| Crisis in southern Africa
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| 1. | The simultaneous occurrence of major crises in southern Africa and the Horn of Africa poses a serious challenge to the international community's ability and willingness to respond. We share Clare Short's concern that the international humanitarian system may be getting over-stretched. (Paragraph 17)
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| 2. | We are concerned that Africa is the only continent which is moving backwards as regards reaching the Millennium Development Goals. If the international community fails to respond adequately to the humanitarian crises in southern Africa, Ethiopia and elsewhere, it will be impossible for countries to halve poverty and hunger by 2015 in line with the Millennium Development Goals. (Paragraph 18)
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| 3. | Southern Africa is not suffering a drought-induced famine. It is suffering a complex humanitarian crisis, which was triggered by erratic rainfall and a relatively modest fall in food production. (Paragraph 19)
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| Vulnerable livelihoods: From shock to crisis
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| 4. | We would not wish to see the HIPC process undermined, even for the best of motives, and fully understand that debt relief is not the only form of development assistance. But we do urge DFID and its international partners to consider seriously the possibility of revising the HIPC framework. Realistic debt relief must take account of the resources which creditors/donors are prepared to spend, but development-focussed debt relief should surely take more account of poor countries' development needs. We would like to hear DFID's views about the role of debt relief, and about whether or not the HIPC initiative should be revised to take more account of poor countries' development needs. (Paragraph 27)
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| 5. | Deep poverty at national and household levels is a major source of vulnerability. The depletion of household assets, together with declining opportunities for off-farm employment have raised vulnerability to future shocks throughout southern Africa. DFID and its donor, government and civil society partners must support strategies to restore household assets and to generate non-agricultural employment. (Paragraph 31)
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| 6. | We believe that the UK Government is failing to communicate clearly the ways in which Zimbabwe is exacerbating food insecurity in southern Africa. DFID should explain clearly the culpability of Robert Mugabe's policies on land reform, and emphasise too that restrictions placed on the movement of genetically-modified maize have hampered the relief effort and contributed to the deteriorating situation across the region. If he continues with the same policies and approach, Zimbabwe will remain part of the problem rather than part of the solution to famine and food insecurity in southern Africa. (Paragraph 34)
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| 7. | We are pleased that the Secretary of State is keen to learn from the past, and we welcome DFID's support for Poverty and Social Impact Assessments. We trust that such assessments will be made in the field of agricultural and food security policy, so that policy decisions and DFID's position itself are evidence-based rather than reactive, broad-brush and ideological. Oxfam called for mandatory impact assessments of the likely impacts of agricultural liberalisation. They recommended that donors, particularly the World Bank and IMF, end all lending conditions that promote further liberalisation of agriculture in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, pending thorough Poverty and Social Impact Assessments on agricultural policy reform in these countries, which can be used to inform policy choices about long-term food security and sustainable livelihoods. We endorse Oxfam's recommendation and urge DFID to do the same. (Paragraph 41)
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| 8. | HIV/AIDS is central to the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Southern Africa. In a continent ravaged by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, southern Africa is at its epicentre. The first defence against HIV/AIDS is food. Famine exacerbates disease, as disease exacerbates famine, in southern Africa. In creating new groups of vulnerable people, and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities, HIV/AIDS plays a major role in the cycle of vulnerability, crisis and poverty. (Paragraph 47)
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| 9. | If the people of southern Africa are to escape from the cycle of vulnerability, crisis and poverty, the sources of vulnerability—poverty, weak governance and inappropriate policy, and HIV/AIDS—must be understood and addressed, both in terms of immediate humanitarian response and in laying the foundations for longer-term development. This will also require that policy-makers do not latch onto the latest fashion in the misplaced hope that it will provide a solution to development problems. (Paragraph 52)
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| Early warnings, information and donor response
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| 10. | We strongly endorse DFID's support for a regional approach to the improvement of early warning systems. Food crises are likely to recur in southern Africa in the coming years. It is vital therefore that famine early warning systems are strengthened at both regional and national levels:
