ForeignPolicy.com posted an interesting article on food aid and nutrition– particularly food aid in disaster regions– that I think is worth a read. The article’s title is “Let them eat Plumpy’Nut”, a reference to the nutritious, ready-to-use food for treating malnourished children, but the larger argument is one of striking a balance between providing food aid in the most expedient manner possible, and providing food aid that is most nutritious and capable of addressing child nutrition.

Some excerpts below, full piece here:

The problem for many critics of food aid is not the delivery method, though, but the food itself, which critics say is failing to address childhood malnutrition. Last year, MSF convened a seminar at Columbia University to discuss the problem. As Susan Shepherd, nutrition advisor for MSF’s Access to Essential Medicines Campaign, put it, “It is unacceptable that current food aid is not providing adequate, nutrient-rich food for the most vulnerable children.” MSF called for an expansion of malnutrition treatment with milk-based, fortified, and energy-dense therapeutic foods, including Plumpy’nut.

Action Against Hunger (AAH) has sometimes teamed with MSF to campaign for more nutritious food, including Plumpy’nut. “There is nothing inherently wrong with the standard corn-soy blend as long as it is enriched with micronutrients and vitamins, which isn’t always the case,” AAH’s senior nutrition advisor, Marie-Sophie Whitney, says. “We shouldn’t be feeding kids anything we wouldn’t feed our own children.”

There’s also the extremely sensitive issue of where the food for aid comes from — and what its effect may be on local trade. AAH charges that U.S. government food aid displaces local farmers by dumping cheap U.S. surplus grain. “Most countries have functioning markets and regional surpluses that go overlooked in the food aid equation,” Whitney says.

Last week, the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa hosted a panel discussion on their recently released recommendations for the new U.S. Government Food Security Initiative. In the Partnership’s latest policy brief, “From Commitment to Action: A Demand-Driven Approach to Improving Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa,” the Partnership recommends a demand-driven, African-owned framework in which to provide foreign assistance funding and programming to increase agricultural productivity.

The panel discussion, moderated by Dr. Julie Howard, Executive Director of the Partnership, included Emmy Simmons, former USAID Assistant Administration for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade, Frank Young, Vice-President, International Development, Abt Associates, Mary Chambliss, Former Deputy Administrator at USDA, and Abdoulaye Diop, Ambassador of Mali to the United States.

The Partnership’s report advocates for five actions as the Food Security Initiative is designed:

• Promote country-led development, ensuring that U.S. support aligns with country-led initiatives.
• Maximize flexibility and transferability of funds with the creation of a “Food Security Fund,” a single-Congressionally-mandated fund that would offer a more simplified and flexible mechanism for food security assistance programs. Currently, there are numerous funding mechanisms each with their own rules, procedures, and implementation models. A single Food Security Fund would simplify these processes and offer assistance at a country and regional level.
• Look toward developing multi-year compacts for food security initiatives to be funded by the Food Security Fund.
• Make food security assistance available to regional organizations, not just individual countries.
• Prioritize local capacity and institution-building through the Food Security Compacts and implementing a results-oriented, learning approach.

In the robust discussion, participants stressed that the creation of the Food Security Initiative is the perfect opportunity to translate the commitment of aid into effective implementation, drawing on some of the tenants of foreign assistance reform. Panelists emphasized the importance of working in collaboration with African partners in order to ensure that these initiatives are successful. The discussion also touched on the necessity of increasing transparency and coordination between U.S-led initiatives. The sheer number of organizations and initiatives on the ground in developing countries, coupled with the lack of coordination among them, makes it difficult for recipient countries to implement strategies successfully. With emphasis on food security coming from the administration, the G8, and developing-country governments, it will be exciting to see how the U.S. Food Security Initiative takes shape.

Check out the full policy brief here.

-Pooja Gupta

Many of you are following news reports of a hijacking that recently occurred aboard the Maersk Alabama off the coast of Somalia. Today comes word that some of the cargo aboard the ship is life-saving food aid en route to Catholic Relief Services programs in Rwanda. According to CRS, this consists of 49 containers holding “860 metric tons of bulgur wheat that are to be used by CRS relief workers for some of the poorest populations in Rwanda.”

Our thoughts go out to the crew aboard the Maersk Alabama in this very tense situation. We’ll bring you further developments as they occur.

-Chris Scott

On Tuesday, a broad-based coalition that includes several of ONE’s partners launched A Roadmap to End Global Hunger – a comprehensive strategy for addressing global hunger through short, medium, and long-term initiatives and reaching the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving hunger by 2015. Representatives Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) joined the co-sponsoring NGOs* at Tuesday’s release on Capitol Hill, and new bipartisan legislation that incorporates the key points of the Roadmap to End Global Hunger is expected to be introduced in the coming weeks.

