Development impacts of program food aid : a synthesis of donor findings and current trends and strategies

Recently, however, the severe strain of structural adjustment programs on the poor has renewed interest in the uses of program food aid for its original objective -- the alleviation of hunger. Accordingly, many donors have attempted to influence recipient governments to use local currency generations for agricultural projects and to reform their food policies. In general, however, this approach has been hampered by limited managerial and financial resources when only one donor is involved, as well as by the complexity of food security issues. Multi-donor approaches, which have been coordinated by the World Food Programme and focused on implementing food and agriculture policy reforms, have proven more promising. Several related lessons have been learned from these coordinated efforts. (1) To attain the goal of food security, donors and recipient governments must negotiate a set of mutually supportive strategies for the use of donor common funds. (2) These negotiations must be supported by multi-year commitments of donor support. (3) The strategies developed must be based on a joint, unbiased analysis of the underlying causes of food insecurity in the recipient country. (4) The use of food aid to alleviate hunger requires that vulnerable groups be identified at the program planning stage.