June 23, 2009More Food for Thought on U.S. Food AidPosted by Kimberly Ann Elliott in Food & Agriculture, Global Development, Trade Tags: Food Aid, GAOA few weeks ago I applauded the release of a very useful report from the General Accountability Office on the extra budgetary and timeliness costs associated with how U.S. food aid is delivered—in kind and mostly on U.S.-flagged ships. Now we have another new report bolstering calls for reform, this one from the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa on another odd aspect of U.S. food aid programs called “monetization.” As defined in the report, monetization “involves the sale in a recipient country, for local currency, of food aid that has been purchased in and shipped from the United States.” Monetization is usually carried out by “private voluntary organizations” that receive donated food and use the proceeds from the sales for development projects aimed at increasing food security in the long run. Read More… 1 Comment »May 30, 2008New GAO Report is Food for Thought — And ActionPosted by Rachel Nugent in Africa, Evaluation, Food Aid, Food Crisis, Migration and Labor Mobility, Regions, United Nations Tags: Food Crisis, GAO, Sub-Saharan Africa, World HungerA new GAO Report on international food security (International Food Security: Insufficient Efforts by Host Governments and Donors Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015) gets it almost completely right when it points to the feeble, self-defeating, and confused U.S. policies on world hunger. The report diplomatically states: Comment » |