Please join us in welcoming Ambassador Nancy Stetson to CSIS for a discussion focused on her time leading U.S. diplomacy efforts to advance global food security and nutrition. Ambassador Stetson will offer reflections on food security initiatives during the Obama administration, lessons learned, and challenges facing the incoming administration.

How can livestock ownership and management improve children’s nutrition in low income countries? Can livestock interventions make a meaningful contribution to Feed the Future’s stunting reduction targets? How do they pair with and compare to more conventional nutrition approaches?

Southern Africa’s worst drought in decades has left 40 million people, 14 percent of the region’s total population, food insecure this year. The World Food Programme is significantly scaling up operations to reach over 13 million by January 2017, but funding shortfalls remain acute: the Southern African Development Community estimates a gap of $2.5 billion. 

Join the CSIS Global Food Security Project and the CSIS Youth, Prosperity, and Security Initiative in welcoming six Growing the Future fellows to Washington, DC. These agricultural practitioners and entrepreneurs are spending a week engaging with policy makers from the federal government and non-governmental thought leaders. Our inaugural fellows, hailing from East and West Africa, will provide insights on what is working well in U.S. international agricultural development programs as well as make recommendations for improvements and offer ways that the U.S. can continue to support youth leadership in global food security.

At a critical time, CSIS will bring together experts in youth engagement, global food security, and entrepreneurship to discuss the importance of U.S. leadership in agricultural development. All of the Growing the Future fellows have direct experience working with Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative.

The discussion will feature:
Julie Howard
Senior Advisor to the Associate Provost and Dean,
International Studies and Programs, Michigan State University

Trent McKnight
Founder, AgriCorps

Discussions will be moderated by:
Ritu Sharma
Director and Senior Fellow, CSIS Youth, Prosperity, and Security Initiative

Kimberly Flowers
Director, CSIS Global Food Security Project

Closing remarks delivered by:
Saharah Moon Chapotin
Deputy Assistant to the Administrator,
USAID Bureau for Food Security

This event is made possible through the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The U.S. Government has aligned its development investments to address global food security with country-led plans. Government ownership is inherently intertwined with a sound policy environment, which is critical to increase private sector investment in agricultural systems. Engaging and enabling the private sector along supply chains supports continued economic growth in emerging markets and better leverages U.S. assistance in agricultural development. This panel will highlight the role that policy reform and agricultural development plays in catalyzing market integration, economic development, and food security.

Featuring:
Beth Dunford
Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Food Security, USAID;
Deputy Coordinator for Development, Feed the Future

Agnes Kalibata
President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa

Nate Kline
Director of the Feed the Future Enabling Environments for Food Security, Fintrac, Inc.

Pat Sheikh
Agribusiness Director, Corporate Council on Africa

Moderated by:
Kimberly Flowers
Director, Global Food Security Project, CSIS

The GDF is an annual component of CSIS's ongoing "Chevron Forum on Development" series, which seeks to highlight innovative approaches and the role of the private sector in global development.

As the international community pursues the “zero hunger” goal, we need more forward thinking on how best to tackle both urban and rural hunger together.  Rural populations remain the focus of food security programs, while metrics on urban food security are missing, as well as thorough analysis and funding.  Food insecurity and malnutrition severely inhibit cities’ potential for economic growth and development, especially secondary cities, between 500,000 and 3 million people, which are essential hubs of innovation and entrepreneurship around the world.

Please join the CSIS Global Food Security Project in welcoming a distinguished group of experts to discuss how to develop sustainable solutions to the unique challenges posed by urban hunger across the world. Special Representative Stetson, Dr. Fan, and Kimberly Flowers will explore the issue in an armchair discussion, followed by an expert panel to dive deeper into the specifics of battling hunger and malnutrition in secondary cities. 

Featuring a discussion with:

Dr. Nancy Stetson
Special Representative for Global Food Security,
U.S. Department of State

Dr. Shenggen Fan
Director General,
s International Food Policy Research Institute

Moderated by:

Kimberly Flowers
Director, Global Food Security Project
Center for Strategic and International Studies

Followed by a panel featuring:

Gloria D. Steele
Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Asia,
U.S. Agency for International Development

Ashley Arabasadi
Senior Officer, Global Engagement Unit
International Medical Corps

Marc Cohen
Senior Researcher
Oxfam America

Moderated by:

Ambassador William J. Garvelink
Senior Advisor for Global Strategy,
International Medical Corps

This event is made possible by the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Please join the Global Food Security Project in welcoming the John Templeton Foundation to CSIS. Analyses, a new publication, summarizes key findings and recommendations of projects funded by the Templeton Foundation, which aimed to investigate best practices and policies for implementing genetic modification and other recent advances in genetic technologies in several local crops grown by African smallholder farmers.

Analyses highlights research projects completed by leading researchers, including the CSIS Global Food Security Project’s report Pathways to Productivity: The Role of GMOs for Food Security in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda .

Opening remarks by:

Christopher Stawski
Vice President for Strategic Program Initiatives,
John Templeton Foundation

Featuring:

Johanna Nesseth Tuttle
Senior Associate,
CSIS Global Food Security Project

Dr. Carl Pray
Professor, Department of Agriculture, Food, and Resource Economics,
Rutgers University

Dr. José Falck-Zepeda
Senior Research Fellow,
International Food Policy Research Institute

Moderated by:

Kimberly Flowers
Director,
CSIS Global Food Security Project

This event is made possible by the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.