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Food For Peace
>> Regional Overview >> Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance Overview THE DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE: U.S. support for overseas food aid was formalized in the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, also known as P.L. 480. The basic legislation, which has been modified many times, establishes the U.S. policy of using our abundant 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, more than 815 million people today are chronically undernourished. For the United States, reducing the number of chronically undernourished and underweight people throughout the world is both a humanitarian concern and strategic goal. Food resources are given to help those in need in an effort to eliminate the food insecurity that fuels political instability and environmental degradation. P.L. 480 Title II 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 a healthy and productive life.
THE USAID PROGRAM:
TITLE II EMERGENCY AND DEVELOPMENT FOOD AID ASSISTANCE. During 2001, the Administration completed an interagency management review of all U.S. foreign food assistance programs in order to improve feeding effectiveness, reform administration and reduce duplication, and ensure more reliable food aid by reducing the year-to-year reliance on surplus commodities. Three of the key conclusions of the review are the following:
- The Administration confirms its dedication to continue United States leadership in supplying food aid to vulnerable people worldwide and reaffirms that this assistance serves to accomplish our foreign policy objectives.
- The Administration will reduce the overall number of food assistance programs and redefine agency roles to eliminate inefficient overlap. Therefore, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will carry out government-to-government programs, and USAID is responsible for all programs carried out in cooperation with private voluntary organizations, cooperatives, and the World Food Program.
- The Administration plans on reducing the proportion of food aid that is monetized, or sold on private markets, with the proceeds used by private voluntary organizations to fund development activities over time in order to target humanitarian needs and to avoid commercial disruption.
The results of the Administration's review are reflected in USAID's FY 2003 request for the P.L. 480 Title II food program.
The request level for FY 2003 P.L. 480 Title II emergency and non-emergency food assistance is $1,185 million. Emergency assistance will increase to $565 million for private voluntary organizations (PVOs) and the World Food Program International Emergency Food Reserve. The current $410 million level of funding for PVO non-emergency Title II activities will be maintained to further reinforce qualitative results-oriented improvements. The balance of the FY 2003 request level is for the World Food Program pledge of $163 million, Section 202(e) funding at $34 million, $10 million for Farmer-to-Farmer, and $3 million for administrative support.
While positive results have been achieved in the use of emergency food aid to promote a return to normalcy, it is clear that the transition from emergency food aid activities to more stable developmental activities is not always direct. Given the need to respond to both protracted emergency food aid requirements as well as the sudden on-set emergencies caused by natural disasters and political and economic instability, the Office of Food for Peace (FFP) expects to judiciously allocate the resources available in FY 2003 for emergency food aid response. The request level includes an increase of approximately $300 million that will help offset critical coverage previously provided by Section 416(b) resources. The Administration's FY 2003 request also includes an increase in Section 202(e) funding from a ceiling of $28 million to $34 million to reflect a shift of $6 million to Title II from the Department of State's International Organizations and Programs account for the World Food Program. The request level also includes approximately $37 million of additional resources to offset the elimination of reimbursements from the Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration for cargo preference. It is important that the offset remain proportional to the appropriation level.
Non-emergency Title II activities for both the PVOs and the World Food Program (WFP) remained fairly constant from FY 2001 to FY 2002. The FFP Office provided up to $10 million in Title II resources for "children affected by HIV/AIDS" in FY 2001. More recently, FFP has encouraged PVOs to also review whether HIV/AIDs is a critical constraint to household food security and address HIV/AIDs within maternal child health or other sectorial activities. FFP firmly supports these activities in countries where HIV/AIDS has been identified as an impediment to food security.
P.L. 480 TITLE II EMERGENCY FOOD AID. P.L. 480 Title II food aid is the primary resource of the United States for responding expeditiously to the critical food needs of targeted vulnerable groups. FFP seeks to ensure that appropriate Title II emergency food aid is provided to the right people in the right places at the right time and in the right way. Vulnerable groups receiving food aid are those who, because of natural or man-made disasters, including prolonged civil strife, require food assistance to survive the emergency and begin the process of recovery. Categories of beneficiaries include internally displaced persons, refugees, newly resettled or new returnees, and vulnerable resident populations. Programming assistance frequently attempts to target specific categories of beneficiaries including children under five years of age, pregnant and nursing women, malnourished children and adults, and the elderly.
