Reaching Zero Hunger: How You Can Help

By Erica Oakley, Humanitas Global & Community for Zero Hunger

Today, more than 842 million people suffer from chronic hunger and two billion live with micronutrient deficiencies known as "hidden hunger." As our population grows, it will take everyone working together to build sustainable, specific, and multi-sectoral responses to ending hunger, and creating a food- and nutrition-secure world.

The Community for Zero Hunger is doing our part to mobilize around the urgent need to meet growing global food and nutrition demands. With guidance and input from our Advisors and friends, we have taken a first step by creating questionnaires to gain insights from those on the frontlines to identify gaps and challenges in tackling hunger and malnutrition as they relate to the elements of the UN Zero Hunger Challenge.

TARGET AUDIENCE: We are seeking the input of practitioners that have experience and knowledge - and the ability to identify frontline gaps and challenges - as they relate to key food, nutrition, and agriculture topics in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.

WHY COMPLETE A SURVEY? Your completion of these surveys is critical in identifying in-country gaps and challenges. In addition to the surveys - and as a separate process - we will be collecting and curating the most relevant and impactful multi-sectoral experiences and solutions that can be deployed to fill these gaps and challenges. The information that we gather from both of these processes will be disseminated via conferences, a report and an open-access online resource highlighting experience mapping results and opportunities for collaboration and knowledge-sharing across sectors. Our ultimate goal is to encourage multi-sectoral engagement among people living, working and investing in communities where hunger persists to solve problems in real time with answers that fit the local context. 

DEADLINE: The surveys will be open and available for input through August 31, 2014.
 
There are five questionnaires in total, each of which aligns with one of the five elements of the UN Zero Hunger Challenge:

1. SURVEY 1: NUTRITION (MATERNAL AND CHILD): topics related to maternal and child nutrition, nutritious food access, and related issues that affect child development and health.
2. SURVEY 2: FOOD ACCESS: topics related to access to adequate food at all times, food systems, markets, social safety nets, etc. 
3. SURVEY 3: FOOD SYSTEM SUSTAINABILITY: topics related to food system sustainability, including environmental challenges and threats, climate-resilient agriculture, and water and irrigation challenges.
4. SURVEY 4: SMALLHOLDER FARMERS: topics related to smallholder farmer productivity and income-related issues such as farming inputs, resources, training, land tenure, agricultural research and innovation, access to markets, etc.
5. SURVEY 5: LOSS AND WASTE OF FOOD: topics related to food loss or waste such as post-harvest losses, storage and transport, waste by retailers and consumers, locally-relevant technologies, behavior change methods to curb loss/waste, etc.

We sincerely hope that you will be able to participate. Your comments, observations, and input will be immensely helpful and will be kept confidential. 

 

Thank you and please let us know if you have any questions ([email protected]).

The Community for Zero Hunger was launched as a community-driven initiative to support the UN Zero Hunger Challenge. Our Community includes leaders and organizations from all sectors who will work together to identify needs and specific scalable solutions to end hunger and malnutrition. For more information please visit our website or follow us on Twitter.