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| | Firstly, by improving crop production forecasts, especially of non maize food-crops including cassava, and assessments of their contribution to food availability and consumption;
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| | secondly, by strengthening vulnerability assessment at national and sub-national levels, including systematic monitoring of market prices and better understanding of the analytical linkages between poverty, seasonality, and access to food;
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| | thirdly, by incorporating non-official data sources, such as qualitative NGO reports and monitoring by vulnerability committees, into official early warning systems. (Paragraph 57)
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| 11. | Implementing these improvements to early warning systems in Southern Africa will require a commitment of financial resources and technical expertise from the donor community, national governments and regional organisations, notably SADC. We urge DFID to support reasonable requests for financial and technical assistance. (Paragraph 58)
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| 12. | Agricultural market information systems should be introduced or strengthened as a matter of urgency in all southern African countries. Lessons should be learned from the Indian Famine Codes and Kenya's Turkana District drought monitoring system, about how to incorporate price information into national and regional early warning systems. In addition to monitoring food prices and supplies in local markets, these systems should also collect data on agricultural input supplies and prices (especially fertiliser), and possibly also livestock prices and volumes, as "distress" sales of livestock at low prices are widely acknowledged as a robust indicator of livelihood stress. (Paragraph 69)
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| The humanitarian response |
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| 13. | We were impressed in Malawi with the coordination between NGOs involved in the delivery of food aid and humanitarian assistance. In the medium term, such tasks ought to be performed by government, but NGOs are providing an essential and much-needed service. (Paragraph 80)
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| 14. | We are concerned at the lack of coordination within and between the donor community and regional institutions on food insecurity in southern Africa. On the basis that we believe food crises are likely to recur in the region, we believe it is unrealistic and unfair to expect regional governments in the immediate future to implement alone effective co-ordination between multiple organisations and institutions. As part of its evaluation of the UK response to the southern Africa emergency, DFID should assess the effectiveness of its working relationships with international, regional and national partners, including NGOs, and should draw lessons for improved coordination among multilateral and bilateral agencies. (Paragraph 83)
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| 15. | We applaud these efforts by the international community to deliver effective relief programmes in the face of political indifference or hostility by certain governments. DFID and its partners in the international community must strive to maintain freedom from political interference in their responses to humanitarian emergencies, while at the same time ensuring that the humanitarian imperative remains the overarching principle, irrespective of the nature of the regime or difficulties in relationships between international actors and national governments. (Paragraph 86)
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| 16. | We take the view that Zambia's decision—and especially the refusal to accept milled maize which could not possibly have impacted on Zambia's future export potential as it cannot germinate—was mistaken, particularly in the context of widespread hunger. (Paragraph 94)
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| 17. | We recognise that GM is a complex and fastmoving technology, but we believe that the UK Government should seek to build a consensus on the use of GM food aid, and agree a clear and coherent policy on GMmaize if it is to succeed in persuading food aid recipients of its benefit. (Paragraph 95)
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| 18. | DFID and other donors—but not the USA which is a non-signatory—are bound, under the Cartagena Protocol on bio-safety, to respect the right of aid-dependent governments to refuse genetically-modified commodities if these are offered as food aid. We were pleased to hear Clare Short state that: "We take the view under the Cartagena Convention, the bio-diversity convention, that every country has the right to decide for itself whether to import GM food or seeds and needs the capacity to be able to think about it and make the decision in an intelligent way". It seems to us that this is at heart an issue of governance; an accountable government, making decisions intelligently, would surely not opt for a policy of rejecting GM food aid when many of its citizens face starvation? (Paragraph 97)
