SEPTEMBER 1997

President's Report to the Global Board of Directors

By Joan Holmes

Executive Summary

In our 20th anniversary year, The Hunger Project has been engaged in an important expansion of its leadership and the scale of its impact around the world. This expansion continues in the direction that we identified would shape our work in the next 5 years:

To go beyond pioneering new, more strategic ways of working for the end of hunger. We can now utilize our methodology to work directly in partnership with government and local organizations to catalyze the large-scale action required.

To significantly expand our income in ways that are true to our principles and strategic approach.

To build our capacity of staff leadership worldwide appropriate to the demands of the future.

During the past 6 months, there have been important breakthroughs in our programmatic work, and important transitions in our organization.

In addition, the occasion of the 20th anniversary has energized our worldwide constituency. There has been a brushfire of communication, inspiration and activism. Hundreds of individuals, both those from the early days of our work and who are new to our work, have “come home to The Hunger Project.”

National Strategy Conference in India

In August, I traveled to India to attend a meeting designed to confront what The Hunger Project must do in the next five years to take the next quantum leap, building on the platform of success with Strategic Planning-in-Action (SPIA) and the Hunger-Free Zone strategies.

This meeting, chaired by Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, was held in Bangalore in the southern state of Karnataka. It was attended by leaders of our councils from the 11 states that comprise 80% of India's 980 million person population. In addition, for the first time, the meeting included - as co-equal partners - two of the grassroots leaders from the villages in Karnataka where The Hunger Project is doing its SPIA work. Representatives of 6 other countries, including the Hon. Koji Kakizawa from Japan, some of our highest-level donors and three of our grassroots animators from Bangladesh, also were in attendance.

During the two-day meeting, the leaders began to confront what will truly be required to resolve the issue of hunger on a national scale.

Four major commitments were made to guide the next five years of work:

To make the authentic empowerment of women the highest priority;

To consolidate the results achieved in the hunger-free zones, measure and document them and make them known to policy makers, NGOs and other agencies;

To go beyond the impact that The Hunger Project can implement directly, through networking and the empowerment of decentralized democratic institutions, and

To expand the level of fund-raising in India for this catalytic work.

Although the complete draft proceedings of this meeting are included within the program reports, I would like to comment on the significance of the confrontation with the issue of the subjugation of women. Prior to the meeting, participants reviewed the article “The Asian Enigma” by Vulimiri Ramalingaswami, Urban Jonsson and Jon Rohde. This article points out that India, and the entire South Asia region, have the highest rates of childhood malnutrition in the world as a direct consequence of having the most entrenched subjugation of women.

On the day before the meeting, many of the participants travelled to the Kolar and Tumkar districts where The Hunger Project-Karnataka Council is carrying out its hunger-free zone strategy in 36 villages. One unique element of the strategy in Karnataka is that, whereas in most states, the direct mobilization of grassroots people has been carried out by the voluntary workers of existing local organizations, here a dynamic, young animator has been selected by the village itself and trained by The Hunger Project. These animators were recently trained explicitly in how to connect destitute people with government resources to which they are entitled. The 36 animators shared example after example of how they had helped villagers obtain pensions, training, loans and funds for improved housing.

Partnership with government in Bangladesh

I went to Bangladesh from India. The two issues before us were the empowerment of women, and taking the next step in our partnership with government to extend our strategic process throughout the country.

It had been a little over two years since my last visit, so it gave me an outstanding perspective of how fast and effectively the movement there has grown. Whereas in 1995, people were truly struggling with the idea of self-reliance, now hundreds of animators are standing for it powerfully in 57 districts across the country.

Whereas in 1995, we had no women on staff and very few women animators, we now have powerful women both on staff and among our animators. A collegial relationship between men and women is powerfully beginning to be established.

As you know from Prof. Majumdar’s reports over the years, The Hunger Project in Bangladesh has a two-prong strategy: mobilizing the grassroots for self-reliant action, and mobilizing committed partnership at the upper echelons of society. I was able to see both of these thrusts in action during my visit.

