Although more than 35,000 meals are served on MSU’s campus daily, President M. Peter McPherson worries about food production an ocean away.
To ease the concern, the university’s chief executive met with leaders from the United States and Africa in Washington, D.C., last week to unveil a 15-year plan to cut hunger in Africa.
“There are many institutions that were there and interested,” McPherson said. “This is a report to figure out what to do and get it done.
“This wasn’t just a report for people to read. I’m looking on getting this done.”
Last year, McPherson convinced colleagues from universities across the country to hire a lobbyist to help increase aid to Africa.
But by forming the Partnership to Cut Hunger in Africa, McPherson has teamed up with the president of Mali, former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole and former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton.
The group’s plan includes requests for crop research, improved communication, increased education and ideas to relieve African nations of other problems in the way of food, like poor roads and difficult economic policies.
“It’s been echoed time and time again, food is at the center of development,” McPherson said. “I think the conference did have a real impact on public policy. I think there is more interest because of this conference and because of this report.”
Although he is spending time in Washington for an internship, the conference certainly interested Jeff Ziarko, the director of university, governmental and budgetary affairs for ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government.
“I figured that I’d go and it would be an incredible learning experience and it was,” he said. “I was just really impressed that our university was taking a strong and active role. Clearly, MSU has played a very strong role in this partnership.”
Ziarko said he was glad to see the cooperation between land-grant universities to aid in development so many miles away.
“It’s absolutely the kind of role that land grant universities should be doing,” he said. “It was interesting to see so many different perspectives on development, especially those from African participants. Our whole campus really has been exposed to a lot of different viewpoints on development, but that’s not one we see very often.
“The number of protests that we’ve seen on the campus indicates that there are an awful lot of folks concerned about developing countries.”
While the development effort from MSU to Washington to Africa might be new, McPherson is no stranger to the situation.
After graduating from MSU in 1963, the man who would become MSU’s 19th president served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru. He led the U.S. Agency for International Development during Africa’s Great Famine and worked for Latin American and Canadian development through the Bank of America.
McPherson and former AID administrator Brian Atwood were both honored for their work on African development while in Washington by the IDC, formerly the International Development Conference.
“It was just wonderful serendipity that he was there to receive the award,” said Karen Mulhauser, chairwoman of the IDC board. “When people are asked about our role in the world, they recognize that we’re a leader, but we haven’t heard enough about what kind of leader we are.
“Any effort that a college president can do to raise awareness is helpful.”
Jamie Gumbrecht can be reached at gumbrec1@msu.edu.
