Sylvia Mathews Burwell 2013-06-18T20:15:35-04:00 Sylvia Mathews Burwell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=sylvia-mathews-burwell Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Sylvia Mathews Burwell Good old fashioned elbow grease. Helping Women Achieve a Common Dream tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1504423 2012-05-11T09:04:00-04:00 2012-07-11T05:12:13-04:00 Sylvia Mathews Burwell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sylvia-mathews-burwell/ The Huffington Post's Global Motherhood section joins Mother's Day Every Day, an initiative of the White Ribbon Alliance and CARE, in a countdown to Mother's Day. Pulling together diverse voices, Mother's Day Every Day is raising awareness and calling for greater U.S. leadership to saves the lives of moms and babies globally.



Across the globe, regardless of nationality or financial status, there is a common dream every mother has for her children -- for them to live full, healthy and productive lives. As a mother, I share that dream for my children. This weekend we'll recognize and give thanks to our mothers on a day that was founded by Anna Jarvis, a woman from my home state of West Virginia. In honoring this day in the United States, it is important that we not forget that we must work together to empower women all across the world, so that we create opportunities for all moms to fulfill this most basic dream.



After spending a number of years with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation leading their Global Development work, I recently started a new chapter with the Walmart Foundation working on Walmart's Global Women's Economic Empowerment Initiative. One of the reasons I am here is because I believe that hundreds of thousands of women's lives, and their children's lives, will be positively impacted by our efforts.



I've had the opportunity to meet and learn from women around the world. These women have inspired me with their sacrifice and drive to ensure their children live happy, healthy lives.



Walmart's Global Women's Economic Empowerment Initiative is working to create opportunity and empower women and girls in markets around the world. By investing in training, sourcing products from women, and increasing the gender diversity of our partners, we are supporting women (and mothers!) who are lifting themselves up and laying the groundwork for a stronger tomorrow.



Walmart's Social School of Retail in Brazil is an example of our plan put in to action. Women and girls who enroll, like Adriana Resende from the Parque Roseira neighborhood of Carapicuíba, Brazil, are able to obtain their first formal job, hers with Walmart. She says, "I always sold things in the street. I helped my parents at their street stand at Rua 25 de Março. Today, they are very happy and, for me, this security of being employed and in a field which I love, retailing, is great." For her, the Social School of Retail represents a competitive advantage for those who dream about getting a job in the formal marketplace. Adriana now plans to attend a college level course in business administration and continue to build her future.



In addition to supporting efforts in retail training, we're training factory workers through our partnerships with organizations like CARE. The Walmart Foundation and CARE are working together in Bangladesh on an effort that will eventually enable 5,000 women factory workers to learn reading, writing, math and analytical skills, as well as health and nutrition information. In India, Walmart and CARE are creating additional women-owned and -operated cashew processing institutions that will help 1,250 women in the cashew business achieve more equitable and consistent incomes. These women are then able to use their income to provide basic care for their children.



Walmart's role with the Initiative is in support of the larger global women's empowerment movement being led by trailblazing women like Secretary Hillary Clinton, who recently said "You can run the world in heels and pantsuits." We aim to help women all around the world prove it.



As we celebrate mothers this Sunday, let's also remember women and girls like those in India working on farms to support their families, and Adriana, who took the initiative to enroll in a program so that her she, her mother, and those who come after her will live better.



Sylvia Mathews Burwell is president of the Walmart Foundation.

]]> The Policy Wonk in the War Room: Reflections After 20 Years tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.994250 2011-10-04T13:41:47-04:00 2011-12-04T05:12:07-05:00 Sylvia Mathews Burwell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sylvia-mathews-burwell/
Little Rock -- the campaign -- was the start of an administration that delivered the first federal budget that was in the black -- the largest surplus in U.S. history. It was the start of the nation's best economic performance and job creation of my lifetime.

