Evaluation of United States food aid in Guinea

food aid to Guinea, especially the Government of Guinea's (GOG) progress toward meeting policy conditions of a 9/85 Food for Progress (FFPr) agreement. Interim evaluation covers the period through 8/87 and is based on document review and interviews with Mission and GOG officials, businesspersons, and farmers. Initiation of Guinea's FFPr program effectively doubled the amount of U.S. food aid to Guinea (previously provided solely under a 26-year-old P.L. 480 Title I Program). Under FFPr, six GOG reforms are required: (1) private rice imports will continue without restriction or unfair advantages to government importing agencies; (2) food rations and (3) consumer food subsidies will not be reintroduced; (4) officially established prices for imported rice will gradually be removed; (5) a schedule for privatizing the import and sale of agricultural inputs will be elaborated; and (6) measures to improve the security of the port of Conakry will be taken. The GOG has complied in general with the six measures, and completely with four of the six. Compliance was weakest regarding the removal of official prices, which still exist (although they now realistically account for costs and margins). However, the GOG has complied with the spirit - if not the letter - of the reform, in that it has not enforced the official prices, and has thus allowed free market pricing to go forward, resulting usually in higher prices to importers and distributors. The opposite situation - letter, but not spirit - prevails concerning the privatization of imports and sales of agricultural inputs. A schedule for selling the parastatals concerned has been elaborated, but has met with resistance from the Agricultural Ministry; this resistance may cause difficulties for other A.I.D. economic reform efforts. Given that the GOG has complied with the FFPr agreement, and has made progress in implementing reforms in other areas (e.g., civil service reduction), it is recommended that negotiations for the second FFPr tranche commence immediately. Although Guinea possesses the natural resources needed for food self-sufficiency, in the short term, U.S. food aid must continue in order to build confidence in the consistency of the GOG's policies and to allow the GOG time to increase its investments in the agricultural and transportation sectors. placed on meeting Guinea's food needs with FFPr rather than Title I aid because of the loan aspect of the latter agreement, which, even at its low terms is not easily supported by the GOG; Title I can then be used to cover unexpected situations. However, rice imports should be monitored carefully to be sure that domestic production is not lowered and, over the medium and long run, food aid should be phased out.