The Kosmos Energy Hunger Relief Program

As the COVID-19 pandemic developed, Kosmos recognized the need to do more than just help meet medical needs – we needed to take action to address the pandemic’s short- and long-term impacts on the economies and communities of our host countries.

Harnessing the local knowledge and deep community involvement of our employees, we quickly came to understand that hunger, food insecurity, and the disruption of food supply chains were universal issues across our host countries. According to World Bank estimations, the number of acutely food insecure individuals globally rose from 149 million in 2019 to 272 million at the end of 2020 – an increase of more than 80 percent. 

We began to think strategically about how we could best meet these needs – and that’s when we launched the employee-led Hunger Relief Program. By sourcing ideas from local employees, we designed unique, fit-for-purpose programs to meet the most pressing community needs in each of our host countries. A few highlights:

• In Dallas we partnered with Restorative Farms, a local nonprofit that’s addressing food deserts and food insecurity by helping to create a new, self-sustaining market for urban agriculture that both fosters job creation and expands access to healthy, affordable produce.
• In Houston we worked with Brighter Bites, an organization that delivers fresh produce to families in need while simultaneously providing education on nutrition and how to use produce to make a lasting impact on community health.
• In Ghana we harnessed the innovative thinking of our Kosmos Innovation Center to partner with the James Camp Prison, where we’re supporting and training inmates on cultivating vegetables, mushrooms and snails. We also donated approximately $50,000 in food items to families and other correctional facilities.

We will continue to use the innovative thinking of our employees and partner with leaders in the space to fight food insecurity in our communities.