More photos: U.S. Department of State's Flickr photostream | State@WorkLast week, our Photo of the Week highlighted the work of thousanddays.org, an organization built around the idea that adequate nutrition is key to child development, particularly in the critical thousand-day window that includes the mother's pregnancy through a child's second birthday.
The work of thousanddays.org is part of a broader focus on food security: solutions to increasing the world's food supply to meet future demands. Food security -- having a reliable source of food and sufficient resources to purchase it -- underpins the health of children and adults as well as the productivity of nations. Advancing sustainable agricultural-led growth increases the availability of food, keeps food affordable, and raises the incomes of the poor.
Today's Photo of the Week comes from Bangladesh, where Ambassador Cousin recently traveled. "How do you feed a country with half the population of the United States squeezed into an area the size of the state of Iowa?," Ambassador Cousin asked. The solutions, she wrote, involve resource preservation, community outreach and training, improved farming methods, access to markets, and country-driven development. And the picture, taken en route to a USAID project? That's to remind us what's at stake.