Urging the Administration to develop more effective and timely responses to famine in Africa, especially efforts to end the conflicts in South Sudan, Nigeria, and other countries that cause or exacerbate famine.

use all available leverage, including that of international partners, to achieve lasting, comprehensive cease-fires in cases of conflict;

work with governments to facilitate disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of combatants into a unified, professional national army or assistance in preparing former combatants to engage in productive occupations that eliminate the impulse to resort to banditry or other illegal pursuits;

use the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (22 U.S.C. 2656 note) to sanction individuals or entities responsible for initiating or prolonging conflict, endangering humanitarian aid workers, or preventing delivery of humanitarian aid;

apply all available weather and crop information to more accurately predict incipient drought and to determine the likelihood of famine in areas of conflict;

collaborate with other donor nations to accelerate the provision of food, clean water, medicine, and shelter to those in need;

expand the prepositioning of aid commodities in safe zones as close as possible to the region of famine to expedite their provision;

provide assistance to farmers, herders, and fishermen to encourage resilience in the long run and allow them to survive in the short term; and

use cash transfers to more quickly provide food aid where local markets exist in order to meet food needs in a more timely manner and to support the functioning of local markets; and

establish effective cease-fires and use force thereafter only when government forces or facilities or civilians are under attack;

publicly identify individuals and entities that actively threaten peace and safety and take police action against those who do so in areas under government control;

work with civil society, especially faith-based groups, to help end conflict at the grassroots level, effect reconciliation and deliver food, clean water, medicine, and shelter;

make every effort to facilitate the expeditious delivery of food, clean water, medicine, and shelter and do not erect bureaucratic impediments to the delivery of such aid;

contribute from their own resources to the greatest extent possible to provide food, clean water, medicine, and shelter to their own citizens;

protect humanitarian aid workers and the commodities they deliver, including providing security for convoys and facilities where feasible; and

take all appropriate actions to safeguard agricultural areas and farm personnel to help ensure the continued provision of locally produced food and the markets at which they could be sold.