Our Victories

2009

Bread for the World members urged Congress and the administration to reform the way we deliver foreign aid to make it more effective in fighting poverty. As a result of our efforts, bipartisan bills were introduced in the House and Senate to begin the process of reforming the Foreign Assistance Act. In addition, President Barack Obama and the State Department ordered reviews to better coordinate how the United States delivers foreign assistance. Congress also increased funding for programs that fight hunger and poverty worldwide.

2008

Bread for the World pushed for more and better international development assistance. Our efforts helped win a supplemental appropriation of $1.8 billion to respond to the global hunger crisis. Our efforts to garner cosponsors for the Global Poverty Act helped build the political will that helped initiate foreign assistance reform efforts in 2009.

2007

This Offering sought to win broad reform in the U.S. farm bill—making commodity programs into a more equitable safety net for our nation’s farmers, and shifting additional resources into nutrition, conservation, and rural development programs. Though commodity payment programs were not substantially reformed, the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 did include the largest-ever funding increase for food stamps and food banks—an additional $10 billion over 10 years.

2006

Bread for the World members continued their winning record of significant increases in funding for programs that address the causes of poverty in developing nations. The $1.4 billion increase in 2006 went largely to addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Now that millions more people are receiving life-saving medications, more people in the working years of their lives are again able to produce food, care for their children, and contribute to their communities.

2005

Bread for the World members stopped Congress from cutting nutrition assistance to hundreds of thousands of hard-working people and their children. They also wrote letters on behalf of the Hunger-Free Communities Act, which Congress passed as part of the 2008 farm bill. The act authorizes a grant program developed to support local community anti-hunger efforts.

2004

Bread for the World members won more than $1 billion in additional funding for the Millennium Challenge Account and other programs to fight disease and poverty in poor countries. This funding has helped to lower the infant mortality rates in the developing world.

2003

Bread for the World members helped establish the Millennium Challenge Account, a new U.S. assistance program aimed at reducing poverty and fighting corruption in the world’s poorest nations. Since then, countries as diverse as Madagascar and Mongolia have signed compacts with the United States to implement comprehensive plans to address the root causes of poverty in their countries. We also helped win the largest increase in poverty-focused development assistance in 20 years.

2002

Bread for the World members sought to strengthen and improve Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to help poor people and working families in the United States move out of poverty. Congress was seeking to change TANF in wtrackingays that would make it more difficult for families struggling to lift themselves out of poverty. Bread members were able to block these harmful changes until 2006, when Congress included some of the changes in a budget bill.