It was the impetus for the Family and Medical Leave Act, a policy that would mean I could take three months off with the birth of each of my children. And through the creation in 1997 of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, the reform of America's health care system began.

The truth is that the Clinton campaign was transformative well before many of these and a host of other major policy changes were enacted. In an age when stagecraft, gauzy themes, and sound-bites have too often been substituted for leadership, Bill Clinton as a candidate made it essential to campaigning to take the specifics of governance seriously. Practical solutions were "in;" ideology was "out."

Pundits of the time might record the charisma of candidate Clinton. But those of us close at hand saw more than that. We saw someone with bedrock beliefs that had been honed into a pragmatic philosophy and policy approach through hard-won experience, voracious research, and an unerring instinct for when and how to listen. 

It was no surprise, then, that his campaign book was not a biography. Putting People First was almost laughably devoid of the self-referential puffery. Instead, the book was a no-nonsense guide to advancing the interests of everyday Americans -- those who, as Clinton said, "work hard and play by the rules."

Putting People First was progressivism revived, and at its best. That is why the campaign rallied broad support across the political spectrum. Unbound to the old orthodoxies, it drew ideas from many sources. In doing so, the campaign helped Americans focus not on pleasant but vague sentiments, but on how in reality their votes would change our nation to give it a chance to become the best possible America. 

This was a campaign that was based on and appealed to the drive, ingenuity, and resourcefulness of ordinary people. I can still see on the words written on the blackboard in the War Room: "Change vs. More of The Same." The premise was simple: the American character should be one forward-leaning and self-assured, not paralyzed by fear. As Clinton said, "There is not a problem that is not already being solved somewhere in America." 

The innovation of the Clinton team extended to campaign strategies and techniques, too. The idea of having a "rapid response" capability arose from the need quickly and effectively to react to inaccuracies or misinformation in the media that could falsely define the candidate and the campaign.

The Clinton-Gore administration went on to use a war room in its first budget battle -- the budget that laid the groundwork for the longest period of prosperity of our lifetimes -- as well as in the push for passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization. Thus, the War Room and its famous "speed kills" became an organizing technique now used in governing as well as campaigns.

I now look back and laugh when I think about all the "urgent" documents that page by agonizing page slowly emerged from our fax machines, compared to today's lightening-speed tools of social media. But, in its own time, the War Room early established the concept of working in a social matrix through open, proximate spaces.

For its time, it was the political and programmatic equivalent of Facebook. We believed that the mere fact of people coming together, in this case physically in open space, would accelerate the deliberative process, distill debates into crisper decisions, and drive better results. And if that weren't enough, there were always James Carville's gold stars rewarding excellence and motivating the team to drive harder and do more.

Candidate Clinton faced some excruciating policy decisions head-on. The decision to support NAFTA was incredibly challenging, but in retrospect it rings true to how the Clinton-Gore team would govern. The analysis was painstaking, based on a myriad of facts and points of view. Most importantly, it was based on the recognition that the global economy was rapidly changing and that the U.S. would need to change in order to succeed. It also reflected the understanding that both business and labor were indispensable for a healthy American economy, and that workers are consumers who care how their families can lead healthier and more productive lives.

I remember one meeting with candidates Clinton and Gore that included union leaders, environmentalists, and businessmen. Differing points of view were welcomed. The discussion supplemented reams of briefing papers on possible job gains/losses, wage increases/decreases, environmental impact, and consumer benefits. In a way that he would do time and time again once he entered in the White House, candidate Clinton sought others' input. Then he would make a tough decision, and stick to it. It was modern progressivism: fact-based, open-minded, pragmatic, methodical, deliberative, consensus-oriented, and instinctively optimistic.

What became known as Clinton's "Third Way" policies was rooted in both the political and the personal: his innate capacity for understanding how peoples' concerns and hopes intertwined allowed him to discern what was politically feasible on the broad stage of presidential leadership. In the case of NAFTA, side agreements that addressed NAFTA-related issues of workers' rights and environmental protections defined the "Third Way." 

