“India plays a major role in reducing global hunger through its large agricultural output, food security policies, and anti-hunger initiatives. Even the world should make India a role model where you can actually solve hunger” said Billy Shore, Co-founder, Share Your Strength while talking to ‘The Hitavada’, on Wednesday. Shore helped raise over $1 billion for combating hunger and poverty through strategic philanthropy and partnership. He is chair of Community Wealth Partners, the non-profit’s social impact consulting arm, leading community initiatives. Shore has also served in prominent leadership roles on national political campaigns, including for United States Presidential candidate Gary Hart and Chief of Staff, Senator Robert Kerrey and appointed by the Congress in 2014 to the White House National Commission on Hunger.

 

Shore is also an author, who has written four books on his experiences and work in the field of hunger. Acclaiming Government of India’s role in reducing domestic hunger, Shore said, “The local talent, with lot of innovation, helped to reduce hunger in India. People started many start-ups in India who actually feed lakhs of children on daily basis. Growing income of middle class here is also a matter of research for other countries.” Quoting American businessman and philanthropist Bill Gates, Shore said “Bill Gates once said that malnutrition is the biggest challenge before the world and India is a global leader when it comes to handling this.”

 

While asked about the role of war in complementing hunger, Shore said, “War does not always complement hunger. For example, United States faces hunger crisis, but there is no war. There is not even drought. In the case of USA, political scenario complements hunger more than any other challenge.” “Yes, war leads to hunger in conflict prone states. Gaza is a perfect example of man-made disaster where hunger is at its peak. However, in many conflict prone countries, people do not experience hunger as the resources support them.

 

At the end of the day, hunger is a symptom of many factors like poverty, war, lack of resources, education, and opportunity,” said the former White House staff. “Using hunger as a weapon is a war crime and the current Government in the US is committing the same by halting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (SNAP) benefits. Post this step, people in the US are really in trouble and the Government is weaponising hunger for political benefit,” claimed Shore. Comparing global hunger with US, Shore said, “Globally, hunger exists on a much larger and more severe scale than in the US, with people literally dying of famine and starvation in places like Africa and Haiti. We have started some international grants like funding organisations in India with Akshaya Patra and Annapurna, which deliver meals to school kids.” “During this tour to India, I went to Bengaluru also where I visited Annapurna. The organisation considers the whole world its family.

 

To stop hunger globally, every country should learn from such organisations in India who propagate measures to solve global hunger,” said Shore. As far as global hunger is concerned, we are looking at how we can apply what we have learned domestically to global issues and vice versa. The world is more connected than ever, and we believe there’s mutual benefit in learning from and supporting each other to curb this serious issue, he explained. Shore was in city on Wednesday to attend a programme jointly conducted by Share Our Strength, Vidarbha Literary Festival (VLF) and Maha Metro at Chitnavis Centre.