The Foreign Service Journal, March 2012

M A R C H 2 0 1 2 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 19 the developing world and eradicat- ing poverty and hunger — just as agricultural-led growth transformed the lives of a billion people during the Green Revolution that started in the late 1960s. Quality — Not Just Quantity As Aisha’s story illustrates, the impact of hunger hits women and children, who are often the most vulnerable, hardest. Nearly 200 million children under age 5 are undernourished, and more than 500 million women are anemic. Improved nutrition is a critical driver for both economic growth and poverty reduction. Good nutrition early in life unlocks human and economic capacity through improved learning and productivity, and contributes to a robust, ca- pable work force. It also promotes gender equality and op- portunities for women and girls, and lessens susceptibility to deadly diseases. Mindful of this, Feed the Fu- ture is working hand-in-glove with the Global Health Initiative to identify and strengthen linkages between agriculture and nutrition. On a programmatic level, we are implementing both Feed the Fu- ture and Global Health Initiative activities in the same geographic zones to maximize results. We support the globally recognized, multi-stakeholder Scaling Up Nutrition movement and its key interventions, such as increasing the focus on boosting nutrition, particu- larly during the 1,000 days between a woman’s pregnancy and her child’s second birthday — which, research shows, is the critical period to have a lasting impact on nutritional outcomes. In Nepal, for example, we’re working with Save the Children and several local partners to raise the nutritional F OCUS Nearly a billion people around the world experience chronic hunger, day after day, all year long.