USAID Newsletter

World Food Prize: Innovating for Impact

Feed the Future: Innovating for Impact

Every year on Oct. 16, the international community unites around World Food Day to increase awareness about global hunger. Through Feed the Future, the U.S. Government works with partners across sectors and around the world to increase global food security.

This year, World Food Day recognized the role of agricultural cooperatives in improving food security and contributing to the eradication of hunger. Learn more about Feed the Future's support for cooperatives and producers associations in Malawi, Uganda and Haiti. In addition, learn more about how Feed the Future - the U.S. Government's global hunger and food security initiative - prioritizes research and innovation in a five-point plan. 

Celebrating International Day of the Girl   Celebrating girls at a USAID-sponsored event in Vietnam.  Photo: Richard Nyberg In December 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring Oct. 11 the International Day of the Girl Child.  The day was established to recognize girls' rights and the unique challenges they face around the world. This year marks the first time this day in honor of girls is being observed and provides an occasion for reaching out and educating others about the status of girls.  See USAID's vision on ending child marriage and meeting the needs of married children.

A Campus Challenge for Atrocity & Counter-Trafficking   Ethnic Uzbek refugees cross the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border on their way back to Kyrgyzstan near the village of Vlksm some 20 km outside Osh on June 18, 2010. The Tech Challenge is crowd-sourcing ideas on how technology can be used to improve measures to stop mass atrocities before they happen in countries affected by violent conflict.  AFP PHOTO / VIKTOR DRACHEV USAID and Humanity United launched the Tech Challenge for Atrocity Prevention on Oct. 10 during a speech by Administrator Rajiv Shah at the University of California - Berkeley's Blum Center for Developing Economies. The Tech Challenge will award prize money up to $10,000 to the problem-solvers who develop innovative concept papers and prototypes that help us better respond to defined issues surround atrocity prevention.The website thetechchallenge.org is now live, and the first two sub-challenges will be launched on Oct. 31.  On Oct. 11 at Pepperdine University, Administrator Shah launched USAID's Counter-Trafficking in Persons Campus Challenge. The Campus Challenge, promoted at ChallengeSlavery.org, calls on university students, in the United States and abroad, to offer creative ideas and solutions to prevent trafficking and provide assistance to victims and survivors. The tech contest for students officially opens in late November. A research competition for scholars will follow in 2013.

New USAID Graduate Fellowship      On Monday, Administrator Shah visited Howard University in Washington, D.C. as part of our Fall Semester tour to launch the USAID Donald M. Payne International Development Graduate Fellowship Program. The fellowship honors the late congressman, and will seek to support individuals interested in creating a more secure, healthy and prosperous world through engagement in international development work. The Fellowship is modeled after the U.S. Department of State's Rangel Fellowship program, and will provide students with support for graduate school and professional development, and entry into USAID's Foreign Service. At Howard, Dr. Shah spoke about how USAID is working to address the most pressing global challenges in international development-poverty, hunger, violence, injustice and environmental degradation. For more information about the fellowship or to apply, visit paynefellows.org.

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