The drought and resulting famine throughout the Horn of Africa, for millions in the region, mark 2011 as devastating. But what will 2012 (and beyond) look like for global hunger relief efforts?

As President Obama said in a speech last week announcing $113 million in emergency relief for those facing famine in the Horn of Africa:

"As we enter the season of giving and renewal, more than 13.3 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia remain in urgent need of humanitarian assistance amid the worst drought the region has seen in 60 years."

But, as Tom Murphy writes on the Huffington Post yesterday, a focus on "resilience" may signal hope for the ways in which future disasters are handled - and even averted:

"Resiliency has become the word of choice and de facto mantra chanted by USAID administrator Raj Shah. This reflects an organizational shift of focus in its programming in response to the 5-month-old famine in the Horn of Africa (HoA)."

The goal? To unite short-term relief (assistance) with long-term development. In other words, as USAID's Feed the Future program seeks to accomplish: build the resiliency of the most food-insecure nations to weather droughts, improve these countries' capacity to address severe undernutrition, and invest in agricultural development-especially for small-farmers.

These are not simply programs on a page, however. The most vulnerable African nations, along with the U.S. government and the private sector, are taking action.

Murphy explains, "The 20 countries covered by Feed the Future represent some of the world's most food insecure...While the present focus is on the HoA, it is the Sahel that is starting to draw concerns from the likes of the World Food Programme who warns that Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali are at significant danger of seeing widespread starvation due to poor rains and high food prices."

Murphy offers a glimpse into the ways in which the U.S. government, in partnership with these 20 African nations, is diving into a "collaborative, global effort" in the fight against hunger. It's worth reading the entire article for an overview.

If you’d like to take immediate action, the Feed the Future website offers concrete ways to get involved in this global fight against hunger; to save the millions of lives lost every year to hunger and under-nutrition.