Letter

The article brings into sharp focus the contrast between the precipitous decline in food aid availability and the increased needs of nutritionally vulnerable populations in the developing countries. The juxtaposition of these two disturbing trends does not augur well for the developing world’s poor.

The alternative way to look at food aid suggested by Per Pinstrup-Andersen and Bjorg Colding echoes an eminently appealing theme for making food aid part of a well-designed food security strategy. Such a needs-driven plan should be attractive to policymakers and economists and garner considerable international support. However, steadiness and consistency of purpose have not been strong characteristics of food aid and food security policy and practice.

Too often, the international aid community has resorted to competition, rather than cooperation and coordination. Too often, international agencies have concentrated on protecting their turf rather than focusing on cooperation. Too often, those private agencies with trained food aid and food security staffs are left on the sidelines because of mandate and turf issues. Too often, the European Union and the United States subscribe to and support different approaches to the problems of food insecurity and poverty alleviation. Although they achieve rhetorical agreement, the frequent, pro forma transatlantic meetings on donor coordination and cooperation in too many instances fall short of obtaining results in the field. Those who pay the price for this lack of cooperation are neither the donors nor developing-country governments, but poor people who desperately need to extricate themselves from the debilitating effects of food insecurity.

This need not be. There are numerous examples of successful, well-managed food aid programs for the international community to use as models in making more effective use of food aid.

As veteran advocates and activists in the international development community, we have witnessed the great increase in confidence that occurs when developing countries, through their own efforts, have been able to significantly increase their agricultural production and stimulate broad-based economic growth. Should that not continue to occur, we can ill afford to look the other way. Food aid can play a significant role in helping others realize their potential. It is imperative that donor countries, on moral and ethical grounds, be prepared to continue to assist vulnerable groups in poor, food-deficit countries to close the nutrition gap. We cannot rest, no matter how high the standard of living may be in the industrialized countries, if one-fifth of the world is ill fed and food insecure.

Some of our most memorable experiences in developing countries have been as the guests of communities and families who insisted on sharing their very limited food supply with us, just as sharing food with visitors was not an unknown tradition in rural communities in America and Europe. Can we draw a conclusion from such seemingly universal behavior? Can we conclude that regardless of economic circumstances, food is truly a unique and bonding resource that should be shared at the family, community, and global levels? As the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore once said, “For many people in this world, God can only appear in the form of bread.”

William Cousins, former senior urban adviser, UNICEF
Daniel Shaughnessy, president, Project Concern International
Charles Sykes, former director of CARE operations in Poland, India, Pakistan, and Egypt

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