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| 19. | Donors should make every effort to provide food and non-food aid of a type and form acceptable to recipients. Looking beyond the current emergency, donors should also make more concerted efforts to source food staples locally as this is likely to be nutritionally-appropriate and culturally-preferred, is less likely to be genetically-modified, and will often be cheaper than shipping food aid from Europe and North America. In regions like southern Africa, where markets are relatively well-developed except in the most isolated rural areas, more consideration should be given to providing relief aid in the form of cash rather than food, as this maximises choice and supports rather than undermines local food producers and traders. (Paragraph 98)
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| 20. | There is no room for complacency, but the humanitarian response has so far been a success. Overall, we commend DFID and its partners in the international community for responding generously to the crisis in Southern Africa in 2002, after a slow start and in the face of difficult governance contexts in several countries. (Paragraph 99)
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| 21. | We urge the donor community and its regional partners (governments, SADC, NGOs and civil society) to establish contingency plans, such as pre-positioning of food stocks in the region, technical support to national safety net programmes, including better planned and transparently-managed Strategic Grain Reserves, and greater dialogue with the private sector to enhance coordination between public and private food flows. Those responsible for ensuring food security in the countries of southern Africa—including national Governments, the SADC-Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Vulnerability Assessment Committee, DFID, WFP and other bilateral and multilateral donors, NGOs and community-based organisations active in poverty reduction activities in the region-—must establish clear criteria for predicting food shortages, declaring humanitarian emergencies, and mobilising relief resources. This requires institutional strengthening and coordination. To this end, national governments and their donor partners should consider establishing permanent Food Security and Evaluation Units, probably located in Ministries of Agriculture, which would liase closely with local Vulnerability Committees. (Paragraph 100)
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| 22. | As for the longer term, steps must be taken to reduce vulnerability to food production shocks. These will include: encouraging diversification away from maize and even out of agriculture for some of the population; providing appropriate support to poor households affected by HIV/AIDS; and where direct budgetary support is given, prioritising household food security within Poverty Reduction Strategy Programmes.(Paragraph 101)
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| From crisis response to food security and sustainable livelihoods
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| 23. | If people and communities are to escape from poverty traps and move towards food security and sustainable livelihoods, they must be enabled both to cope with crisis-related risks and to make the risky investments which are needed to climb out of poverty. (Paragraph 103)
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| The role of agriculture in rural development
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| 24. | DFID itself does not have a "strategy" for agriculture, because—DFID argues—"it is too diverse a subject", in relation to which developing countries must themselves take the lead. Instead, DFID has recently published an "issues" paper which discusses the role of agriculture in improving the livelihoods of poor people. We fail to see why agriculture is any different in this regard from other sectors such as education, and urge donors such as DFID to encourage their partner governments in southern Africa to take agriculture seriously, and to provide the necessary financial and technical support. Donors should not be active in all sectors—they should work to their comparative advantages—but given its considerable policy influence in the region, we believe that DFID has a responsibility to ensure that agriculture is not neglected by governments in southern Africa. (Paragraph 106)
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| 25. | We disagree with DFID that meeting the needs of the rural poor does not necessarily mean focussing on their agricultural capacity. We believe there is a risk that agriculture—which is the key component of rural livelihoods for millions of people in southern Africa, and the basis for growth and development—will continue to be neglected. (Paragraph 108)
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| 26. | If poverty reduction and food security is to be achieved in southern Africa, agricultural investment must not be neglected. Rather than despairing at the hitherto poor performance of agriculture, donors must help to put in place the institutional environment which is needed to support agricultural investment and make it deliver significant poverty-reducing returns. Donors should support the re-building of agricultural extension services which were undermined as donor support to agriculture decreased. (Paragraph 109)
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| 27. | The development of a cash-crop economy and export businesses can play an important role, not least in transferring technology to developing countries, but for widespread poverty reduction and livelihood enhancement the focus must be on small and medium scale agricultural producers. (Paragraph 110)
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| Safety nets and social protection
