PHA-Exch> GLOBAL: USAID reviewing food aid as costs soar

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Alison Katz <katz.alison at gmail.com>
From: Basil Kransdorff [mailto:basilb at iafrica.com]
[Excerpts]
>JOHANNESBURG, 25 March 2008 (IRIN) - After a
>recent announcement that it will cut the amount
>of food aid it gives to poor countries, the
>United States is likely to shift most of its
>focus to emergency needs, the American
>government agency responsible for humanitarian aid has hinted.
>
>The US Agency for International Development
>(USAID) told IRIN on 25 March that it was
>reviewing its food aid plans "to ensure our
>resources go to the highest priority needs."
>Last month, USAID announced that the cost of
>wheat and other food had gone up by 41 percent
>setting its budget back by US$121 million, which
>meant it would have to reduce the amount of food aid sent overseas.
>
>Harry Edwards, a press officer for USAID said,
>"Commodity and ocean freights costs are
>increasing globally; as these two factors
>comprise the majority of food aid budgets, the
>price increases are reducing the tonnage of food aid available".
>
>Food prices have risen in part because of
>increased demand. But the cost of food aid has
>also been directly hit by freight charges, which
>have shot up because of rising oil prices. The
>price spike at the beginning of 2008 follows a
>34 percent increase last year. The USAID annual
>budget for food aid, with supplemental appropriations, is about $1.5
billion.
>
>The food aid cuts will affect the agency's
>emergency operations in more than 40 countries
>across the world. The US is the world's biggest
>food aid donor, contributing an average of six
>million tonnes of cereal annually since 1970. It
>funds half of the UN's World Food Programme
>(WFP), which is responsible for 40 percent to 50 percent of global food
aid.
>
>Besides emergency food, the US also provides
>monetised food aid, when food is bought at
>subsidised prices in the donor country and sold
>in the recipient country to generate funds for
>development projects. The US is one of very few
>countries that does this; most donors give food
>in kind or supply cash to UN agencies or NGOs
>for buying food on national or world markets.
>
>
>Remove restrictions
>
>"In cases where the US is the primary donor, it
>will have to relax its binding restriction,
>which does not allow food aid to be procured
>locally [in the recipient country] and
>regionally; improve timeliness of response and focus on emergency food
aid."
>
It costs more than
>two dollars of US taxpayers' money to deliver
>one dollar’s worth of food procured as in-kind food aid.
>
>American legislation requires that 50 percent of
>commodities be processed and packed before
>shipment; and that 75 percent of food aid
>managed by USAID, and 50 percent of the food aid
>managed by the US Department of Agriculture, be
>transported in "flag-carrying" US-registered vessels.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20080401/17541e08/attachment-0001.html>