Bolivia drought 1983/1984 : field assessment of the Title II emergency food program in Bolivia

480 Title II Emergency Food Program in Bolivia following the 1983 drought and subsequent floods. Special evaluation covers the period 3/83-8/84 and is based on interviews with personnel from the implementing agencies, rural beneficiaries, and others. Through CRS/Caritas Boliviana, Food for the Hungry International (FHI), and the National Community Development Service (NCDS), the program reached 1.6 million disaster victims. Although the program met its humanitarian goal of alleviating hunger among victims, the concurrent goal of rehabilitation through food for work (FFW) projects was only minimally achieved. Most food distribution was made through FFW, but the projects" impact was limited by their short duration and their focus on maintaining existing community infrastructure; only about 25% of FFW projects contributed to mitigating future disaster, while 75% had strictly humanitarian value. The lack of quality in FFW projects was due most notably to inadequate supervision and TA (partly a result of A.I.D."s failure to approve outreach funds until after program termination in 7/84, limiting funding for vehicles). NCDS/Potosi, NCDS/La Paz, and FHI/Sucre achieved substantially greater results in rehabilitation than the other regional agencies, as they provided TA and closely monitored implementation. In some cases food did not arrive when most needed. Distribution was delayed by the late delivery to Bolivia, problems in transporting food (and the programming of five commodities which arrived at different times, complicating logistics), and poor procedures for accounting and disbursement to the agencies" regional offices. Overall coverage was good, but lack of coordination resulted in uneven distribution among provinces; areas remote from departmental capitals received as little as 10% of assigned quotas. Caritas was most effective in alleviating hunger between 11/83-2/84 because of its access to regular food program stocks, use of local distribution centers, and previous experience in food distribution. Both FHI and NCDS had severe difficulty in administering the program, overburdened by the 10,000 MT of programmed food; despite staffing and warehousing shortages, however, food losses were minimal. For lessons learned, see abstract for PD-AAS-570.