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Office of Food for Peace
The Development Challenge: U.S. Government support for overseas food aid was formalized in the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, also known as Public Law (P.L.) 480. The basic legislation, which has been modified many times, establishes the U.S. policy for using abundant U.S. agricultural resources and food processing capabilities to enhance food security in the developing world through the provision of culturally acceptable nutritious food commodities. On a global level, according to the 2003 update of "State of Food Insecurity," by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), over 840 million people were chronically undernourished during the 1999-2001 reporting period. For the United States, reducing the number of chronically undernourished and underweight people throughout the world is both a humanitarian concern and a strategic goal. Food resources are given to those in need to deal with hunger and to eliminate the food insecurity that fuels political instability and environmental degradation. P.L. 480 Title II, administered by USAID's Office of Food for Peace (FFP), is a people-to-people program, from the people of the United States to people who do not have access to sufficient food to meet their needs for healthy and productive lives.
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The USAID Program: According to current estimates, by the year 2030 world population will rise from the present 5.7 billion to 8.7 billion. As populations grow, per capita availability of arable land will decrease even further, thus heightening the need for intensification of agricultural production and increasing the demands on finite natural resources. At the 2002 World Food Summit, the U.S. Government reaffirmed its commitment addressing hunger.
As of July 2003, 36 countries around the world faced serious food emergencies requiring international food assistance. The causes of these food shortages are varied, complex, and ongoing in many cases for over 10 years. These emergency crises are expected to continue in FY 2004. Title II food security programs are being increasingly integrated with Development Assistance (DA) resources and regional and country strategic plans with a view to promote synergies and to reduce food aid monetization levels, where appropriate. Bioengineered products represent another new challenge for USAID and its food partners. In 2003, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, governing the transboundary movement of whole grain food aid shipments, went into effect. Parties to the Biosafety Protocol are those countries that have ratified the Protocol. An interagency working group developed a policy for addressing requirements of the Protocol in U.S. food aid programs and issued guidance to USAID program partners. To date, no food aid shipments have been delayed due to the Protocol, though this remains largely untested, as few whole grain shipments have arrived in Party countries since the Protocol's entry into force. Several food aid recipient countries have draft regulations that would restrict the use of corn or soybeans in food aid programs, e.g. Uganda, Tanzania, Angola.
As part of the Administration's effort to improve performance measures and results reporting, USAID's FFP Office has initiated a series of streamlining and management improvement actions to further improve Title II operations. The July 2003 streamlining report to Congress identified and recommended several priority action items that include simplification of guidelines and proposal procedures, clarification and proper interpretation of regulatory requirements, and support to modernize information systems. Implementation of the priority recommendations began in FY 2003 and will continue during FY 2004 and beyond.
The FFP Office is developing its new five-year strategic plan that will support the bureau strategic planning framework focused on fragile, failed and failing states. The FFP Office's plan will target efforts toward working together with partners and other DCHA offices, regional bureaus, other pillar bureaus and missions within USAID to predict, prevent and respond to malnutrition and potential famine overseas.
As a part of the USAID reorganization in 2002, the Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) program was transferred to the FFP Office, and expanded with a worldwide focus while simultaneously providing a platform to more efficiently target Title II emergency and development programming toward the root causes of famine worldwide. In order to help USAID fulfill the Administrator's "no famines on our watch" commitment, the Agency's FEWS NET activity has two principal program objectives. The first is to ensure that decision-makers are supplied with the best information available to address incipient emergency, and chronic, food security problems. It does this by working in collaboration with a network of host-country, regional, and international partners to produce timely and credible early warnings and food security analyses of food availability or access problems in vulnerable, food insecure populations. The network approach also serves as the vehicle for FEWS NET's second principal objective of building a sustained institutional and human capacity in network partners in early warning and food security assessment.
