Food-aid programmes need to be overhauled to strengthen the long-term campaign against world hunger, the United Nations food agency said on Wednesday.
Emergency aid has saved millions of lives, but such help provided over longer periods might destabilise markets, create dependency on imports and delay reforms needed to lift domestic output, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a report.
”Reforms to the international food aid system are necessary but they should be undertaken giving due consideration to the needs of those whose lives are at risk,” FAO said in its report on the state of food and agriculture in 2006.
”Whenever possible, it is always better to teach and help people to fish rather than to give them fish,” FAO Director General Jacques Diouf said.
About 854-million people around the world lack enough food to lead active and healthy lives and more than 90% of them are chronically hungry, the FAO said.
Food aid needs to focus on emergencies and target only those who really need it, while longer-term efforts should aim at building the funds, skills and other conditions required to revive local agriculture and trade.
If all food aid was equally distributed among the world’s 850-million under-nourished people, it would provide less than 12kg per person.
”Clearly, food aid is far too small to provide food security for all of the people in need,” the FAO said.
Moral imperative
”Although the moral imperative to provide assistance to people suffering from extreme hunger is undeniable … some ask whether such aid may in fact be counterproductive to longer-term sustainable reductions in hunger and poverty,” the agency said.
FAO said it favoured selling food aid where possible on local markets to raise funds for development and urged donors to switch to targeted cash assistance and food vouchers when food was available locally.
Food aid had dropped to less than 3% of total world cereals trade in recent years from about 10% in the 1970s but still accounted for five to 10% of net food imports in recipient countries.
For some crisis-stricken countries food aid might account for a major part of available supplies, as happened in North Korea and Eritrea in 2001 and 2003, when food aid made up 22% and 46% of supply respectively. – Reuters