Recasting Food Aid’s Policies:
The Particulars and The Politics
Jarkyn Samanchina
Massimo Pagnoni
Mahira Sheikh
Reforms needed
Improved targeting by operational agencies
Global food aid agreement involving both
donors and recepient countries
Change in structure, conduct and performance
of food aid globally (WTO Doha Round, next
Farm Bill in the U.S. Congress)
Strong legislative leadership to satisfy interests
of all parties
A) International Policy Changes
Needed
 Recommendation
1:
Negotiate a new Global Food
Aid Compact to replace the
expired Food Aid Convention
 FAC: minimum volume of food aid
not to disrupt commercial trade;
food aid slow to untie (U.S.)
 GFAC: include donors, recipient
country governments and agencies –
ownership and responsibility
WFP distributes food in
Palestinian schools
GFAC to commit donor countries to
 Tonnage minima: three quarters of projected global emergency needs;
surplus to be stored and used unrestrictedly through IEFR for future
emergencies
 Adequate complimentary financial resources and relaxation of rules
mandating donor-country procurement, processing and shipping services
 Cash: GFAC to include untied donor minimum financial contributions to
WFP and NGO signatories to FGAC at least equal in value to their physical
volume commitments (inefficiency of IMF’s CFF)
Linking GFAC to WTO agreement to
reduce trade-related disputes over
food aid
 Make WTO’s proven trade-related disciplines and
dispute resolution mechanisms available for food
aid
 Establish a GFAC Secretariat within WFP cochaired by WTO and OECD-DAC
 Recognize interlinkages between food aid, global
agricultural trade and overseas development
assistance
Recommendation 2:
Restore real global development assistance flows – not just
emergency assistance
Foreign aid is necessary for effective food aid: decline of aid to low-income
countries in last decade
“Relief trap” – emergency spending crowding out development spending
Food insecurity mostly in rural areas – agricultural and rural development
important to coherent strategy of poverty and food insecurity reduction
B) United State Policy Changes
Needed
American food aid programs
remain stuck in a model
crafted in a very different era
 Designed mainly for surplus
disposal
 Used as a tool to promote
commercial agricultural exports
and advance American geopolitical
interests (proved false)
 Achieved partial success in
development and humanitarian
assistance
Food Aid Distribution In Liberia
Recommendation 3:
Negotiate reductions in outdated forms of food aid in exchange
for reductions in EU export subsidies that harm both US and
developing country farmers
 WTO’s Doha Round negotations heavily emphasize agricultural trade
liberalization
 Agriculture (10%) is the most heavily protected sector: two thirds of economic
gains from complete liberalization of trade would come from agriculture
 Heavy tax on local consumers, yet powerful domestic farm lobbies
 WB estimates that ending trade-distorting farm subsidies and tariffs would increase
global wealth by over $800 billion and lift over 150 million people out of poverty by
2015
Recommendation 4:
Focus on quicker and more flexible
emergency response
 Food aid is impactful in saving lives during emergencies and in
post-crisis recoveries
 Shipping food is expensive due to the current U.S mandates.
Improved by :
 the congress giving the USAID Administrator authority to
deploy food aid in the early stages of emergencies without the
usual mandates on domestic procuremnet, bagging and US
flag carrier shipment.
Recommendation 5:
Eliminate bureaucratic duplication
 Federal Government consolidated 6 food
aid programs into 2 agencies (USAID-USDA)
USAID – Sudan
 OMB proposed that these should run into
a single program  USAID
 Recognizing food aid as just one tool among several saves money by
reducing bureaucratic duplication of effort and thus makes it more effective
Recommendation 6:
Within current budgets, adapt the resource to fit the
application
 While direct distribution of food can address hunger in emergencies, it is not sufficient
to address the causes of hunger
 American policy should focus more on food security and less on food as a resource.
Increase in cash resources for development programming by NGOs
Cheaper to prevent crisis than to respond to them!
Political will should be enhanced
Increased coordination among NGOs
 Leads to improvement. Less variant changes are already taking shape in Iraq.
 Not only the U.S but other bilateral donors need to make food aid policy
changes
 No precise recommendations  Variations between different bilateral donors
as to the most desirable reforms
 Donors, especially Japan, need to mainstream food aid with development
assistance and reduce the influence of food aid by ministries and enterprises
 Canada  instructive since food aid comes from a central aid budget, making
the tradeoffs between food and cash clear to decision-makers
 EU  needs to increase the efficiencies at their approval and disbursement
 Local and national governments need to become more proactive. This
requires:
Direct government action
Increased cooperation with operational agencies and donors.
 Recipient countries: that are chronically vulnerable to food crises need
well-managed food security
 pre-arranged letters of credit for food imports in order to be adequately
efficient in the early stages of an emergency
Recommendation 7:
Improve the targeting of food aid.
 Improvement is needed to continue to improve
targeting not only who should receive food aid, but
what kind of assistance and when they need it
 Achieved by having good information and experienced
food distribution staff
Recommendation 8:
Use food aid only where it is appropriate.
 Food aid has been used as a resource in various ways :
 To address acute hunger
 To improve agricultural production, health and education
 Food aid is ideally suited when it addresses acute food insecurity in humanitarian
emergencies.
 Emergency food aid should be directed to the nutrient content of food aid transfers.
 An investment in long-term human capital – especially in protecting vulnerable
chidlren.
Reforms
 recasting food aid programs
a) Convincing the NGOs
 NGOs must take a leading role in mobilizing
public support for private and public funding
 This will enhance and not constrain the
alleviation of poverty
b) Addressing Maritime Interests
 Transport
a)
b)
c)
The biggest expenditure that does not directly benefit food aid (more than 40%)
U.S shippers have used programs at their own interests
Farm lobby and shippers make money at the expense of NGOs and poor people in whose
name the agricultural and maritime interests promote food aid
 Reforms:
a. Consolidate subsidies under a single program that will terminate cargo preference
conditions
b. Reduce slow-cost competition in food aid transport
c. Improve commercial competitiveness
c) Satisfying donor country agricultural interests
 In the agricultural sector there are few real beneficiaries from current food aid
programs.
 The total amount of food aid is not relevant with respect to the whole food
production (1%-2%)
Reforms:
 relaxing various restrictions
that make international food
assistance expensive and slow
F) The Politics of Reform
Other Supporters: 3 Main groups with overlapping interests
Foreign policy community
 national security interests are strictly related to global poverty reduction (MDG 1)
 this is a good occasion to restructure the system
 a way for strengthening the North-Atlantic relations
International financial community
 benefits directly from the reallocation of development assistance from food to cash
 stimulates demand for financial services (insurance against natural disaster)
 reduce commercial trade inefficiencies
Groups advocating for fiscal responsibility
 tax payers
 elimination of bureaucratic duplications (recommendation 5)
This can yield budgetary saving of nearly 20%
In the current World Food Security Summit, FAO Director-General
Jacques Diouf stresses:
“The world only needs 30 billion dollars a year to
eradicate hunger”
Global food aid system underperforms its potential due to
misguided policies: few significant policies and operational
change could make existing food aid more effective in
reducing poverty and hunger
This can be reached easily by recasting food aid