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Editorial
6/2004 |
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Aid with down sides
“The more food aid donors have given to Ethiopia in recent years, the greater the need for food aid seems to have grown.” Peter Hazell of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute put it in a nutshell: where communities receive food aid for a lengthy period of time there is risk of them growing accustomed to it and forgetting how to feed themselves. Since the great famine of 1984/85, tens of thousands of tons of grain and other food has been pumped into Ethiopia annually. In many parts of the country, the population has long become dependent upon it. But the government has finally recognised the problem. A year ago, it launched a new initiative – the New Coalition for Food Security – meant to reduce dependence on aid by 2008.
Those who know Ethiopia are sceptical. “What has been neglected for twenty years cannot be put right within five,” comments the head of a food security project in the north of the country. Food aid is big business and creates structures, which are not easy to dismantle. Many actors involved earn a lot of money. The transport sector is only one example. Transport and other logistical services swallow up half of the budget for the World Food Programme’s Afghanistan operation. “Food aid subsidises the transport sector more than it supports the rural poor,” says World Bank official Peter Middlebrook.
That is why the US only allows food aid to be shipped in American vessels. The seed industry, especially in the United States, also benefits from aid. The US government buys surpluses and distributes them all over the world as charity. Because the biggest donor uses such means to get rid of excess production, food aid is the most erratic element of international development aid (Edward J. Clay, p. 232). It is more donor-oriented than any other instrument of development policy. Accordingly, it seems anything but easy for the World Food Programme (WFP) to accomplish what Susana Rico, its country director for Afghanistan, describes as the organisation’s mission: “to work ourselves out of the job” (interview, p. 242). Whether Afghanistan receives food aid or not, and how much of it actually finds its way to the needy, depends on many more issues than just the food situation in the country.
On the other hand, food aid is essential. In emergencies, it saves lives. And emergencies – caused by war, environmental destruction and a world economic order in which the poor have no say – are on the increase. Where people are starving, they need to be supplied with food fast and without fuss. In many cases, that works well. But often it does not. Sadly, food aid is not always available when it is needed but rather whenever donors want to get rid of surpluses. Food aid is justified beyond doubt when life and death are at stake. To avoid foresaking this legitimacy, steps must be taken to ensure that aid is fast and adequate in emergencies. Consequently, food aid has to be decoupled from agricultural interests in donor countries.
The challenge also lies in harnessing food aid to help promote long-term development. Concepts have been developed. Food for work, for example, aims at creating assets designed to boost developmental prospects. Deutsche Welthungerhilfe/German Agro Action combines emergency relief and structural assistance by embedding its food aid in sector programmes for agriculture (Jochen Donner, p. 236). The EU Commission purchases more and more of its food aid in recipient countries or their neighbours in order to limit adverse side-effects on local markets or even to help stimulate local market activity (Gerhard Schmalbruch and David J. Walker, p. 239).
There are, however, objections to all the approaches aimed at improving the developmental efficiency of food aid. An EU Commission study on Afghanistan lists a number of them (p. 246). Food-for-work programmes, for example, are not considered very suitable for creating long-lasting assets. Skilled labour wants cash, not payment in kind. Local procurement of aid supplies is deemed a good idea in principle but it requires a functioning infrastructure, which in Afghanistan, and in many other countries, does not exist.
The basic objection to food aid beyond the realm of emergency relief, however, is that where aid organisations gain a foothold and step up their involvement, they tend to make themselves indispensable. And aid recipients grow accustomed to it. Maybe sights should be lowered: food aid should at least not obstruct long-term development.
Tillmann Elliesen
Managing editor at D+C Development and Cooperation
and E+Z Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit.
euz.editor@fsd.de
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