Dear Colleague,

Today the UN Commission on Social Development (CSocD55) focuses on creating strategies to end poverty. We encourage everyone to remember that strategies for ending poverty must be Local and Female if we are to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development (SDGs). We recently published a piece in The Huffington Post on the UN Secretary-General's report and how to localize and engender his six key elements. Please read and share it now.

Community-led Development (CLD) is becoming more mainstream! Two of our member organizations -- NCBA/CLUSA and Catholic Relief Services will help establish a local Community Development Fund as part of the new $50 million Communities Leading Development Project in Guatemala funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Other project partners include Mercy Corps, ADIPO, Caritas Los Altos and Caritas San Marcos.

At the January Meeting of our movement, Karina Weinstein presented a webinar on the FXBVillage Model - a time-bound, sustainable and holistic methodology that simultaneously tackles interconnected drivers of poverty eradication: nutrition, education, health, housing and income — enabling communities to escape extreme poverty. Click here to watch the recording or download the presentation.

We look forward to bringing you news as new chapters of our movement get underway in Cambodia, Haiti, Kenya, Nepal, Senegal and Uganda and engage with their governments on Localizing the SDGs. Thanks for your partnership!

John Coonrod
Executive Vice President, The Hunger Project