USAID/Guinea: Food for Peace -- Battling Hunger Worldwide

APRIL 25, 2003

Food for Peace -- Battling Hunger Worldwide

USAID's P.L. 480 Title II program is tackling world hunger, a problem that is both a strategic and a humanitarian concern.

Commited to Reducing Hunger Worldwide

Over the next five years,the U.S. Government through USAID is renewing its leadership in the provision of agricultural development assistance. This is framed by a new agricultural strategy that reflects adaptations to major emerging opportunities. These new opportunities include:

Accelerating agriculture science-based solutions, especially using biotechnology, to reduce poverty and hunger;

Developing global and domestic trade opportunities for farmers and rural industries;

Extending training for developing world scientists and agricultural extension services to third world farmers;and

Promoting sustainable agriculture and sound environmental management.
These "new agriculture" initiatives provide the framework for our future activities.

Under each initiative, the Agency proposes to launch a set of activities that broadly signal a shift in USAID leadership in this sector and may leverage new commitments and funding from others.

Equally important, agricultural development is now understood to be a part, not the whole, of the solution. Investments in infrastructure, health, and education both reinforce and are made more viable by investments in agricultural growth.

Food security is not simply a problem to be tackled in difficult places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, or in numerous countries on the African continent like Guinea and Sierra Leone -- food security is a global concern, and as such is everybody's problem. More than 800 million people worldwide are seriously malnourished, and three-quarters of these affected populations live in rural areas. In view of these alarming statistics, the United States joined forces with other partner countries and donors during the World Food Summit 2002 to aim at cutting hunger in half worldwide by 2015.

For the United States, global hunger is both a humanitarian concern and a strategic problem. Famine, which causes widespread starvation and associated mortality, is not caused by draught alone--it is a complicated phenomenon that has its origins in economic crises. Regressive agricultural policies, failed markets and States, destructive conflict along with social and traditional beliefs can all cause great hunger, particularly when combined with unfavorable environmental conditions, and high rates of HIV/AIDS. Famine and food insecurity fuel both political instability and environmental degradation, and are of particular concern on the African continent.

USAID, addresses the food needs of developing countries through a variety of programs. The P.L. 480 Title II program, administered by USAID's Office of Food for Peace, is the flagship of U.S. humanitarian efforts overseas. The largest of the USAID programs, and the one that exclusively addresses the nutritional needs of vulnerable groups, the Title II program takes action against the root causes of food insecurity, and offers resources to help those in need and in crisis.

Part of the solution to food insecurity is found in the types of activities that the Title II program sponsors, which work to resolve local causes of food insecurity by creating availability of and access to food through increased agricultural productivity, improving nutrition through proper utilization of existing food resources, and creating employment and income-generating initiatives. The Title II program also works synergistically with other USAID-sponsored programs in education, health, democracy and natural resource management to increase agricultural productivity, and eliminate the problems that exacerbate food insecurity.

Title II programs in Guinea and Sierra Leone

The Title II program includes food commodities and dollar grants to transport and manage the food but also to monitor and evaluate program impact. These grants, together with the Strengthening Institutional Assistance (ISA) funding, support Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs) and Cooperative Development Organizations (CDOs) to:

better target development food aid activities

promote increased household or national food security

develop further and to implement common, generic food program performance indicators and mutually acceptable methodologies

establish sound program monitoring and evaluation systems

The World Food Program (WFP) receives between 30% and 35% of its food donations worldwide from the Title II program. Most of these commodities are used to feed refugees and other displaced persons but also in School Feeding, Maternal Child Health and extensive Food for Work programs to build productive assets and protect the environment.

In Guinea, the Title II program, carried out through local food monetization, supports food security programs intended for the most food-insecure zones in the Republic of Guinea. Rural communities in these zones are assisted by Africare, OICI and ADRA in improving health and nutrition practices, agricultural production, natural resources management, and in increasing incomes through micro-enterprise projects.

In Sierra Leone, over 200,000 internally displaced persons have returned home and are no longer dependent on food aid. PVOs and WFP currently support the transition out of the crisis toward reconstruction and development with Title II food packages to returning refugees for the period of resettlement and to rehabilitate lowland rice farms and fruit tree plantations. A three-year program for rehabilitation and reconstruction using proceeds from in-country sale of Title II commodities is under review for funding. Liberian refugees and young malnourished children and their mothers receive care and food assistance. Liberian refugees in camps continue to receive food rations. Developmental School Feeding and Maternal Child Health programs are ready for implementation in 2004.

Better Worldwide Food Security Means that Everyone Benefits

USAID programs like P.L. 480 Title II being carried out in Guinea and in Sierra Leone, which work to reduce hunger and food insecurity, benefit the U.S. both indirectly and directly. U.S. citizens, through their own humanitarian instincts, have long been in support of conveying food aid to those in great need, whether within the U.S. or elsewhere throughout the world.

Broader knowledge of world events through globalization, including information now available on the Internet, has also increased U.S. citizen's knowledge of current and looming crises, and has better equipped the U.S. Government to find appropriate responses to these crises and to react in time.

Critical situations like the war in Iraq, reconstruction in Afghanistan, or the recent threat of famine in Southern Africa, Eritrea and Ethiopia often necessitate a more immediate humanitarian response. On the average, the P.L. 480 program has provided more than 2.0 million tons of U.S. agricultural commodities per year to countries in need, with a value of more than $850 million. It is expected that the program will provide in excess of 3.0 million metric tons worldwide in 2003.

U.S. farmers and the U.S. business community benefit directly through exports associated with humanitarian and development needs. As Gary Martin, the President and CEO of the North American Export Trade Associations, recently stated in a speech to the Capitol Hill Forum, "that the best, most sustainable way to stimulate the growth of U.S. farm exports is to provide for income growth in developing countries." By taking care of those who struggle every day simply to feed themselves and their families, we are learning that everybody benefits.

Article by Laura Lartigue, with Kathrin Lauer, Emergency Food For Peace Officer, West Africa