Guidance and Tools for Global Food Security Programs FY 2022-2026
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The U.S. Government Global Food Security Strategy (2022–2026)
The U.S. Government’s Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS), which guides the Feed the Future Initiative, presents an integrated approach to combating the root causes of hunger, malnutrition, and poverty.
The strategy reflects lessons learned from implementing Feed the Future for over a decade and charts a course for the U.S. Government and its partners to achieve a more food-secure future across the globe.
The GFSS maintains key tenets of the original Feed the Future model while making adjustments to account for changes in the local context and lessons learned. Of particular note, resilience is elevated within the strategy’s objectives, alongside agriculture-led growth and improved nutrition. The updated strategy serves as a vigorous response to the challenges of our moment, including COVID-19, conflict, inequity, and climate change.
Browse the resources below for more information on the GFSS, Activity Design Guidances, and additional tools for designing Feed the Future activities.
Activity Design Guidances for Implementing the U.S. Government’s Global Food Security Strategy 2022-2026
The Activity Design Guidance documents provide a shared understanding of key concepts and best practices for designing and implementing Feed the Future activities under the Global Food Security Strategy. Aid effectiveness principles are core to implementation across these technical areas.
Implementers are strongly encouraged to refer to multiple relevant GFSS Activity Design Guidance documents in conjunction for best implementation practices and suggestions for designing activities.

Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment
This guidance describes how to design and implement programming that is both effective and gender-sensitive/-transformative.

Climate-Smart Agriculture and Food Systems
This document provides guidance for achieving climate change adaptation and mitigation outcomes in Feed the Future activity designs.

Conflict Integration
This guidance shares the key principles and lessons learned on designing activities, and provides promising programming examples and practices from Feed the Future investments to date.

Diets and Food Safety
This guidance describes best practices, clarifies concepts, recommends programming principles, and provides links to technical resources for diets and food safety.

Digital Technology
This guidance shares how digital technologies can be used effectively to support the achievement of development objectives, and how to integrate the usage of digital tools into activities.

Diversifying Livelihoods, Resilience, and Pathways Out of Poverty
This guidance document discusses how diversifying livelihood strategies and risks on- and off-farm can contribute to a comprehensive risk management approach.

Employment and Entrepreneurship
This guidance shares examples, various intervention approaches, and the steps to take to ensure programming helps economically poor households and the diverse circumstances.

Finance: Unlocking Capital Flows
This guidance addresses catalyzing private capital flows in activities that impact all areas of Feed the Future programming, and shares relevant points to think about when designing activities that utilize finance.

Improved Water Resources Management for Agricultural Systems
This guidance shares examples of WRM interventions, how to improve interventions of WRM of agricultural systems at the localized level, and concludes with additional resources and tools.

Increased Sustainable Agricultural Productivity
This guidance shares approaches to increasing sustainable agricultural productivity, components of sustainable agricultural productivity growth, how to design activities, and gives examples of programming in practice.

Integrating a Market Systems Approach in Programming
This guidance describes how using an inclusive market systems approach in programming can advance the GFSS, provides activity examples, and identifies resources for design and implementation.

Integrating Private Sector Engagement in Programming
This guidance shares how to work with the private sector to design and deliver development and humanitarian programs across all sectors, and to harness resources to open markets.

Investing in Livestock and Animal Source Food Systems
This guidance shares production system-specific opportunities and approaches for designers to consider, as well as a process map to guide the design of livestock investments.

Natural Resource Management
This guidance shares guiding questions to improve current integration approaches in a more coordinated, systematic manner when designing activities, and examples of programming in practice.

Programming Approaches for Policy Systems Strengthening
The purpose of this document is to provide guidance on the USAID-led design and implementation of activities that promote evidence-based policy systems in support of the GFSS.

Scaling for Widespread Adoption of Improved Technologies and Practices
This document shares guidance on how to incorporate scaling improved technologies and practices into development efforts to reduce hunger, malnutrition, and poverty.

Social Protection
This guidance discusses the opportunities, gaps and leverage points within the national social protection system and programs, and identifies how GFSS programming can strengthen and scale these.

Strengthened Resilience Among People and Systems
This guidance discusses the resilience approaches to designing USAID activities, the common resilience principles and approaches, and shares examples of programming in practice.

Supporting Agricultural Trade for Improved Food Security Programming
This guidance shares how to design trade-related activities, and the principles and types of trade interventions that could be undertaken to achieve IRs across the GFSS results framework.

Sustainable Aquaculture Production Systems
This guidance shares how sustainable, responsible, and adaptive aquaculture can help achieve the GFSS strategic objectives, provides programming examples, and lists guiding questions for designing activities.

Sustainable Fisheries Management
This guidance shares how to sustainably optimize production, how to achieve the GFSS strategic objectives through programming examples, and guiding questions to consider when designing a fisheries activity.

Youth Empowerment and Livelihoods in Food Systems
This document aims to synthesize key messages and information on how to integrate attention to youth (ages 10–29) into Feed the Future work programs and share programming examples.

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Additional Resources
USAID works in a variety of different technical areas, including: Agriculture, Economic Growth, Environment, Education, Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance, Women’s Empowerment, Water and Sanitation, and Global Health. Access tools and learn more by visiting the following resources::