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| 28. | We applaud DFID for its role in supporting the design of Malawi's National Safety Nets Strategy. We urge DFID to do its utmost to ensure that the strategy is put into practice, that the different elements of the strategy are integrated, and that, where appropriate, safety nets strategies are developed throughout the region. (Paragraph 111)
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| 29. | We endorse the recommendations made by UN-OCHA, which as well as encouraging support for food-for-work and food-for-asset-creation programmes—include increasing support to school feeding programmes to reduce withdrawals of children and promote enrolment and attendance. (Paragraph 112)
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| 30. | We consider that a general maize subsidy is likely to strike the wrong balance between short-term relief and longer-term development. [ ...] In addition, given the likelihood of corruption in the sale of the SGR, and the possibility that a general maize subsidy might be diverted to buy votes at forthcoming elections or leaked through resale to neighbouring countries where prices are higher, we are not confident that a general maize subsidy is the most effective way of combating poverty and improving food security. It is essential that efforts to meet the short-term needs of communities do not undermine longer-term development. [ ...] Targeting assistance to the most needy is the most effective way of spending scarce resources, and is likely to minimise the risk of profiteering by elites. We remain concerned at the likely impacts of the general maize subsidy in Malawi, and share DFID's frustration at the World Bank's lack of consultation during the design of the scheme. (Paragraph 114)
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| 31. | We are not a committee of inquiry into the complexities of the sale of Malawi's Strategic Grain Reserve, but such episodes do cast light on issues of governance and accountability. Greedy and corrupt officials in positions of responsibility must not be allowed to profit from the sale of a country's grain reserve. As such, we trust-—although the removal of Gilton Chiwaula from the Anti-Corruption Bureau does not fill us with confidence—that the continuing inquiries will uncover what happened in Malawi, and that appropriate actions will be taken. (Paragraph 115)
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| 32. | Properly managed grain reserves, coupled with the holding of options to purchase grain on commodity markets, must be part of future food security strategies in the region. Further—whilst it is important that the maintenance of grain reserves does not take too large a slice out of scarce governmental resources—we do not think it realistic to expect strategic grain reserves to operate on a full cost-recovery basis. (Paragraph 116)
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| 33. | Public works programmes must be designed carefully. [ ...] In many ways, local people, including intended participants and beneficiaries, may well be in the best position to advise on the most effective form of payment and should be involved fully in the design and implementation of such schemes. Public works programmes must take account of local situations and gender relations, and other measures must be taken to support those who cannot work. For instance, labour intensive public works programmes are entirely inappropriate for people living with HIV/AIDS, the infirm, and women with child-care responsibilities. But we believe that public works programmes provide an excellent way of linking short-term relief to longer-term development and urge DFID to support such schemes wherever communities in southern Africa have spare labour. (Paragraph 119)
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| 34. | Targeted Inputs Programmes can play an important role in achieving food security. To do so they must be part of a longer-term rural development strategy which, over time and where possible, reduces dependence on free inputs, making inputs more affordable and accessible by raising rural incomes and promoting rural development. We urge DFID to continue its support for Malawi's Targeted Inputs Programme, and to work with other Governments to examine whether such schemes—with carefully planned exit strategies—might enhance their food security and longer-term development prospects. (Paragraph 122)
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| 35. | Donors and governments in southern Africa urgently need to find ways of making yield-enhancing inputs (fertiliser and seeds) accessible to smallholder farmers at affordable prices. The free distribution of inputs, whether universal or targeted, in Malawi or elsewhere, is a useful interim measure but does not provide an appropriate model for a sustainable long-term solution to food insecurity. An alternative proposal made to us by Stephen Carr, to amend the existing rural public works programmes so that participants are paid with vouchers for agricultural inputs, rather than in food or cash as at present, should be seriously considered. (Paragraph 123)
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| 36. | Short-term assistance and focused safety nets must contribute towards longer term goals of improving governance, reducing dependency, nurturing functioning and equitable markets, developing infrastructure, and increasing agricultural productivity. Finally, effective social protection strategies, whilst addressing short-term needs, must—by including plans for the phasing out of certain forms of assistance such as free inputs programmes where possible—look to a future where such measures are employed less frequently and less widely. (Paragraph 124)