The Roadmap pitches several strategies for addressing the dire situation of global hunger. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 963 million people are hungry around the world, the majority of whom live in developing countries. As the document notes, despite previous U.S. commitments to end global hunger, the number of hungry people continues to rise as global hunger is exacerbated by continued higher than average food prices and the global economic downturn. The Roadmap calls for a total of approximately $50 billion in U.S. funding for agriculture and food security initiatives over five years.

The document details the need for a faster, more efficient response to food emergencies and emphasizes the importance of flexibility in the provision of emergency food assistance, including options for buying food locally and regionally, and implementing voucher programs where food is available but families are too poor to afford it. The plan calls for donated food aid, like bags of rice or maize, as well as cash assistance that can provide timely and appropriate emergency assistance. The plan also calls for additional funding for safety-net programs – like cash-for-work and school feeding programs – to prevent the most vulnerable populations from descending further into hunger. It also stresses the importance of establishing and expanding early childhood nutrition programs.

In order to promote the development of the agricultural sector in the developing world and break the cycle of hunger and poverty, the Roadmap suggests a more than quadruple investment in market-based agriculture and market development. The suggested $1.38 billion over five years would be aimed at initiatives supporting low-income, smallholder farmers – particularly women. Considering that agriculture employs nearly two-thirds of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa, programs that assist farmers in producing more goods, and helping farmers access markets in which to sell these goods, could have a wide-spread, positive impact on household income and food security.

The Roadmap calls for the (more…)

In the last week, Bloomberg has featured a series of articles detailing the food crisis facing the developing world. The seven-part compilation delves into some of the challenges surrounding this crisis, and the importance of agricultural development that we have been highlighting on the blog. Last week the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that 963 million people are now hungry, which means another 40 million people have been pushed into hunger between last year and this one – an increased estimate from just two months ago. The Bloomberg article series provides a glimpse into some of the causes behind the food crisis, with several dominant themes.

Policies in the developed world can have serious impacts on the livelihood and wellbeing of developing communities. Among other policy topics, the series highlights the U.S. mandate that most of U.S. food aid be supplied and shipped from the United States. The result is that food aid can be delayed in reaching already-malnourished people in countries like Ethiopia. Similar food aid programs in Canada and the European Union allow the purchase of food near where it is to be distributed, where possible. Not only does this practice ensure that food is delivered in a more in a timely manner, but it supports local and regional economies in the developing world.

The series also examines the potential role of speculation in commodities markets, and of the possibility of fertilizer companies colluding to raise prices, in exacerbating the food crisis. From August to November, the price for potash, a particular kind of fertilizer, rose by 20 percent. This meant that farmers could not afford to apply fertilizer to their fields, leaving some unfarmed, and others producing smaller yields. When grain prices dropped earlier in the year, fertilizer prices remained high, further squeezing farmers in the developing world. The series also examines the topic of biofuels and how biofuel production can drive up commodity prices.

A lack of investment in agriculture is a central theme of the articles, which note that (more…)

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) now estimates the number of people who go hungry every day at 963 million—up 40 million from last year. This is mainly due to the rise in food prices worldwide. The number of people who are unable to afford to eat enough calories to lead a normal life now account for 14% of the world’s population.

Excerpts below, full piece here

The FAO’s hunger report, the State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008, found that the majority of the hungry live in the developing world, 65% of them in just seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. The worst affected are landless families, particularly households headed by women.

“For millions of people in developing countries, eating the minimum amount of food every day to live an active and healthy life is a distant dream,” said the FAO’s assistant director general, Hafez Ghanem. “The structural problems of hunger, like the lack of access to land, credit and employment, combined with high food prices remain a dire reality.”

“This sad reality should not be acceptable at the dawn of the 21st century,” the FAO’s director general, Jacques Diouf, said in a speech to launch the report. “Not enough has been done to reduce hunger and not enough is being done to prevent more people becoming hungry.”

-Chris Scott

Some interesting news from the world of agriculture and development: last week South Korea announced plans to plant corn in Madagascar, reflecting a growing trend in the region to secure cropland abroad to address the duel challenge of recent food price increases and a shortage of cropland at home.

Daewoo Logistics, a South Korean company best known for its automobile production, has secured rights to develop 1.3 million hectares in Madagascar; 1 million will be used to grow corn and 300,000 will be used for palm oil production. This scheme will enable Daewoo to produce 10,000 tons of corn in 2010 and 5 million tons of corn annually – more than half of South Korea’s annual need – once the land is fully developed, which will take about 15 years. Daewoo plans to manage its plantations directly and use labor from South Africa.