We were all younger then and one naturally forgets quite a lot as the years speed by. But I do remember thinking that it didn't matter whether we were on a weekday or weekend, we were not going to slow down to rest. I remember thinking that, no matter how much we researched or consulted or studied, there was always another fact to be chased down, another argument to examined, still another policy option to be considered. We took nothing for granted. I remember being so exhausted at my campaign desk some nights that blinking seemed a horribly unfair amount of exertion.

The most important thing I will never forget is the camaraderie. Never before and never since have I been part of a team that actually gained cohesiveness as it grew in numbers. Capturing that spirit is hard to describe, except perhaps indirectly. Within the campaign, there was a certain lore regarding the band of believers who soldiered through the dark, freezing days of the New Hampshire primary campaign and stuck with our candidate even when things seemed bleak. But the story was never recounted with an invidious dig, so that those early campaign workers would have more cache than later arrivals. Rather, the narrative attained a universality of acceptance that was almost tribal: it not only spoke to us all, it spoke for us all.

At the time I thought that openness to new, dedicated talent and a single-minded focus on results was a hallmark of the campaign. But now, I've come to see that it was more than that. It was the hallmark of American progressivism, at its best. It was the hallmark of a great presidency.

During the Clinton Administration, Sylvia Burwell served as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House, and Chief of Staff of the Treasury Department.
]]> Building a Better World: Supporting Farming Families tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.866222 2011-05-24T12:51:49-04:00 2011-07-24T05:12:01-04:00 Sylvia Mathews Burwell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sylvia-mathews-burwell/


But a year ago, Odetta's life began to change when she started working with the World Food Program's (WFP) Purchase for Progress initiative (P4P), a groundbreaking effort to transform the way the WFP sources its food aid and connects small farmers to reliable markets. Odetta borrowed money, expanded her plot, and planted more than she ever had before. She sold all of her crops to the WFP and in one year, quadrupled her income. With this extra money, Odetta adopted two children, built herself a larger home, and is now able to pay for food, school fees and health insurance for all four of her children.

Odetta's story is a powerful example of how smallholder farmers, given the tools, can change their own lives and lift themselves out of poverty. Her story is similar to many other smallholder farmers around the world who have benefitted from agricultural development initiatives like P4P. With their hard work and greater access to resources and opportunities, smallholder farmers can finally gain traction to become more self sufficient.

Bill Gates shared Odetta's story with a group of political, business, and development leaders in Washington, D.C. today to make the point that investments in agricultural development work. He spoke at a Chicago Council on Global Affairs symposium to call on the United States and other countries to fund agricultural development for poor farming families.

Supporting farming families makes sense on many fronts. It not only helps farmers like Odetta become self-sufficient, but it helps increase the prosperity and stability of countries in the developing world, and is a critical part of helping feed a growing population. It can even have direct financial returns for the United States. And it allows us as Americans to fulfill our national belief that we can and should help build a better world.

And now is a particularly exciting time because after decades of neglect, agricultural development is back on the global agenda.

U.S. leadership helped secure $22 billion in commitments from the G8/G20. The United States pledged $3.5 billion to support its "Feed the Future" Initiative. And African countries themselves are championing small farmers by pledging a full 10 percent of their national budgets to agriculture.

But, of course, plans can change and priorities can shift. The economic turmoil over the past few years poses a threat to the significant progress we've made. And that threat is very real: to date, only about half of the G8/G20's $22 billion in pledges have been disbursed or are on track to be disbursed.

Yet, what most Americans don't realize is that less than one percent of the federal budget is allocated to development programs. And that these programs now are smarter and better than in the past.

As we struggle with budgets and priorities, looking for the right investments becomes even more important. Agricultural development has a return on investment well worth it. Just ask Odetta.

