Eric Mitchell, President, Alliance to End Hunger
Today is World Hunger Day. Established by Alliance member The Hunger Project, this day is a vital reminder to raise awareness about the global hunger crisis and ignite actions that empower local communities.
Looking at the numbers, the reality is stark. In 2025, up to 720 million people worldwide faced hunger, and 2.3 billion people lacked regular access to the food they need to live healthy, productive lives. Even before recent geopolitical conflicts, food price inflation and rising energy costs were squeezing low-income families, disproportionately hitting low- and middle-income countries.
Now, current conflicts in the Middle East have triggered a chain reaction: rising energy costs, disrupted farming inputs, and soaring food transportation costs. To add insult to injury, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has severely choked off emergency food deliveries to regions facing acute starvation.
This geopolitical struggle is the ultimate proof of how interconnected our world has become. The big question is: How do we tackle global food insecurity when vulnerable communities are so easily destabilized by outside forces?
The answer might just lie in an approach that we are witnessing closer to home.
The Power of Context: Lessons from Mississippi
Earlier this month, the Alliance to End Hunger co-hosted the statewide Hunger Free Mississippi Conference. Amidst deep policy discussions, the conference spotlighted a profound truth: the solutions to ending hunger are deeply woven into the very fabric of society. Agriculture, geography, history, economics, politics, and culture all blend together to create highly unique challenges and opportunities.
The lesson? To fix a massive, interconnected problem, we have to break food systems down into their local contexts and build resilient, hunger-free communities from the ground up. Although Mississippi’s policy and economic context differs significantly from much of the world, the conference still offered a strong model for how local stakeholders, institutions, and community leaders can unite around shared challenges and opportunities. This community-based approach should be adapted no matter where are.
The Blueprint: Hunger Free Communities
Within our own national context, the Alliance to End Hunger has embraced this localized approach through our Hunger Free Communities Network. What is a Hunger Free Community? It is a broad-based, multi-sector coalition where faith-based groups, nonprofits, local businesses, and government agencies step out of their silos. Together, they coordinate different parts of the food system to build a holistic, hyper-local safety net.
When local people are given the forum and resources to develop solutions for their own specific hunger contexts, the impact is unbelievable. If we want to survive and thrive in an increasingly volatile world, this model must be scaled globally.
Global Impact Through Local Resilience
Many Alliance to End Hunger members and partners are already adopting this locally-focused approach. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Opportunity International, and One Acre Fund are very focused on building community resilience, through strengthening the capacities of local farmers. Groups like Save the Children, the Global Child Nutrition Foundation, and Growing Hope Globally are actively building and highlighting linkages throughout community food systems and larger economies to encourage sustainable economic growth.
Growing Hope Globally offers a strong example of how community partnerships can build local resilience. In this model, communities in the United States partner directly with communities abroad, combining domestic and global experience to support meaningful change in rural areas. As discussed in a recent podcast, their work shows not only the value of community-level development, but also how local coalitions can share lessons and strengthen one another across borders.
Policy Must Follow Practice
While these organizations are doing admirable work on the ground, global policies must back them up.
The closure of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was a significant setback just as it was making real headway in local interventions. While USAID is no more, many of its guiding principles, and American global food security programs overall, are worthy of protection and increased support:
- The Global Food Security Strategy and Feed the Future continue to play a guiding role in how the U.S. Government coordinates programming and should receive increased attention.
- Food for Peace is America’s longest-standing global food security program, and we should not lose sight of its dual mandate of emergency relief and community development, while building markets and research opportunities for U.S. producers and researchers.
- Finally, the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program, while relatively small in the grander budget picture, is fantastic at building local food security capacity while also encouraging educational opportunities, especially for girls.
The Path Forward
Through both policy and practice, the world can—and should—aspire to a global network of Hunger Free Communities.
The world will only continue to become more interconnected and complex. But by empowering local communities to master their own unique contexts, we can build a resilient, sustainable shield against global shocks. That is how we end hunger worldwide.