The area that Daewoo will be planting in Madagascar is approximately equivalent to 240 large US farms. Currently, South Korea imports corn primarily from the US. In 2007 the US harvested approximately 37 million hectares of corn, and is expected to harvest about 32 million in 2008.

South Korea is one of several countries following the trend of developing agricultural commodities abroad. Companies in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Kuwait have done the same. Especially considering the fear of decreasing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to Africa because of the global economic crisis, new investments like South Korea’s are encouraging for Africa’s economic climate. It is unclear, however, why Daewoo intends to staff their farms with South Africans rather than local people from Madagascar.

-Beth Adler

I thought I should share some inside skinny on the week we spent in New York September 22-26 at the UN’s special summit on the Millennium Development Goals. We went there to try to attract some attention to – indeed celebrate – the efforts against extreme poverty in recent years, and to call for an acceleration of that progress.

Bono was frantically blogging for the Financial Times in every spare second throughout the week on his way to and from meetings with various leaders. The meetings were many: with Spanish President Zapatero to plan for their E.U. presidency in 2010; with President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia to discuss their remaining private commercial debt (think that’s sorted now); with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to push on the overall Millennium Goals project; and with President Sarkozy of France and President Barroso of the EU to push Europe on delivering an extra billion euros from the EU budget to fight hunger and invest in agricultural productivity in Africa. Bob Geldof arrived a few days into the melee and participated on the opening panel of the Clinton Global Initiative, popped up on CNN, and met with Mayor Bloomberg, Bill Gates and others along the way.

One highlight was unveiling our “Celebrate Accelerate” video to a crowd of activists and leaders (including Bill Gates, Bob Geldof, Jeff Sachs) honoring the “quietest storm in town”: the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. Another, was dropping in on the “In My Name” launch where we regrouped with will.i.am and other activist allies.

An important part of the week was passing over ONE members’ hunger petition, with 50,000 signers, to Bob Orr, the Assistant Secretary General. The petition targets Ban Ki-moon, and all the G8 leaders, asking them to finance the current $1 billion gap in worldwide agricultural financing.

In addition to all of this, Kim Smith and a team of staff and volunteers brought the ONE Bus to town and, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, parked it in some highly visible locations in the city.

By September 26th, it was clear it had been a decent week. In total there were $16 billion worth of commitments, some old, and some new, focused largely on building upon success to get more kids in school; eliminating malaria deaths by 2015 (yes, that’s got chutzpah – but by acting together it can be done); and renewing efforts against maternal mortality and hunger.

By investing in the fight against extreme poverty we can create new and stable markets where currently there are none; build strong global growth engines that can keep the global economy going when some of us falter; ensure strong health systems; and ensure that other’s instability doesn’t become ours. Above all – because it’s morally the right thing to do.

So now this piece of the campaign goes on to upcoming votes in Brussels on agriculture funding, and a key meeting about financing for development that is happening in Doha, Qatar, in the Middle East, at the end of November. We’ll keep you updated on both.

-Jamie Drummond

Right now, 30 countries are in immediate need of emergency food assistance and essential seeds and fertilizer.

As world leaders meet in NYC this week to discuss the Millennium Development Goals at the UN Summit, ONE members are signing a petition to the G8 leaders asking them to commit critical funding to address the world food crisis. Without addressing this crisis now – all other poverty-fighting efforts will be blunted.

If you haven’t already, please sign today. And if you have, please forward this on to your friends.

Petition text:

Please provide life-saving food and essential seeds and fertilizer to the 30 countries that need it most by filling the 2008 food and agriculture funding gap of $1 billion without delay.

-Virginia Simmons

I just wanted to drop a quick update about USAID’s efforts to provide immediate relief to the ongoing food crisis in Ethiopia. As you may know, Ethiopia and other countries in the Horn of Africa have been hit especially hard by the rise in food and fuel prices and drought. In July, the UN warned that more than 14 million people in the region are in need of emergency food aid, with 10.3 million in Ethiopia alone. This new U.S. shipment is an important step in meeting Ethiopia’s urgent food needs and should be accompanied by new investments in agricultural productivity to target long-term food security and help Ethiopia become self-sufficient.

Excerpt below, full piece here.

The shipment includes 9,390 MT of split yellow peas, 6,150 MT of vegetable oil, 6,320 MT of corn soy blend, and 1,400 MT of wheat flour, the agency said in a statement.

“This is only one of multiple strategies USAID is implementing to alleviate impacts of the world food crisis in that region and elsewhere around the world”, it said.

Accordingly, USAID’s Office of Food for Peace plans to provide over 1 million MT of food, valued at more than $857 million, to Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti in fiscal year 2008 in response to the drought emergency affecting the Horn of Africa.

-Chris Scott