More To Explore

* Join the Challenge: Small Farmers Are the Answer
* Speech: Bill Gates Speaks to Chicago Council on Global Affairs
]]> Keeping Promises and Delivering Hope to Poor Farmers and Their Families tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.798271 2010-12-17T12:34:32-05:00 2011-05-25T18:20:30-04:00 Sylvia Mathews Burwell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sylvia-mathews-burwell/
This message was especially powerful given the climate surrounding the conference. Europeans are struggling to defuse a credit crisis that has ravaged Greece and Ireland. Austerity measures have prompted strikes across the continent. Unemployment in the euro zone recently hit a 12-year high.

Yet, polling indicates that 9 out of 10 Europeans support helping developing countries, and 64 percent want to keep the promise to increase aid to 0.7 percent of GDP by 2015. In fact, 14 percent would like to see aid boosted even more.

As Polish development minister Krzysztof Stanowski told me, when it comes to helping those in need to help themselves, Poland's people feel a sense of solidarity.

In the UK, even as Prime Minister David Cameron's government is reducing the budget deficit, he is sticking to Britain's promise to provide 0.7 percent of its income in aid by 2013.

Why this solidarity and sustained commitment to aid? Because Europeans understand that combating global poverty is core to their values and their interests simultaneously, alleviating human suffering while helping promote stability, environmental stewardship, and peace.

While some European countries and the European Commission have recognized the importance of agricultural development in the "aid equation," more needs to be done. And it's encouraging that Europe has made agricultural development one of the four pillars in its high-impact anti-poverty strategy -- an approach the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation shares.

Three-quarters of people who live in extreme poverty live in rural areas, and most rely on agriculture for their food and income. If these small farmers can boost their yields and get their surplus to market, they can feed their families, raise their incomes, and improve their quality of life.

There are many reasons for optimism, including the growing initiative of African countries themselves, as well as innovative partnerships that are putting solidarity into practice. One great example is a program run by the World Food Programme, Purchase for Progress (P4P), which links the world's single largest purchaser of food for humanitarian operations to poor, small-scale farmers.

P4P was launched in 2008 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Howard G. Buffet Foundation, and the government of Belgium. Since then, the European Commission and the governments of Canada, Ireland, Luxembourg, the United States, and Saudi Arabia have joined as donors. Pilots are running in 20 countries -- half in Sub-Saharan Africa --where P4P has contracted more than 100,000 metric tons of food from small farmers.

P4P gives farmers access to reliable markets and the chance to sell their surplus at competitive prices, and more. Through partners, they are trained in things like pest and disease control, how to calculate production costs, and food processing techniques that add value to crops. And the beauty of P4P is that it's designed to move beyond solely supplying the World Food Programme, and is working now to connect small farmers to other local and regional food markets. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says P4P "is one of the best programmes that we have going in the country."

The more smallholder farmers can improve their productivity, and access markets, the more they can help their own communities and countries grow and prosper. In other words, spending on agricultural development now can mean decreasing the need for foreign assistance in the future.
]]> Banking on Savings for the Poor tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.782251 2010-11-11T12:51:32-05:00 2011-05-25T18:10:25-04:00 Sylvia Mathews Burwell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sylvia-mathews-burwell/
It's your cell phone.

Technologies, including cell phones, have the potential to help millions of poor people out of poverty by enabling access to a range of safe, affordable financial services -- most importantly savings accounts -- that have long been out of reach. Exciting endeavors from the developing world are showing incredible promise, one of the most innovative proving that a cell phone can actually function as a wallet of sorts, enabling people to store, and move their money with ease and security.

If we can scale up financial service innovations like "mobile money," we can bring savings and other financial services beyond the bank's four walls to the doorsteps of the poor.


That's the vision behind the Global Savings Forum that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is hosting in Seattle, November 16 and 17. The forum will bring together, for the very first time, government officials, regulators, bankers, telecommunications executives, and international development organizations to focus collectively on how to provide the poor with safe places to save.

Why focus on savings? Because this long-neglected financial tool is sorely needed, and demanded, by poor people worldwide.

