Food aid groups fight administration proposal
April 05, 2013 | 04:42 PM
Amidst reports that President Barack Obama’s budget will call for large-scale changes to U.S. food aid, humanitarian groups that use the aid for development purposes are fighting back.
The administration reportedly plans to call for the elimination of funding for Food for Peace and Food for Progress, which buy U.S. commodities and ship them overseas in U.S. ships, and instead propose that the U.S. Agency for International Development be allowed to use the food aid budget to procure food in countries closest to the need.
Oxfam, CARE and other critics have said that local procurement and cash assistance for development would be more efficient because food would not be shipped from the United States, but maritime and farm groups and the humanitarian groups that use some of the food aid in development projects say that the proposal is flawed and would destroy the political constituency for food aid in the United States.
“Just providing food aid in response to emergency needs will not help people overcome the hunger cycle,” the Alliance for Global Food Security wrote in a lengthy statement to the press released late Thursday.
“Over half of emergency food aid is provided to the same regions for two years or more. This is why Title II [of Food for Peace] has a strong non-emergency component to help areas that are prone to food crises build resilience and move beyond subsistence.”
The alliance, which includes World Vision, ACDI/VOCA and the Congressional Hunger Center, also warned that once money is shifted from food aid to other development accounts, it would hard to get it back.
“It is not possible to ensure that in the future they will continue to be used for the purposes stated in the president’s budget proposal,” the statement said.
“Instead, it becomes a year-by-year process, eliminating the surety and oversight provided by the Food for Peace Act and Food for Progress Act — both of which have statutory objectives, publicly-vetted guidelines, procedures and regulations, and a track record. While we understand this is not the administration’s intent, it is discernible, for example, that with the many demands on the [development assistance] account and the extended humanitarian crises in Syria, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, northern Mali and elsewhere, these funds could easily be diverted for other purposes.”
Food for the Hungry, another alliance member, said in a separate statement that the current programs provide national security benefits.
“Bags of grain and cans of cooking oil are shipped all over the world through these programs,” Food for the Hungry President President David Evans said.
“I have walked into some of the most remote communities imaginable and seen, lying there before me, an aluminum can with an American flag painted on its side,” Evans said. “This is how we express our good will as a country to those in need. We build peaceful bridges while empowering vulnerable people to overcome poverty.”
The administration reportedly plans to call for the elimination of funding for Food for Peace and Food for Progress, which buy U.S. commodities and ship them overseas in U.S. ships, and instead propose that the U.S. Agency for International Development be allowed to use the food aid budget to procure food in countries closest to the need.
Oxfam, CARE and other critics have said that local procurement and cash assistance for development would be more efficient because food would not be shipped from the United States, but maritime and farm groups and the humanitarian groups that use some of the food aid in development projects say that the proposal is flawed and would destroy the political constituency for food aid in the United States.
“Just providing food aid in response to emergency needs will not help people overcome the hunger cycle,” the Alliance for Global Food Security wrote in a lengthy statement to the press released late Thursday.
“Over half of emergency food aid is provided to the same regions for two years or more. This is why Title II [of Food for Peace] has a strong non-emergency component to help areas that are prone to food crises build resilience and move beyond subsistence.”
The alliance, which includes World Vision, ACDI/VOCA and the Congressional Hunger Center, also warned that once money is shifted from food aid to other development accounts, it would hard to get it back.
“It is not possible to ensure that in the future they will continue to be used for the purposes stated in the president’s budget proposal,” the statement said.
“Instead, it becomes a year-by-year process, eliminating the surety and oversight provided by the Food for Peace Act and Food for Progress Act — both of which have statutory objectives, publicly-vetted guidelines, procedures and regulations, and a track record. While we understand this is not the administration’s intent, it is discernible, for example, that with the many demands on the [development assistance] account and the extended humanitarian crises in Syria, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, northern Mali and elsewhere, these funds could easily be diverted for other purposes.”
Food for the Hungry, another alliance member, said in a separate statement that the current programs provide national security benefits.
“Bags of grain and cans of cooking oil are shipped all over the world through these programs,” Food for the Hungry President President David Evans said.
“I have walked into some of the most remote communities imaginable and seen, lying there before me, an aluminum can with an American flag painted on its side,” Evans said. “This is how we express our good will as a country to those in need. We build peaceful bridges while empowering vulnerable people to overcome poverty.”
