for self-reliant action that has reached literally millions of people in more than 2,000 villages in 11 countries. Since this action is based on people’'s own creativity, resources and local organization, it is inherently sustainable. Were The Hunger Project to disappear tomorrow, the people in the villages where we work would continue to make progress.
• Geographic scope: The Hunger Project works on the ground in every region where hunger persists as a society-wide issue: Africa, South Asia and Latin America.
• Partnership with Government: In every country where we work, we have access to the highest levels of government. Senior government officers serve on our state councils in India and on our National Councils in Africa. In Bangladesh and Mexico, we work in direct partnership with government ministries, training their personnel and utilizing their infrastructure.
• Partnership with NGOs: While our work is distinct from that of traditional NGOs, we often work in partnership with existing local NGOs. Our entire work in Bolivia and Peru is based on a partnership with the most influential NGOs in those countries. Our grassroots mobilization in India is implemented by the hundreds of committed field workers from 30 local NGOs.
• Partnership with Institutions: Much of the organizational infrastructure that we use is paid for by someone else. In each state of India, we generate our work from influential, development-oriented and often government-funded institutions – giving us access to computers, vehicles and professional and administrative staff. Examples of this include Dr. Swaminathan’'s foundation which we visited in April, the Institute for Development Studies in Jaipur and the Xavier Institute of Management in Bhubaneshwar, among others.
• Participation of prestigious individuals: The Hunger Project may be unique among NGOs in the prestige of the individuals associated with us: our Global Board, our Africa Prize jury, the body of Africa Prize laureates, our state council members in India and our national council members in each country. In addition, our country directors and senior staff bring their own high reputations and networks of contacts to our work.
• Credibility: The Hunger Project has a track record of accomplishment, and is known for the success of its initiatives, in a field dominated by cynicism and failure.
• Global movement of investors: The Hunger Project has the freedom and flexibility to devote itself to achieving breakthroughs because committed individuals fund our work;. Our investors are not simply "donors" – funding something outside themselves. They are full partners and stakeholders for the fulfillment of our mission.

The Challenges of the Next Decade

As we have achieved more and more results on the ground, two overarching and inter-linked issues continue to confront us:

• Subordination of women: Given that women are the most seriously affected by hunger and that they bear primary responsibility for meeting family health, education and nutrition, virtually all of our grassroots activities in the 1990s have focused on improving the lives of women. Yet, no matter how effective these activities may be, they do not result in transforming the underlying social conditions giving rise to the problem.
• Decentralization of democracy: True people’'s participation in development can only occur when grassroots people manage their own local institutions for meeting basic needs. There is a groundswell of recognition of this fact, and many nations have taken steps to move decision making power and development resources down to the local level. Yet this local democratic revolution faces enormous hurdles from within and without – the lack of skills at the local level, and the resistance to change of those who currently control the power and resources.

These two issues are inextricably linked. In India and Bangladesh, for example, steps to decentralize democracy have included guarantees that 1/3 of elected local seats must be reserved for women. At the same time, the issues that make up the "women’'s political agenda" – health, education, nutrition, sanitation, water, economic opportunities for the poorest of the poor – can only be effectively addressed at the local level.

These issues must be powerfully addressed, and The Hunger Project is perhaps uniquely positioned to make catalytic contributions to this important social transformation.

Two new initiatives for the next decade

To meet these twin challenges, The Hunger Project has begun creating new initiatives that are consistent with our principles and that build on our strategic assets.

The African Woman Food Farmer Initiative: This initiative addresses what we consider to be the central issue facing Africa – the lack of support for Africa’'s "invisible producers" - the women in Africa who grow Africa's food. In partnership with leading women activists, we are launching a three-prong strategy to achieve the breakthroughs required for the economic empowerment of African women food farmers:

• A communication campaign of public events and strategic communications designed to awaken Africa and the international community to the extraordinary contributions of the African woman food farmer. This campaign will begin with the October 1999 Africa Prize, and will continue through a series of major public events inside Africa as the Africa Prize moves from country to country, village to village, starting in Burkina Faso in October and continuing through the year 2000, like the Olympic torch.
• Action on the ground that applies The Hunger Project's strategic planning-in-action methodology in a program for the economic empowerment of the African woman food farmer, through credit, savings and investment. Beginning in five countries of West Africa, and building on the success of our existing programs, The Hunger Project will invest an initial $1 million in an initiative that not only produces results in women’'s lives, but also demonstrates what is possible when African women food farmers are economically empowered.
• Advocacy. As the results of this initiative take hold, we will build alliances with like-minded organizations both inside and outside Africa, to advocate for the policy changes and budget reallocations necessary to ensure all African women food farmers gain the economic opportunity they need and deserve.

Women and Democracy Initiative: In December of 1993, the 73rd and 74th amendments of the Indian constitution established local democratic institutions at the village, block and district levels – the formalization and modernization of an ancient tradition known as panchayati raj. A similar law was also passed in Bangladesh in late 1996.

In addition to providing a constitutional basis for local democracy, India’'s 73rd and 74th amendments:

• Assign responsibility for 29 key areas of social and economic development to local government, such as: agriculture, poverty alleviation, education, health, sanitation and family welfare.
• Require that 1/3 of all seats in these local bodies – and 1/3 of all office holders within these bodies – be women.

These amendments have brought nearly 1 million women to formal political power in India – clearly one of the greatest social experiments of our time.

In November, I will travel to both India and Bangladesh, to work with key women activists and other experts in local government, to create new ways that The Hunger Project can empower women leaders in these local bodies, and sensitize men to the need to support women’'s leadership.

Expanding role of the Vision, Commitment and Action workshop

A highlight of the accomplishments of this year is the expansion of our Vision, Commitment and Action (VCA) workshop as a key mobilizing tool in our work. As you may recall, since 1994, the VCA workshop has been the starting point for our grassroots mobilizing campaign in Bangladesh. Last year, it was adapted for use in Mexico, and this May it was launched in the 4 West Africa countries where we work. When I met with our leaders in West Africa in June, they impressed upon me the difference that this workshop has made in their lives – and they are including it as an organizing tool in the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative.

As we look at ways to strengthen grassroots women's leadership and sensitize men to key gender issues, the VCA workshop, with some adaptations, could prove to be a universally valuable tool for us in the coming decade.