Ambassador Hall Accepts AIARD Honor
June 6, 2014
Tony Hall addresses reception guests at AIARD 50th anniversary celebration (Susan Schram/AIARD)
Maria Belding, Alliance to End Hunger
Ambassador Tony Hall was awarded the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development’s (AIARD) Award for Special Service on June 2nd in Washington, DC. AIARD gives this honor annually to an individual displaying a career-long commitment to international development and agriculture and whose life holds a long history of service in a global capacity. Ambassador Hall joins Norman Borlaug and Howard G. Buffet as a winner of this 24-year-old award, accepting the accolade and delivering remarks at AIARD’s annual dinner and forum, the Foundation’s 50th. Detailing his formative experiences as a young senator visiting famine victims in Ethiopia in the 1980s and his now-famous 1993 twenty-two day fast in protest of the elimination of the Congressional Select Committee on Hunger, Ambassador Hall noted the improvements in domestic and international food insecurity in the two decades since, saying, “We are seeing the world mobilize as never before to meet the challenge of hunger and improving agriculture and rural development. The clock is ticking…..let’s keep fighting the good fight, and run the race to finish well and strong.”
AIARD celebrated their 50th anniversary as an organization with a three-day forum highlighted by the awards dinner June 9th. Composed of individuals and member organizations from higher education, the nonprofit sector, private industry, consulting organizations and donor agencies, this year’s events were attended by a diverse group staff representing more than ten universities, six NGOs and a dozen leading businesses.