Further Support for More Flexible Food Aid
For some time Bread for the World and other groups have been calling for a more flexible, responsive approach to addressing both chronic and urgent hunger needs around the globe. (See Bread for the World’s 2006 position paper, “Feeding a Hungry World.”) A key component of a reformed US food aid program is local and regional procurement (“LRP”) – the capability, currently denied under U.S. food aid law, to purchase needed food in or near the area of need, thus reducing cost and response time. The U.S. Government Accountability Office – the GAO – in a just-released report, has made a significant and welcome contribution to the debate on this issue. The report’s subtitle – “Local and Regional Procurement can Enhance the Efficiency of U.S. Food Aid, but Challenges May Constrain Its Implementation” – is nothing if not cumbersome, but does accurately communicate the bottom line message.
Although the use of U.S. Government funds for LRP has, until very recently, been precluded, use of LRP by other donors, including U.S. NGOs with their own resources, is widespread and on the increase. The World Food Program (WFP), the largest global food aid distributor, increased its purchases in developing countries from $171 million in 2001 to over $1 billion in 2008. Nearly 80 percent of WFP food aid is now sourced from developing countries. And even in the U.S. the idea of LRP is beginning to gain traction, with several studies completed or underway, and limited funds actually being made available for such procurement.
The most significant GAO finding is that local and regional procurement does unquestionably reduce costs and improve timeliness. LRP is more cost effective in almost every case: WFP’s costs for food procured in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Asia were lower by 34 and 29 percent, respectively, than the cost of comparable food shipped from the U.S. (For Latin America the cost differential was negligible.)
Further, LRP can significantly speed up response: Delivery time for international in-kind food aid donations for SSA countries averaged 147 days, while local and regional procurements averaged 35 and 41 days, respectively – a reduction of up to 75 percent.
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