Feeding hunger and insecurity

5. The global response to high food prices: what is being done?These figures give weight to two important observations:Firstly, even the world’s largest humanitarianactor only caters for a small percentage of actualneeds. FAO estimated a total of 923 millionpeople suffered from hunger in 2007. Thatyear, WFP food assistance reached 86.1 millionpeople in 80 countries. Despite the vast sumsdonated, particularly by Saudi Arabia, WFP stillhas the capacity to cater for only 97 million (approximately10 percent) of the world’s hungry,currently approximated at 963 million. So whilethe difference between requested and mobilisedfunds is small, the gap between total beneficiariesand the estimated number of people goinghungry is unacceptable.Secondly, food aid remains the only large-scale interventiontargeting hunger that is endorsed andsupported (financially and politically) by the internationaldonor community. Food aid is effective inaddressing only limited forms of hunger, only indirectlyimpacting on acute malnutrition which hasbeen rising in some countries (as shown in thecase study from Ethiopia). Action Against Hungerencourages WFP to either improve its response tosevere acute malnutrition by improving the qualityof food aid and rethinking treatments targetingmalnutrition, or developing ‘twin-track’ interventionsaddressing food security and malnutrition simultaneously,in collaboration with FAO, UNICEFand WHO.Food and Agriculture OrganisationThe Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) hasalso been a significant actor in the global responseto high and volatile global food prices, providingUS$59 million to governments of worst-affectedcountries – and specifically those regions preparingfor or beginning the planting season. Interventionsgenerally assumed the form of agriculturalinput distribution and technical assistance. TheOrganisation has requested US$1.7 billion to fulfilits Initiative on Soaring Food Prices for 2009 (UN2008b).Box 6: The Trouble withConditionality in Food AidDistributionAction Against Hunger is not a monitoringagency, but an NGO concerned predominantlywith child malnutrition. However, reports emanatingfrom developing countries continue tohighlight the dangers of relying on food aid.Regardless of the economic and social implicationsof large-scale food aid, the ongoingpractices of supplying the majority of food aidin-kind and tying cash donations is nothingshort of embarrassing.In April 2007, the United States donatedUS$20 million to WFP school-feeding operationsin Malawi, to be used over three years,on the condition that the cash donation wouldbe spent on US maize-soya blend – a fortifiedfood used commonly in emergency fooddistributions. Legal restrictions in the UnitedStates require all food aid to be packaged byUS firms and 75 percent transported by USfreight. While the cost of maize-soya blenddiffers only marginally between the USA andMalawi at source, by the time US food aidreached Malawi it cost US$812 per tonnecompared to US$320 per tonne for the locallyproduced blend. Substantially more is spenton administrative and transport costs than actualfood aid.In short, the amount spent on the US maizesoyablend could have fed two and a half timesmore children in Malawi, had it been spent onlocally produced fortified foods.Source: Renton 2007International Fund for Agricultural DevelopmentThe president of the International Fund for AgriculturalDevelopment (IFAD) announced the intentionto provide US$200 million for immediate injectioninto agriculture in all countries IFAD currently operatesin. By September, only US$50 million hadACF International Network Feeding Hunger and Insecurity 41