About Bread for the World Institute
Bread for the World Institute provides nonpartisan policy analysis on hunger and strategies to end it. The Institute has been educating opinion leaders, policymakers, and the public about hunger in the United States and abroad since 1975. Bread for the World Institute is a separately-incorporated 501(c)3 organization. Gifts to the Institute are tax-deductible.
Hunger Report
The Institute publishes a book-length Hunger Report every year. Each edition focuses on a particular topic and its relationship to the root causes of hunger and malnutrition.
Recommendations for policy change based on the report’s analysis guide Bread for the World’s advocacy. The Hunger Report has been published annually since 1975.
The 2020 Hunger Report, Better Nutrition, Better Tomorrow, charts a path to ending global hunger and malnutrition by tackling structural inequities within food systems. COVID-19 has made these inequities more visible than ever.
People experiencing malnutrition and poverty are especially vulnerable to chronic health conditions and infectious diseases. In the 2020 Hunger Report, we focus on the importance of good nutrition and the systems needed to deliver it sustainably and equitably. This topic was crucial before the COVID-19 crisis, and the pandemic underscores the main messages of the report.
The report includes several inspirational stories from the United States and around the world showing how food system reform is more than just necessary, but also possible.
Past Reports
The 2019 Hunger Report, Back to Basics: How to End Hunger by 2030 offers solutions to both U.S. and global hunger. The report explores five challenges that require more attention to achieve a world without hunger: nutrition, livelihoods, gender, fragility, and climate change.
The 2018 Hunger Report, The Jobs Challenge: Working to End Hunger by 2030, outlines recommendations to improve job opportunities and wages. It offers Congress a menu of policies that would improve job opportunities for low-income workers, and argues that improving job opportunities is crucial to overcoming hunger and poverty.
The 2017 Hunger Report, Fragile Environments, Resilient Communities, explains how state fragility stands in the way of ending hunger and extreme poverty. Fragile states are countries where high rates of hunger and poverty are compounded by civil conflict, poor governance, and vulnerability to climate change.
The 2016 Hunger Report, The Nourishing Effect: Ending Hunger, Improving Health, Reducing Inequality, explores the connections among hunger, food insecurity, and health problems in the United States.
The 2015 Hunger Report, When Women Flourish … We Can End Hunger, examines the links between global women’s empowerment and ending hunger and malnutrition. One cannot be achieved without the other. Gender equality depends on strengthening women’s bargaining power, reducing their burden of unpaid work, and building a collective voice in public life.
The 2014 report, Ending Hunger in America, provides a detailed, four-part plan to end hunger in the U.S.
Other resources
The Institute also produces briefing papers, fact sheets, and infographics. All resources are designed for an audience of policymakers and activists.
Areas of focus
The Institute’s current analysis and advocacy areas include:
- global hunger and poverty
- U.S. hunger and poverty
- U.S. populations most impacted by hunger
- U.S. international development assistance
- global sustainable development goals
- maternal / child nutrition
- food security and smallholder agriculture
- immigration
Laying the Groundwork for Advocacy
Solving a complex problem such as hunger requires a clear understanding of the impact of specific policies and how policies affect each other. The Institute’s nonpartisan analysis and identification of action steps help strengthen Bread as a trusted voice in national life.
Tools
from our Resource Library
For Education
Election Resources
One of the best times to raise the issues of hunger and poverty is during election campaigns. Engage candidates in your state/district on hunger and poverty using our elections resources.U.S. Hunger and Poverty State Fact Sheets
These fact sheets provide a snapshot of hunger and poverty in the United States and in each state plus Washington, D.C.
Fact Sheet: COVID-19 Global Pandemic, Better Nutrition Protects Lives
With the coronavirus now spreading in low-resource contexts and new waves of infection expected in the coming year, better nutrition for vulnerable people is more important than ever.
For Faith
Finding Hope, Ending Hunger on Both Sides of the Border: A Bilingual Latino Devotional
Devotional writers challenge us to feel the Spirit of God within us and to hear God’s urgent call to demand justice so all can put food on the table.The Bible on Health as a Hunger Issue
“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in faith.” These words from Colossians 2:6 remind us of the faith that is active in love for our neighbors.
The Bible on...
Unity Declaration on Racism and Poverty
A diverse body of Christian leaders calls on the churches and Congress to focus on the integral connection.
Dear Members of Congress,
As the president and Congress are preparing their plans for this year, almost 100 church leaders—from all the families of U.S. Christianity—are...
For Advocacy
Fact Sheet: Coronavirus (COVID-19) and SNAP
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is designed to respond to changes in need, making it well suited to respond to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fact Sheet: Why We Need $200 Million for Global Nutrition Programs
Bread for the World and its partners are asking Congress to provide $200 million for global nutrition in the fiscal year 2020 budget.
Fact Sheet: Hunger by the Numbers
In 2017, 11.8 percent of households in the U.S.—40 million people—were food-insecure, meaning that they were unsure at some point during the year about how they would provide for their next meal.