The 2.5 billion people living on $2 a day are vulnerable to crisis -- especially since their income is far less predictable than "$2 a day" suggests. Farmers must labor to stretch harvest income beyond the growing season. Mothers must scramble to accumulate the cash to pay school fees. An illness or crop failure can push a family over a financial cliff, forcing them to sell belongings to survive.

Those who have the fewest resources must work the hardest to manage them. As the authors of the path-breaking book Portfolios of the Poor explain, "At any one time, the average poor household has a fistful of financial relationships on the go" -- such as sending money to relatives for safekeeping or paying a "money guard" to hold their cash.

Savings is an important tool because it can help the poor deal with the ups and downs of irregular earnings, and help them build reserves for a rainy day. Why haven't these services taken off? Because it doesn't make economic sense. Banks can't recoup the costs of serving customers who save in small amounts and transact frequently. Clients can't afford the fees involved, or the time and cost of traveling to a bank branch miles away.

But now, exciting innovations are lowering the cost and increasing the value of delivering financial services to the poor. In Mexico, a network of government-operated rural convenience stores is offering banking services to rural communities. In Malawi, a bank is reaching thousands of first-time customers by mounting banks on trucks.

Meanwhile, in Kenya, a mobile money service called M-PESA is transforming millions of lives. Customers can deposit, and withdraw cash with the same agents who sell airtime minutes for their phones, and then send their money, via their phones, to family members, or pay their bills. And now, a new service called M-KESHO is linking people's M-PESA mobile money service to a bank account.

In little more than three years, M-PESA has managed to capture nearly 57 percent of the Kenyan adult population, some 12.6 million people, and do more money transfers domestically than Western Union does globally. More than 80 percent report using M-PESA as a savings vehicle. These are amazing results, and we believe this model, and other new ways of harnessing technology, can be replicated around the world.

The challenge for the global community -- and for participants at our forum -- is to identify what needs to be done, and then put that into action to make affordable, safe, and convenient financial services for the poor a reality.

Learn more about the foundation's work in bringing savings to the poor.
]]> A Green Revolution Growing in West Africa tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.716418 2010-09-14T14:33:51-04:00 2011-05-25T17:40:20-04:00 Sylvia Mathews Burwell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sylvia-mathews-burwell/
I began in Mali, a desperately poor, landlocked nation of some 13 million people, 75 percent of whom farm small plots, mostly in the Niger River delta.

Mali's government is working hard to lift the quality of life for its citizens. In roughly a decade, extreme poverty in Mali dropped from 86 to 51 percent. A large portion of this decrease, especially the last five years, was a result of rising agricultural productivity that accompanied dramatic reductions in rural poverty. Thanks to the efforts of a broad-based team -- government, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, civil society, and farmers themselves -- a host of initiatives are taking root that are improving the lives of farmers across the country.

I saw this for myself at flourishing demonstration plots in Sanankoroba and Dialakoroba, where farmers are learning about new seed varieties and tools that increase productivity. The government of Mali, which devotes roughly 13 percent of the national budget to agriculture, is investing in these plots because it knows that for rural farmers, seeing is believing: A hybrid seed planted next to an ordinary seed will produce a plant that is bigger and stronger and the yields from the demonstration plots are two to five times more than traditional harvests.

I met with farmers, women and men of all ages, who proudly described their successful efforts to get more from the soil. Some told me how they are boosting their yields by "micro-dosing" fertilizer -- that is, applying a small amount of fertilizer directly to the base of the plant. Many farmers cannot afford to spread fertilizer over their fields, and micro-dosing makes it more affordable and environmentally sustainable.

Much of this encouraging progress has been accelerated by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which aims to catalyze investments and cooperation to fuel agricultural productivity. I was moved by the words of Strive Masiyiwa, an AGRA board member and prominent African executive, who noted that in a year when Mali is celebrating its 50th anniversary of independence, Africans are reminded of the contributions many of their fathers made to lead the revolution for freedom. Today, Strive said, his generation is called to lead a different kind of revolution -- one that will not only feed the continent, but also deliver prosperity and growth.

