PRESIDENTIAL PROJECT

The 2008 elections are an historic opportunity for Americans to elect a president who will prioritize cutting hunger and poverty in our country and around the world. The Alliance’s Presidential Project focuses on urging presidential candidates to be responsive to public concern by including initiatives on hunger and poverty in their campaign platforms.  We co-hosted the inaugural Iowa Hunger Summit in October 2007, ten weeks before the Iowa caucuses, to focus attention on hunger in the presidential campaign.

Since 2002, the Alliance and its members have worked to inform and encourage our country’s leaders about the urgent need to address the hunger problem. The Alliance’s polling data from the Hunger Message Project has consistently shown that American voters want a president who will commit–and act–to ending hunger. In May 2007, 90 percent of American voters said that they would support a presidential candidate who worked to reduce hunger in our country and around the world.

In 2000, the United States affirmed its commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. The First Millennium Development Goal – to cut hunger and poverty in half by 2015 – is a goal we will already fail to reach. Our domestic goal – to end hunger in the U.S. by 2015 – will also be missed.

The Alliance to End Hunger has endorsed two documents – The Blueprint to End Hunger in the United States, compiled by the National Anti-Hunger Organizations, and the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Hunger’s Recommendations on International Hunger. We draw from these documents to outline our recommendations for the 2008 presidential candidates.

Domestic:

• Live up to the official U.S. commitment to cut hunger and food insecurity in half by 2010, and commit to ending both by 2015.
• Invest in and strengthen the national nutrition safety net.
• Invest in public education to increase outreach and awareness of the importance of preventing hunger and improving nutrition for health, learning and productivity.
• Provide eligible children the full range of federal nutrition assistance programs, such as the school meal and child nutrition programs.

 International:

• Move from political commitment to action.
• Reform policies and create an enabling environment.
• Increase the agricultural productivity of food-insecure farmers.
• Improve nutrition for the chronically hungry and vulnerable.
• Reduce vulnerability of the acutely hungry through productive safety nets.
• Increase incomes and make markets work for the poor.
• Restore and conserve the natural resources essential for food security.