The entry-point for our grassroots mobilization is the “Vision, Commitment and Action” workshop. In this workshop, participants gain a new vision of a self-reliant future for Bangladesh. They analyze what it will take to achieve this vision, and discover that their personal action is the key.

These workshops are not only held in hundreds of rural villages, they are also held every Friday in Ramna Park in central Dhaka. I was privileged to attend one of these workshops, and it was deeply moving experience. There were beautiful banners hung from the trees, saying “Unleashing the Human Spirit for a Self-reliant Bangladesh.” Some 300 people sat under the trees on mats, deeply involved in this highly participatory workshop.

On my final day in Bangladesh, we met the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina. She had attended part of our Vision, Commitment and Action Workshop last November. The Prime Minister has obviously incorporated the ideas from our workshop into her own speaking -- she is becoming known for her public declarations for a “hunger-free Bangladesh.”

In the meeting, our country director Professor Majumdar made a revolutionary proposal to the Prime Minister, which could radically alter the way government does its work in the future. He asked her to authorize taking top government officers out of their normal bureaucratic framework and establish them as a full-time mobilization task force for a hunger-free district strategy.

I've had the privilege to be in many meetings with heads of government, but I have rarely seen anyone speak as courageously as Prof. Majumdar. The Prime Minister agreed in principle to our request. Many follow-up meetings have been held to develop exact ways to implement the program.

Achieving solid results in West Africa

In the first part of this year, we established offices and Hunger Project action in Burkina Faso and Benin, completing our initial goal to set the stage for a regional West Africa strategy by beginning work in four West Africa nations. Our current objective is to transform our foothold in these four nations into solid and visible progress for the end of hunger.

In Senegal, word of the success of our initial work for self-sufficiency in five villages of Northern Senegal has spread to 41 surrounding villages. This has occurred particularly through the women’s groups we organized, which have become a powerful federation through that area. Women, in many of these villages, have launched projects completely on their own. The Hunger Project-Senegal has begun working with these villages to organize training for literacy, improved incomes, hygiene and nutrition.

In Ghana, the initial programs launched with the villagers of Taido Anomabu – commercial pineapple farming, clean water, construction of a nursery school, and food processing – have succeeded and, as in Senegal, are spreading to other communities. The Hunger Project-Ghana has established a strategic “community-to-community” program to catalyze and strengthen that process and empower it to produce results in five other areas.

In Benin, our strategy is apply our methodology in order to demonstrate its effectiveness in translating the new rural development policy of government into concrete results. This work is currently being launched in the village of Wawata, an area close enough to the capital to show to policy makers.

In Burkina Faso, initial actions programs are underway in partnership with the Naam movement founded by our 1989 Africa Prize laureate, Bernard Ouédraogo. These programs are designed to pioneer innovations which could have wide-impact throughout the country: the introduction of micro-credit for women, the establishment of rural savings banks, and improvements in the production and storage of potatoes, a crop which could dramatically improve food security in the Sahel.

Launching our partnerships in Latin America

With the advice and support of Amb. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, The Hunger Project has launched initiatives in 1997 to apply its principles and methodology in Latin America. By doing so, The Hunger Project has completed its global network with action underway in all three regions of the developing world.

While Latin America has made greater progress in ending hunger as a society-wide issue than Africa or South Asia, serious pockets of hunger remain in the region.

Our approach in Latin America is to work in partnership with long-established organizations that share a similar approach and world-view with The Hunger Project. The first two partnerships are:

Radio ACLO: Accion Cultural Loyola (ACLO). ACLO carries out an integrated, participatory program with the poorest of the poor in Bolivia, particularly the Quechua-speaking people who live in the Andes. The program includes literacy, strengthening of participation in local government, empowerment of women, and improved incomes through successful farming techniques. A major catalyst of all its programs is Radio ACLO – the only full-time Quechua-speaking station in Bolivia.

DESCO: Centro de estudios y promocion del desarrollo (DESCO) in Peru has begun a program of Strategic Planning-in-Action for sustainable development and hunger eradication in the central Amazonian region of Peru.

