wfp, food aid and local survival in guinea-bissau, 1998-99 - Nina ...

Hjalte Tin : Food Aid in Guinea-Bissau 1998-99. June 2001 ; page 3
Bissau is practically non-existent. The special issue of the journal Soronda. Revista de
Estudios Guineenses, ‘Numero Especial 7 de Junho’; published December 2000 in
Bissau by Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisa (INEP) contains some useful
information. ‘Nutritional status and mortality of refugee and resident children in a noncamp
setting during conflict : follow up study in Guinea-Bissau’ by Peter Aaby et. al. in
British Medical Journal Vol 319, 2 Oct. 1999, introduces some of BHP’s controversial
findings on different mortality-rates of refugees and hosts in a non-camp settings.
Results of the Danish funded research should add substantially to literature on the
Guinea-Bissau conflict when published during 2002-3.
Part One gives a brief introduction to Guinea-Bissau and the 1998-99 emergency. Part
Two documents the performance and problems of the WFP emergency operation in
Guinea-Bissau. Part Three contends the claim made by WFP that it ”averted a famine”
in Guinea-Bissau. Part Four argues that the WFP emergency operation weakened the
capacity of key local social structures to respond to the needs of war-affected people by
its insistence on only assisting IDPs and not their hosts. The article rounds off with a
discusion of the likely consequences had WFP managed to implement their emergency
operation in Guinea-Bissau as planned. The population of Guinea-Bissau probably
benefited from the failure of WFP to deliver the food aid they had promised. The
population did not suffer because WFP performed poorly, on the contrary they were
spared the negative impact likely to have followed a full-scale WFP operation.