Address by Joan Holmes, president of The Hunger Project

On the occasion of the awarding of the 1992 Africa Prize for Leadership

How privileged I feel to stand before you this evening as together we reaffirm our commitment to a profound possibility--that together we can work successfully to end hunger in Africa and elsewhere in the world.

How fitting that we are gathered here in Rome, the eternal city, during the International Conference on Nutrition. This historic first conference bolsters our spirit, buttresses our hope and reinforces our conviction that the goals of The Hunger Project are attainable.

The presence of all of us in this city inevitably reminds us that hunger has persisted for an eternity. Yet the presence of so distinguished a group is an essential reminder that hunger need no longer persist.

It will take the leadership of the people in this room to end hunger in the world. It will take the leadership of the international community. It will, as well, take the leadership of the individual who holds the highest office . . . as well as the tiller of soil and the seller of salt.

Since its founding in 1977, The Hunger Project has dedicated itself to stimulating the leadership that is required. Since our not-for-profit organization was founded, more than six million individuals from 152 countries have made a commitment to ending hunger by enrolling themselves in The Hunger Project.

The Hunger Project is committed to the end of world hunger by the turn of the century, and we have set as our measure of success an infant mortality rate of 50 or below in every country.

The Hunger Project was designed to pursue its mission in an innovative way, as a "strategic" organization. Rather than merely responding to opportunity, we aim to create opportunity. In other words, we are engaged in creating our future.

Our approach translates into a focus on the human component of ending hunger.

Through an initiative we call "Strategic Planning-in-Action," The Hunger Project works to establish environments that enable individuals to express their own creativity and their own effectiveness. We work to empower leadership so that people from all sectors of society can work together to create solutions to the challenge of ending hunger.

In addition to Strategic Planning in Action, The Hunger Project has three other major priorities.

We seek to educate and empower people to become global citizens. We also seek to forge global linkages to create a "common front" for the end of hunger.

And one of our highest priorities is the continent of Africa.

To empower food farmers as the key to the continent's future, we publish African Farmer magazine.

To acknowledge leadership and call it forth we created the Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger.

With the Africa Prize we intend to inspire men and women in Africa and encourage them to assert their leadership for the end of hunger.

We also intend to focus the international spotlight on the many positive, untold stories of Africa today. The world must come to know the lives of the men and women who are courageous and resilient, self-sacrificing and self-fulfilled . . . who are struggling to build new societies of independence and peace.

Only then can the international community relate to Africa as its true and authentic partner.

The prize focuses on individuals whose leadership and policies reflect courage, wisdom, initiative, creativity and in some cases, personal sacrifice.

The Africa Prize has been presented to nine outstanding leaders who represent the great diversity of talents and regions of the African continent.

Tonight, the Africa Prize goes to another outstanding daughter and another outstanding son of Africa-- Mrs. Graça Machel of Mozambique and Dr. Ebrahim Samba of the Gambia.

Mrs. Machel is exerting leadership to help her country rebuild from the ravages of war and prepare itself for a sustainable peace.

At the time of Mozambique's independence, she took responsibility for the most vital step in nation building--the education of Mozambique's people.

Dr. Samba is exerting his leadership in a way that proves unequivocally the uncompromising necessity of regional cooperation.

His work against river blindness, which can be overcome only through a regional effort, has demonstrated an extraordinary level of management ability, integrity and workability.

Mrs. Machel and Dr. Samba exemplify the leadership all of us must call forth to end hunger in Africa and around the world.

All of us must understand that we have it within us, the people we work with have it within them and the people on whose behalf we work have it also within them to be exemplary leaders.

People who have not thought of themselves as leaders now must see themselves as leaders. In this group, we must include the youthful as well as the venerable, the disenfranchised as well as the mighty.

We have a special obligation to women. Not only must we hold ourselves accountable for recognizing the extraordinary contributions that women make, but we also must empower women to make those contributions as leaders of ending hunger.

Pressing are the needs in Africa, urgent is the need for leadership. Each of us has to make the empowerment of African leadership a personal priority.

Let me share with you a statement so meaningful to me that I keep it in the top drawer of my desk. The words were spoken in 1947 by a "shoeless" man who embodied the values I have been discussing:

"Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control of his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to liberation for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?"

In my view Mahatma Gandhi's questions resonate loudly today.

As we strive to end hunger, we must challenge ourselves to call forth leadership. It is not for us to create followers. We need to call forth leaders capable of empowering others as they have been empowered themselves.

We must rise to the challenge of true leadership. We must empower the people of Africa to articulate their vision of an Africa free from hunger. It is for us to empower Africans as the authors of their own destiny.

What better way for the African continent to realize its promise and its possibilities? What better way for its people to lead healthy and productive lives? What better means of ending hunger?