In addition to these initiatives, The Hunger Project supports small-scale initiatives organized by Youth Ending Hunger groups: a nutrition, health and literacy program in Haiti; a fruit tree planting program in Peru; school-based vegetable and rabbit-raising in Dominican Republic and a women’s handicrafts program in Colombia.

Expanding our global movement of investors

Our 20th anniversary year has been a unique opportunity to expand our donor constituency, both by re-energizing investors from the past and reaching out to new people. To accomplish this, we carried out a global, grassroots communication campaign, ignited by a series of global conference calls.

This strategy is working. Many “old timers” who had been inactive for more than a decade, have returned and invested at high levels – in some cases, higher than ever before. Many more are coming to our events in October, where we will ensure they have every opportunity to discover the joy and satisfaction of making major investments in a future free from hunger.

As you will see in the report on fund-raising, during the past six months we have made significant progress in enrolling investors at higher and higher levels. In addition, many more new, potential investors at the $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000 levels are being systematically cultivated, utilizing the advice and methodology of our fund-raising consultant John Whaley.

Transitions in the organization

As we stated in April, The Hunger Project is now at a stage of its programmatic expansion where we need to strengthen and further professionalize our worldwide organizational structure.

In our financial management, as you know, Hugo Cardona left to assume the presidency of an NGO in Texas. He had held both the titles of CFO and COO. As an initial step in the transition, we hired the consulting services of an individual of long experience in the financial management of NGOs, Mr. George Woodring. He was given the mandate to ensure the Hugo’s departure caused no interruption in the integrity of our financial management, and also to assist us in designing the financial management organization we need for the future.

As you will see in his report, George strongly recommends that we separate the CFO and COO functions. The CFO function should be specifically focused on financial management, answering to the CEO. He also advises that the title of “COO” is generally inappropriate to and virtually unheard of in NGOs. The cross-organizational leadership function in NGOs is more suitably vested in an executive vice president. These recommendations are consistent with my own views and with the advise I have received from George Weiss. Therefore, at our October meeting, I will recommend to the board changes to the by-laws appropriate to this recommendation, as well as motions for the board to fill the currently vacant positions.

In fund-raising, we have taken several important steps to creating our fund-raising organization for the future. One immediate goal, as was recommended by our fund-raising consultant John Whaley, is to find and hire a new director for fund-raising who possesses broad experience in areas where we are traditionally weak, such as new donor acquisition, direct mail and planned giving, as well as in our traditional areas of strength, such as major-gifts fund-raising. Given that such an individual would never be found among the pool of the out-of-work, we have engaged the services of a search firm to identify suitable candidates.

A second step has been to further focus the energies of the Funding Committee of the Board on fund-raising at the highest levels. I am pleased to inform you that Mr. Raymond Chattwell and Jane Shaw have assumed the leadership for this effort and have met with us in the Global Office for several days to develop our strategy for this work.

A third and ongoing priority in our fund-raising has been for John Whaley to train our staff and volunteer fund-raisers in professional techniques of prospect cultivation and management. A two-day workshop was held in May to launch our 20th anniversary outreach campaign, and John Whaley provided a day of training in these techniques, as well as on-going coaching.

As we move into the future…

Today, given the effectiveness of our approach to date, our commitment to the end of hunger compels us to expand and accelerate the catalytic work of The Hunger Project.

Pakistan, for example, is the nation with the second largest number of hungry people in the world. The political climate is currently propitious for us to start work there. Dr. Swaminathan, Prof. Majumdar and others have already made high-level contacts that would allow us to begin work with the kind of influential leadership that is required to make meaningful progress.

We must continue to strengthen and expand our work in Africa, South Asia and Latin America, finding new ways to leverage the impact of our work through national, regional and international organizations and networks.

As we do this, we must continue to expand our sustainable level of income. We now see many promising openings to achieve this, and are determined to apply the necessary rigor to seizing those openings.

As we begin our 21st year, The Hunger Project has never been stronger. We are determined to apply that strength as effectively as possible in partnership with the courageous individuals who now live in the persistence of hunger, enabling them to build lives of self-reliance and dignity.