After Mali, I travelled to Ghana where AGRA hosted a major agricultural forum -- the first time this meeting was held in Africa. The sense of African ownership was palpable. As a panelist, I was struck by the scope and caliber of the participants -- political leaders, ministers, parliamentarians, bankers, business leaders, donors, and farmers' organizations, all focused on transforming agriculture in their countries, all recognizing that growth is happening and that investments work, all acknowledging that success depends on everyone playing their part.

The mood in Ghana was full of optimism, determination, and a desire to make history. As AGRA board chair Kofi Annan said in his closing remarks to the forum, "We are finally getting the message across. Agriculture pays. Agriculture is a business. And we are ready to run it as one for millions of smallholder farmers."

To be sure, this won't happen overnight. There is still much to do. Sustained commitment from national governments, continued investments, and strong support for organizations like AGRA, as well as multilateral initiatives like the Global Agricultural and Food Security Program, is essential for success.

Flying home, as I looked out the window to the rich, beautiful land below, I felt more optimistic than ever that the green revolution Africa wants for itself is possible.
]]> Hope on a Hillside: Helping Small Farmers Help Themselves tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.685324 2010-08-17T16:37:21-04:00 2011-05-25T17:25:21-04:00 Sylvia Mathews Burwell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sylvia-mathews-burwell/
Imagine sparking a similar transformation in the lives of millions of people worldwide by helping them provide for themselves and build a self-sufficient future. Imagine delivering this support with remarkable flexibility and speed. Imagine helping humanity advance on many fronts simultaneously -- from gender equality to nutrition and health to stability and peace.

You don't have to imagine. It's already happening.

How? Through the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, a trust fund to help the world's poorest farmers reap bigger harvests and greater income. Don't let its cumbersome name fool you. GAFSP is impressively nimble, dispensing its first round of grants only two months after its public launch and promising to reach more than 2 million people from Africa to the Americas to South Asia. The Rwanda hillside terracing program is one of GAFSP's first beneficiaries, along with similarly promising projects in Bangladesh, Haiti, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

GAFSP was created with $880 million in commitments from the United States, Canada, South Korea, Spain, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The United States' support of the fund was meant to inspire others to follow, as we saw last year when U.S. leadership at the G8 meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, leveraged $22 billion in international funding commitments for food security.

The need for investments in agricultural development is great. More than one out of every six people is chronically hungry. More than 3.5 million children die each year because they are malnourished. Two years ago, rising food prices led to riots worldwide. This year, wheat prices have skyrocketed more than 60 percent since June, and experts fear a poor harvest in Russia could result in a global shortage.

The next round of GAFSP funds will be disbursed in October, and more than 25 countries are expected to apply. Will the financial resources be adequate to the task? To be sure, in a difficult budget climate it's hard to support bold new programs. Yet, we've come so far. Now is the time to press forward, not to waiver or fall back.

That's the message I heard loud and clear in a meeting I attended recently in Washington, D.C., with Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs Lael Brainard and embassy officials from more than a dozen African countries. African nations, which are already investing in agriculture at home, are looking to the United States and the international community to keep our pledges on behalf of food security.

GAFSP allows donors -- large and small -- to maximize their collective impact.

First, by focusing on smallholder farmers and agricultural productivity, GAFSP helps nurture several areas of human development at once. It tackles poverty through agricultural sector growth, which has proven to benefit the poor between two and four times more than growth in any other economic sector. It empowers women, who produce up to 80 percent of the food in most developing countries. And studies show that when women's incomes grow, they tend to reinvest their earnings in their families -- meaning better nutrition, better health, and better education for children, and communities as a whole.

Second, by prioritizing assistance for countries with the greatest need and a proven commitment to food security progress, GAFSP drives funding to where it is likeliest to yield the most meaningful results.

