Key Initiatives

Community Centres for Meeting Basic Needs – The Hunger Project’s Epicentre Strategy

In Africa, The Hunger Project’s methodology is implemented through epicentres: clusters of rural villages where women and men are mobilised to create and run their own programmes to meet basic needs. After several phases over a five-year period, an epicentre becomes self-reliant, meaning it is able to fund its own activities and no longer requires further investment from The Hunger Project.

Recognising Leadership – The Hunger Project Awards

The Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger honours a distinguished African man or woman who has exhibited exceptional leadership in bringing about the sustainable end of hunger at the national, regional or continent-wide level.

The Sarojini Naidu Prize annually honours three journalists for outstanding reporting on women in Panchayati Raj (local government). The press plays a critical role in India. Throughout the twentieth century, India’s media have participated in the Freedom Movement, generated response to famine and disaster, and strengthened Indian democracy.

Microfinance Programme in Africa

The Hunger Project’s Microfinance Programme is a training, savings and credit programme that addresses a critical missing link for the end of hunger in Africa: the economic empowerment of the most important but least supported food producers on the continent – Africa’s women.

Since the inception of the Microfinance Programme in 1999, The Hunger Project has grown the loan portfolio to approximately US$2.2 million across Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal and Uganda. By the end of 2009, over 30,000 partners had saved a total of US$850,000, resulting in an average balance of $28! Perhaps most importantly, 20 Rural Banks have graduated to operate as their own independent, community-owned and women-led rural financial institutions.

HIV/AIDS and Gender

HIV/AIDS is devastating Africa’s most productive generation, setting back decades of progress in ending hunger. AIDS is killing farmers, teachers and health workers. Food production and life expectancies are dropping. Infant mortality rates are rising but The Hunger Projects are changing things.

Celebrating Girls in Bangladesh

The future of Bangladesh resides in the future of its girls but many continue to be treated as inferior and less valuable than boys, one of the main reasons malnutrition remains high and economic growth remains subdued. The Hunger Project in Bangladesh is actively involved with National Girl Child Day, a national strategy to end discrimination against girls in Bangladeshi society.

Fostering Government Accountability in Bangladesh

According to Transparency International’s global corruption perceptions index, Bangladesh consistently ranks among the lowest in the world. In order to empower people to end their own hunger, government must become more responsive and accountable to the people, and be free from corruption and violence. To achieve these goals, The Hunger Project has three alliances to work for reform, in addition to the alliance that implements National Girl Child Day.

The Self-Governing Union Parishad (UP) Advocacy Group, SHUJAN, Citizens for Good Governance and BACHAN, Keep Our City Alive.

Strengthening Elected Women Leaders in India

Our Five-Year Cycle Empowering Women’s Leadership – Effective bottom-up strategies for ending hunger and poverty combine three factors: mobilising people at the grassroots level to build self-reliance, empowering women as key change agents and forging effective partnerships with local government. In India, these come together in our Panchayati Raj Campaign.

Panchayati raj refers to India’s local democracy, based on elected local councils known as panchayats. The 73rd amendment to India’s constitution, passed in 1993, mandates local elections every five years and reserves one-third of all seats for women.

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