From 1999 through 2001, USAID and the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Foreign Agriculture Service continued a strategic alliance to integrate the availability of Section 416(b) surplus commodities into the Administration's plans for responding to emergency food aid needs around the world. As a result of this alliance, in calendar year (CY) 2001 the United States alone contributed 65% of the emergency food aid resources received by the United Nation's WFP with an estimated value of over $1 billion. These P.L. 480 Title II and Section 416(b) contributions through WFP, together with substantial additional contributions to PVOs, enabled the United States in FY 2001 to provide approximately $1 billion of critical emergency food assistance to tens of millions of beneficiaries around the world. In FY 2001, FFP's implementing partners (WFP and PVOs) were able to reach over 33 million beneficiaries using $440.5 million allocated to support P.L. 480 Title II emergency activities.
In Afghanistan, as in Kosovo, Serbia, and Sudan, the provision of substantial amounts of well programmed emergency food assistance not only saved lives, but also mitigated the immediate effects of conflict and contributed to the stabilization of war-torn societies. USAID's Title II resources and USDA's Section 416(b) commodities have contributed significantly to these achievements. The FY 2003 request includes an increase of approximately $300 million for the Title II emergency response to partially offset the loss of Section 416(b).
Even as we acknowledge the substantial contribution made by the U.S. Government toward meeting the emergency food needs of the world's vulnerable populations, man-made humanitarian crises in Sudan, West Africa, and Afghanistan, as examples, show no clear signs of an end. In addition, natural disasters, such as drought in the Horn of Africa, floods in southern Africa and the Indian sub-continent, and earthquakes and drought in Central America continue to destabilize livelihoods across vast areas and to precipitate substantial requirements for emergency food assistance. What were once recognized as sporadic natural disasters are occurring with increased frequency and regularity in certain regions where governments are ill-prepared to mitigate the impact of climatic and other natural phenomenon.
In Afghanistan, the coordinated humanitarian efforts of the U.S. Government and its international partners are credited with averting widespread famine. When man-made and natural disasters occur simultaneously in a region, the resulting complex emergency can pose enormous challenges to the donors and international humanitarian workers attempting to respond. A clear example of this has been seen in Afghanistan, where access to millions of drought-affected and displaced people was achieved against a backdrop of ongoing civil war, the international war on terrorism, a four-year drought, and monumental logistic challenges posed by infrastructure constraints.
In an effort to maximize the effectiveness of available food aid resources in FY 2003, USAID will continue to emphasize the coordination of food assistance with other humanitarian response offices within the U.S. Government, (i.e., USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance and State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration).
P.L. 480 TITLE II DEVELOPMENT FOOD AID. Title II non-emergency food aid is focused on mitigating food insecurity through activities implemented by PVOs and the WFP. These organizations utilize Title II food resources to reduce food insecurity in the developing world through activities that enhance household nutrition or increase incomes and agricultural production and productivity. The ongoing activities continue to facilitate rapid response to natural disasters worldwide. FFP has built a solid portfolio of multi-year commitments to PVOs for this purpose. Additionally, a portion of the Title II biennial pledge to WFP has been directed to multi-year development projects. Since the mid-1990s, USAID and its partners have gained substantial experience in improving food security using Title II resources. The overall quality of PVO activity design has improved as has integration with other USAID and PVO planning and resources. Increased PVO interest in monetization has surfaced issues with commodity groups and prompted questions about the appropriate balance between direct distribution and monetization in the portfolio. While acknowledging multi-year commitments with its implementing partners, the Agency's new Agriculture and Food Security Initiative addresses these issues and is the new direction USAID is going to support the type of programs previously supported through monetization. USAID continues to actively dialogue with its partners, other U.S. Government agencies and Congress on these and broader food aid management issues.
