During the last 40 years, The Hunger Project’s work has always been about, for and with people.

The work has focused on shifting mindsets, or historical ways of thinking, that keep hunger and poverty in place.

A fundamental element of The Hunger Project’s work is to mobilize communities, starting with women, for self-reliant action. Mobilization is a process that shifts underlying mindsets and resignation — awakening people to new possibilities for their own lives, families, communities and for our world being sustainably hunger-free. Our local staff and trained volunteers lead this process of mobilization at the community level in our programs throughout Africa, South Asia and Latin America. When communities are mobilized in this way, they engage in self-reliant actions to end hunger, and they establish and maintain community trust, which can even help ensure peace.

Our mobilization work on a global level is to advocate for governments, funding agencies and other international development actors to shift from investing in short-term projects and sector-based silos to investing in people and in holistic, multi-sectoral, community-led approaches that put women at the center — what we call “community-led development.”

The Hunger Project’s 2016 Annual Report highlights our work to empower self-reliance in nearly 16,000 communities as well as our global advocacy efforts to end hunger and poverty.