To achieve these objectives, the FEWS NET activity, has designed and contracted for an integrated suite of state-of-the-art technical support capabilities in early warning and food security and vulnerability assessment, from a group of implementing partners that includes the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Department of Agriculture, the United States Geological Survey, and Chemonics International. Since its start in 1985, FEWS NET technical services available through these contracts have been regularly reviewed, re-designed and improved, and FEWS NET is generally considered to be a world leader in early warning and food security assessment.
The FY 2005 request level of the Title II program represents a straight line from the FY 2004 budget. Beneficiaries are food insecure and nutritionally vulnerable persons affected by conflict or natural disasters. Primary implementing partners are the World Food Program (WFP) and private voluntary organizations (PVOs). Emergency activities in FY 2003 were marked by an exceptional number of complex food security crises that tested the logistical and management capacity of the FFP Office. Over 2.1 million metric tons of commodities valued at $1.3 billion were distributed to over 75 million beneficiaries during the year. The largest humanitarian food response ever was launched in Iraq, following the beginning of the conflict in March 2003. These responses took place against a backdrop of ongoing, complex emergency situations in other countries, such as Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Uganda. The development food aid program is the single largest source of USAID funding focused on decreasing chronic food insecurity among vulnerable populations with program approvals in FY 2003 valued at over $411 million. Title II development activities integrate a range of technical interventions at the community-level, with a focus on improving household nutrition and agricultural productivity. Additionally, Title II development activities often play a critical role in strengthening civil society by working with community-level counterparts to strengthen local capacity for strategic planning and decision making, promoting local ownership of the development process, and supporting and reinforcing decentralized policies.
Although the Title II program will operate under one strategic objective beginning in the spring of 2004, it will continued to track emergency and non-emergency resources as they relate to the congressional mandates of metric tonnage food aid programming which require a minimum of 2,500,000 metric ton grain equivalent of total food aid programmed, with 1,875,000 of that dedicated for non-emergency requirements, as indicated in the 2002 Farm Bill.
In addition to programs in the FFP Office, $10 million annually of Title II funds are used to support the Farmer-to-Farmer Program that mobilizes the knowledge and skills of United States agricultural volunteers, land grant universities, cooperatives, private agribusinesses, and nonprofit farm organizations to help farmers in USAID-assisted countries to increase food production and improve the effectiveness of marketing and distribution systems. This program, previously managed by the Office of Private and Voluntary Cooperation has been transferred to USAID's Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade.
Other Program Elements: The strength of the nation's international food assistance program is USAID's presence around the world and its numerous organizational partnerships. USAID collaborates closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of State, other USAID offices and field missions to ensure that both emergency and non-emergency food aid programs are coordinated and effective. USAID works in close partnership with PVOs, indigenous organizations, universities, American businesses, international agencies, and other governments. USAID has relationships with a large number of American companies and U.S.-based PVOs, allowing for greater creativity and effectiveness in incorporating food into a wide range of development efforts.
In FY 2004, as in FY 2003, the FFP Office will manage the $6 million multilateral grant to the World Food Program (WFP) that was formerly handled by the State Department. In FY 2005, the Administration has again requested that this component be reinstated in the International Organizations and Programs budget of the Department of State, rather than in the P.L. 480 Title II budget. The purpose of the grant is to support the use of P.L. 480 Title II commodities in emergency and non-emergency programs within the WFP portfolio and to ensure transparency and use of proper administrative controls within WFP.
Other Donors: The World Food Summit of 2002, convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), provided an international forum to focus attention on efforts to address hunger and food insecurity. The United States, along with 182 nations and the European Community, pledged to halve the number of hungry people by the year 2015. The United States is one of a number of international donors supporting global food aid activities. In 2003, the U.S. contributed 51% of global food aid, the European Commission 10%, Japan 5%, United Kingdom 5%, Germany 3%, Netherlands 3%, Canada 3%, Australia 3%, and other donors 17%.
Please see Summary Tables volume for breakout of P.L. 480 Title II funding and tonnage by country for FY 2002 through FY 2005.
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