Beckmann Receives World Food Prize as New Book on Hunger Releases

“David Beckmann and Bread for the World have done an extraordinary job not only in providing positive responses in the fight against hunger but in helping to lead the way in terms of development and urging the United States to improve coordination and better target our investments and to learn from local communities.” —Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State

David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World and one of the leading advocates for ending hunger in this country and abroad, received the 2010 World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 14, 2010. The announcement was first made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in June. The award comes with the release of a new book on ending hunger from Westminster John Knox Press: Exodus from Hunger: We Are Called to Change the Politics of Hunger.

In his new book, Beckmann, a bilingual, fifteen-year veteran of the World Bank who has lived in Ghana and Bangladesh, argues that we can end world hunger in our lifetime. Beckmann looks at the causes of hunger, presents case studies of countries that have made great strides against it, and shares stories of people who are hungry every day. The book is an impassioned plea for people of faith and others to muster the political will to end hunger. Nobel Prize Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote the foreword.

Beckmann’s efforts at the helm of Bread for the World have resulted in a tripling of U.S. funding for antihunger programs in developing countries and a significant increase in funding for child nutrition programs here at home. He has been called to testify before Congress nearly twenty times, appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives.

In addition to leading Bread for the World, Beckmann also founded and serves as president of the Alliance to End Hunger, helped found the ONE Campaign with Bono, and appears regularly in mainstream and religious media. A Lutheran minister and the author of several books, Beckmann has a degree from the London School of Economics. Visit: www.exodusfromhunger.org.

Exodus from Hunger:
We Are Called to Change the Politics of Hunger
David Beckmann
Westminster John Knox Press
October 2010 • $14.95 • 9780664236847 • Paper