"Drought does not need to mean famine," according to Niger's president, who adds that the country is tired of needing help and not being able to feed its own people. "We need to escape from emergency aid. We need to help our population produce and provide for itself."

"How they relate to God and their fellow man, their diet, their exercise, their avoidance of tobacco and alcohol—all of that collectively contributes to longevity," says Loma Linda University public health professor Larry Beeson.

In the Orthodox Christian tradition fasting is not about deprivation, says Catherine Mandell, author of "When You Fast: Recipes for Lenten Seasons."

“When we say grace we are grateful for the food on our plates. But where did that food travel? Who picked it? How did it get to us? As people of faith we are called to think about that.”

"When we’ve had that political will to reduce poverty, we’ve been able to do it in our country, and that’s what we need to mobilize now," says Reverend David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World.

"They don’t believe that either change is possible there or that their money, or their resources, what they give, will actually translate into something different on the ground. That’s the crisis that we’re seeing," says American Refugee Committee president Daniel Wordsworth.

"This is a new wave of activism through what one eats, that what we eat and what we buy is a vote of confidence in our highest values," says Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz.

“There is acute embarrassment that the second-fastest growing economy in the world has almost half of its children malnourished,” says social researcher Biraj Patnaik.

We visit a Virginia mosque that feeds Muslims and non-Muslims alike at its daily iftar meal to break the Ramadan fast.

An interfaith coalition is launching a prayer and fasting campaign to protect federal funding for programs that help the poor.