Within the FY 2003 request level for P.L. 480 Title II, FFP will maintain the FY 2002 level of funding for PVO non-emergency Title II activities at $410 million and will continue to reinforce qualitative, results-oriented improvements. Portions of the Title II biennial pledge to WFP (calendar years 2003 and 2004) may also support non-emergency activities.
During FY 2001, Title II commodity (including freight) resources, amounting to approximately $448 million, were provided to Title II partners in support of non-emergency food aid activities. Of that amount, $400.7 million was provided through 14 U.S. PVO cooperating sponsors and four local non-governmental organizations; approximately $47.3 million was made available to WFP.
The following examples of Title II programs exemplify the variety of non-emergency interventions that are undertaken and the significant impact on food security that they achieve.
PRISMA is a Peruvian non-governmental organization that has played a major role in the fight against food insecurity over the past 15 years. In Peru, the Ministry of Health and PRISMA jointly implement PANFAR, a targeted health and nutrition program for high-risk families. The program, implemented in 2,600 health establishments, has benefited almost one and one-half million children in rural and poor areas of Peru. The Peruvian Government and external evaluations have praised PANFAR as cost-effective and sustainable, with graduation rates in the program increasing from 40% to 82% (in FY 2000). PANFAR has now been completely transferred to the Ministry of Health with Government of Peru support, replacing all USAID funding for management, food purchases, training, monitoring, and supervision. Two critical factors in this initiative are the establishment of reliable and accessible market information systems and the creation of farmer organizations. PRISMA developed the SAMCONET information system that farmers can access via Internet kiosks for market pricing, packaging, and buyer information. In FY 2001, PRISMA assisted 793 farmer organizations, facilitating market participation by approximately 13,722 food insecure farmers. The influence of the program in improving incomes has been substantial, as productivity gains and price increases have averaged about 30% in the past year (ranging between 10% and 100% depending upon product and region).
In addition to health and nutrition, PRISMA's program integrates Title II and Development Assistance funds to improve agricultural production and markets.
- CARE's Integrated Nutrition and Health Project (INHP) in India, the largest program in the Title II portfolio, directly reaches over seven million women and children in approximately 100,000 villages. CARE's program aims to improve the nutrition and health status of food insecure women and children through nutrition and health education, enhancement of health services and coverage, and targeted supplementary feeding. CARE works in close collaboration with the Government of India to support and strengthen the government's Integrated Child Development Services program (ICDS). Through this collaboration, the Title II program's innovations support improved food security for an even larger population, as ICDS reaches approximately 28 million women and children with community-based maternal and child health and early childhood development interventions. Upon completion of the INHP's first five-year program cycle, the rate of child malnutrition (underweight) among program beneficiaries had decreased from 51% at the beginning of the project to 32% in the project's final year. The percentage of children who received complete immunizations increased from 16% to 39% and the percentage of children breastfed within eight hours of birth increased from 31% to 49%.
- Madagascar has one of the highest rates of child malnutrition in the world: one of every two children under the age of two is considered malnourished. The best way to feed and protect the health of a child in early life (before six months of age) is to use exclusive breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is common in Madagascar, but it is frequently combined with the intake of liquids, which exposes the child to disease while creating a false sense of satiety and exposing siblings to diseases. Following the promotion of exclusive breastfeeding practices by Title II cooperating sponsors (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Catholic Relief Services, and Adventist Development and Relief Agency), rates of exclusive breastfeeding went up from 32.9% in 1997 to 63.3% in 2001 in intervention areas. Such a positive result was achieved due to the coordination of all actors in the health and nutrition scene in Madagascar, including a working group funded by USAID. Cooperating sponsors in Madagascar are obtaining encouraging results in increasing rice yields among their beneficiaries who adopt the recommended practices: rice yields have increased by as much as 300% after only two years among adopters, an impressive result.