Third, by combining donor resources, it improves coordination and efficiency.

Put simply, support for agricultural development is a sound, strategic investment on behalf of a better world -- a force multiplier for limited resources that can help people lift themselves out of hunger and poverty.

Smallholder farmers, like the hardworking woman in Rwanda, will be essential to feeding the developing world. With GAFSP, these rural farmers can succeed -- and cultivate a brighter future.]]> Big Action for Small Farmers tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.625754 2010-06-25T13:20:41-04:00 2011-05-25T16:55:19-04:00 Sylvia Mathews Burwell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sylvia-mathews-burwell/
At this week's meeting, the Canadian government is shining the spotlight on maternal and child health. With almost 1,000 mothers dying in childbirth each day, this attention is needed and welcome.

Yet, this year's priorities must not displace last year's promises to support poor farmers - the millions of hardworking women and men who feed the developing world.

Last year, G20 countries pledged $22 billion to help poor farmers lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. After decades of decline in foreign assistance for agricultural development, this multilateral mobilization was heralded as a bold leap forward. But, as many nations have stepped up to the plate, many more are simply not delivering enough, even as the global economic crisis and rising food prices have made life even harder for the poor.

We cannot afford to lose momentum or jeopardize hard-won progress. At a time when donors and developing countries alike seek the greatest return on development dollars, supporting small farmers is one of the best tools we have to reap broad-based development rewards. Helping smallholder farmers grow more food and get it to market means higher incomes, improved nutrition, better health, and women's empowerment too. But to realize these gains, we need a commitment of resources and a commitment to results.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture represents two-thirds of all employment, governments are proving that resource commitments yield success. In 2004, African heads of state pledged 10 percent of their national budgets to achieve 6 percent annual growth in agriculture. By 2008, 20 African countries had met or exceeded that 6 percent target. In Rwanda, investment in agriculture rose by 30 percent from 2007 to 2009. The result? A 15 percent rise in agricultural production in 2008.

Among donors, the United States is leading the way with its Feed the Future initiative - a $3.5 billion commitment, over three years, to support small-scale farmers. In addition, the United States, Canada, Spain, South Korea, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are founding donors of a new global trust fund to help the world's poorest farmers. The partners have moved swiftly to make this fund operational, and this week announced that Bangladesh, Haiti, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Togo will receive the fund's first grants totaling $224 million. These investments will help transform the lives of more than two million people in rural areas by giving each country the opportunity to increase food security, raise rural incomes and reduce poverty.

To get the most from agricultural resources, poor farmers' needs must come first, guiding investment strategies and forming the yardstick for gauging results. That philosophy drives the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a foundation grantee. I met last week with Cameroonian agronomist and AGRA president Dr. Namanga Ngongi. He described how a commitment to results is paying off in Mali, where a woman-owned company called Faso Kaba - which means "home country maize" - is cultivating change by helping farmers grow their yields and incomes through better quality seed.

In 2005, when Maimouna Coulilably founded Faso Kaba, the business sold just under 10 tons of seed. Last year, with AGRA's support, sales had surged to more than 200 tons. The seeds are packaged in sizes and sold at prices small farmers can afford, and distributed in stores and through a retail network in the rural villages where farmers live. In Sanankoroba village, Bassidou Samake is one of 50 local seed-growers for Faso Kaba; he now is able to feed his family and fund his daughter's university education. Another village farmer, Able Traore, saw his harvests increase by 50 percent after using the improved seeds for just two years.

The continent has more such stories proving that agricultural progress in poor countries is not only possible, it is happening. This momentum must be sustained so success can be taken to scale. Big meetings and big talk are not enough in a world that is hungry for change. Big action -world leaders keeping their promises, and developing countries committing resources while listening ardently to the voice of the small farmer - is needed to bring big results and prosperity to the world's poor.


Sylvia Mathews Burwell is president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Development Program.]]>