The purpose of the study was to provide general information on U.S. strategies to enhance global food security and to derive implications for the Korean government to establish more effective strategies in the future.

The combination of food and economic crises has pushed the number of food-insecure or hungry people worldwide to historic levels: approximately 1 billion people are undernourished. As a result, President Obama signaled that alleviating global hunger would be a top priority of his administration. The Department of State has taken the lead in developing a U.S. global food security strategy that focused on agricultural and rural development, based on five principles: support for comprehensive strategies; investment through country-owned plans; stronger coordination among donors; leveraging effective multilateral institutions; and sustained commitments.

Forming "Feed the Future", agricultural development has been a component of the United States' foreign aid programs, but U.S. funding for such assistance has declined from about 20% of U.S. ODA in 1980 to around 5% in recent years. The involvement of several U.S. government agencies including USAID and USDA, in providing agricultural development aid has focused on global food security having other multilateral and bilateral donors. Also, the U.S. has called for a substantial increase in agricultural development assistance, and the international community also has pledged substantial support for a global food security initiative.

In the case of Korea, most of the aid for global food security has been made through multilateral organizations. However, in recent years, Korea formed a program called “KAPEX” to support an analysis of partner countries' entire agriculture, and derive a leverage area to be aimed. It is much more effective than a one-sided way to support the partner countries' agricultural development. However, the program would not be sustainable since there is no way to support after the one-year program ends due to its budget structure. Therefore, it is necessary to expand its duration with additional financial support for the existing programs.


Researcher: Lee, Dae Seob
Research period: 2013. 6. ~ 2014. 2.
E-mail address: ldaeseob@krei.re.kr