After a long and bumpy road, the Global Food Security Act (GFSA) has passed both chambers of the US Congress! The act passed the US House of Representatives on April 12th and the US Senate on April 20th.

This is a huge win for global food and nutrition security advocates as the bill authorizes continued funding for programs that have been proven to help alleviate hunger.

What does the bill do?

The Global Food Security Act (or ‘GFSA’), H.R. 1567, S. 1252, tackles global hunger and its underlying cause of malnutrition. Individuals affected by hunger and malnutrition do not have enough sustenance to lead a healthy, productive life. This situation currently affects 805 million people around the world. 

The act maintains US leadership on international food security by building upon the success of a USAID program called "Feed the Future." The program has already increased crop production for more than 7 million small scale farmers and helps 12.5 million children access key nutrition programs. And while this program has been very effective alleviating hunger and developing agricultural systems, ongoing funding for the program remains uncertain.

If the GFSA becomes law it will expand the efforts of Feed the Future by solidifying long term program funding, and developing a comprehensive worldwide strategy designed to reduce global poverty, hunger and malnutrition, particularly for women and children.  Specifically, the bill will ensure better coordination between the agencies within the US government that are working on global food security.

How did global citizens help the GFSA?

To understand the impact of this, let’s start from the beginning of the story.

The GFSA was introduced as a bill in the US House of Representatives in March of 2015. Global citizens showed their support for the act through a petition that gathered 85,000 signatures. This petition was passed around Capitol Hill by Global Poverty Project and 63 partners including Care, ONE, InterAction, World Vision, and Oxfam. Global Poverty Project helped to lead public communications around this important bill and played a vital role in engaging members of congress to cosponsor this legislation.

After the petition, members of congress spoke in support of the bill. Onstage at the Global Citizen 2015 Earth Day Congresswoman McCollum shared her support for the act, while at the Global Citizen Day of Action Senator Bob Casey and Congressman Charles Dent voiced their support of GFSA.

At first the bill went to was the House Foreign Affairs Committee for their approval. The committee decided to move it forward for full Congressional consideration.

While the House Foreign Affairs Committee was reviewing the act, it was also introduced to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At this point, global citizens lent their voice to the cause and called members of the committee to urging them to support the bill, which resulted in the Senate committee also moving the act forward for full Senate consideration.

In September of 2015, global citizens again voiced their support when over 30,000 global citizens placed phone calls into their Representatives’ offices asking them to support the act.

After almost a year of hard work, the act passed by voice vote in the House of Representatives on April 12th of this year and just yesterday on April 20th, it passed by voice vote in the Senate. To turn this piece of legislation into law requires the House bill (H.R. 1567) and the Senate bill (S. 1252) to be reconciled. This process will most likely occur in a conference committee comprising members of both the House and the Senate. If the bill passees through this process, is finally confirmed by both the Senate and the House it will go to President Obama to be signed into law.

So what does this mean for the 805 million hungry people around the world?

It means that global citizens are one step closer to ensuring that everyone around the world will have access to food and sustainable nutrition. It’s also a necessary step toward ending extreme poverty. According to Feed the Future, “Recent studies suggest that every 1 percent increase in agricultural income per capita reduces the number of people living in extreme poverty by between 0.6 and 1.8 percent.”

The bill passing the House and the Senate is great news but not the end of the battle

There’s still work to do before it can be signed into law and the US can improve its commitment to end hunger and poverty.

Now that the bill has passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate the differing versions need to be reconciled and approved jointly by both chambers. The bill can then go to President Obama to be signed into law. With the continued support of global citizens this can, and will, happen soon.