- Africare has been implementing the Dinguiraye Food Security Initiative in an extremely food insecure area of Guinea since 1997. Significant improvements in the nutritional status of children were documented by an evaluation conducted after three years of project activities. The percentage of underweight children decreased from 31% to 22%, while the percentage of acutely malnourished children decreased from 13% to 7%. Improvements in nutritional status were accompanied by improvements in several critical health and nutrition behaviors. For example, exclusive breastfeeding of infants under five months increased from 1% to 51% and measles immunization rates increased from 25% to 63%.
P.L. 480 TITLE V - FARMER-TO-FARMER ACTIVITIES. Titles I, II, and III funds are also used to support the Farmer-to-Farmer (FtF) program which provides voluntary technical assistance to farmers, farm groups and agribusinesses to enhance the potential for substantial increases in food production, processing and marketing. Funding for FY 2003 is expected to be $10.6 million. This is comparable to the FY 2002 level of $10.5 million. In FY 2001, the program received an additional $1.5 million in Titles I and II funding to support an expanded Africa and Caribbean initiative, bringing the level of funding up to $12 million.
The program relies on volunteers from U.S. farms, land grant universities, cooperatives, private agribusinesses, and non-profit organizations. Volunteers have been recruited from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. They are not overseas development professionals, but rather individuals who have domestic careers, farms, and agribusinesses or are retired and want to participate in development efforts. They spend about a month in the host country on a typical assignment. Worldwide, over 6,700 volunteer assignments have been completed since 1986 in more than 80 countries. Approximately 19% of all volunteers are women. And about 39% of the individuals that FtF volunteers work with are women.
In 1991, a special initiative of the FtF program was authorized as one of the first U.S. assistance programs for the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union, and it continues to operate in all of the New Independent States, or Eurasia, countries.
The transition to a free-market economy in most countries is a long-term process, involving a variety of problems and obstacles. The FtF Program is helping to facilitate this transition. Through their own experiences in production and market-oriented agriculture, volunteers provide the hosts with credible and experienced models. FtF volunteers provide needed, practical, and usable technical expertise by providing training and advice in the business of agriculture. They are creating institutions such as farmer associations and other organizations that are beginning to develop the capacity to provide needed technical and business-related services to farmers and new entrepreneurs. In these and other ways, the FtF program is helping to develop indigenous institutional capacity and new, market-oriented private entrepreneurs and agribusiness enterprises. Volunteers have assisted over 2,000 host organizations in these areas of concentration.
The FtF program is also having a positive impact on the United States by raising public awareness about foreign assistance, correcting misconceptions of life and attitudes in the recipient countries and helping inform U.S. businesses about the environment and opportunities for investment abroad. Since 1996, volunteers have made over 2,300 presentations to professional and community groups and participated in more than 750 media events, including radio shows, television interviews and newspaper articles to share their experiences.
OTHER PROGRAM ELEMENTS: The strength of our nation's international food assistance program is its 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 developmental and 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 wide number of American companies and U.S.-based PVOs allowing for great creativity and effectiveness in incorporating food into a wide range of development efforts.
OTHER DONORS: The World Food Summit of 1996, convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), provided an international forum to focus attention on efforts to address hunger and food insecurity. The United States, along with 185 nations and the European Community, pledged to reduce the number of food-insecure people by half, from over 800 million in 1996, to no more than 400 million by the year 2015. FAO will soon host a global meeting to review progress towards ending hunger. The meeting, the World Food Summit: five year later, is meant to track progress achieved since the 1996 World Food Summit and consider ways to accelerate the process.
Program Summary
(in thousands of dollars)*
Category FY 2000
ActualFY 2001
ActualFY 2002
EstimatedFY 2003
RequestP.L. 480 Title II 800,000 835,159 850,000 1,185,000 Emergency Response Fund 0 0 95,000 0 P.L. 480 Title III** [5,500] 0 0 0 Total Program Funds 800,000 835,159 945,000 1,185,000 *See Summary Tables volume for P.L. 480 Dollars and Metric Tonnage tables.
**Reflects use of carry over funding available for programming.
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Last Updated on: May 29, 2002 |
Overview