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| Opportunity ladders |
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| 37. | We believe that the open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) which require few inputs, and which farmers can store and re-use, are more appropriate for poor smallholder farmers than hybrid and genetically-engineered varieties which require annual repurchase and could tie poor farmers into costly relationships with powerful transnational seed companies. (Paragraph 127)
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| 38. | We would like DFID to explain its plans for making affordable fertiliser available to smallholders in southern Africa, in both the short and longer-term. (Paragraph 128)
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| 39. | Climatic uncertainty, drought or erratic rainfall, is an increasingly important source of vulnerability in southern Africa, and one which should be addressed by developments in irrigation. Just as price-smoothing in maize markets can reduce one form of vulnerability, making maize prices less erratic, more predictable and more affordable, so too can irrigation and "rainfall-smoothing" or "rainwater-harvesting" reduce vulnerability. (Paragraph 129)
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| 40. | Historical imbalances in land ownership do need to be corrected, but land reform programmes must be planned and implemented carefully, legally, with adequate consultation, and as part of poverty reduction strategies. We strongly endorse DFID's support for a regional technical facility to take forward land policy issues at a regional level within SADC. (Paragraph 130)
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| 41. | We agree with Christian Aid, that support should be provided to enable commercial and government credit institutions to provide rural credit, and urge DFID to increase the support it offers to this sector in southern Africa. There is a role too for farmers' associations such as NASFAM in improving smallholders' access to agricultural inputs and credit, provided they have the ability to reach and serve the very poorest farmers. (Paragraph 131)
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| 42. | We support strongly Clare Short's efforts to reform the FAO, and in particular its approach to food security, but encourage the FAO's critics to be realistic in their expectations of what the FAO can do within its resource constraints. They should not undermine the important work which the FAO does in promoting and developing international standards, and in providing agricultural advice for hard-pressed developing countries. Nevertheless, if the FAO is not—in the absence of sufficient governmental capacity—the right organisation to be involved in agricultural extension, improving agricultural productivity and encouraging diversification, we wonder which organisation is. (Paragraph 133)
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| 43. | Price stability and food security—enabling better management of the risks associated with crises—is fundamental to efforts to develop a sustainable market economy. Food—insecure households are risk-averse households; risk-averse households do not make the investments needed to move beyond subsistence. John Winter of DFID said: "We would, of course, like to see an open market in maize within the region." If the appropriate institutions were in place to ensure that sufficient maize was provided at prices which the poor could afford, we would agree. Currently, they are not. Without advocating any particular form of intervention, we believe that the principle of guaranteeing access to affordable food for the poor at all times is one that should be re-instituted and followed. (Paragraph 136)
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| 44. | The potential of using targeted food subsidies as an alternative to the unsustainable and inefficient consumer price subsidies of the past should be explored. DFID has recent experience with a pilot scheme of targeted "flexi-vouchers" in Malawi. Perhaps the lessons learned from this initiative could be expanded and incorporated into larger safety net programmes at the national or even regional level. (Paragraph 137)
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| 45. | DFID should support southern African governments and SADC in their efforts to encourage the emergence of new and more effective "hybrid institutions", which involve the state and the private sector in the regulation of staple food markets. It is not clear what sorts of systems might be able to deliver both price stability at appropriate levels, and the coordination and protection needed to nurture fragile market development. But it may be worth exploring the idea of private companies tendering for franchises to deliver specific services—including food supplies—at predetermined, and if necessary supported, prices. (Paragraph 138)
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| 46. | We believe that some diversification into production of cash crops for export is desirable and were pleased to hear in Malawi of DFID's support for efforts to develop export capacity and know-how through the Integrated Framework. There are however important limitations and obstacles. Cash crop production is not a panacea, particularly for land-locked countries such as Malawi. In addition, a shift to cash crops will not in itself guarantee food security—the fundamental basis for development beyond subsistence levels—for rural communities. (Paragraph 139)
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| The challenge of HIV/AIDS |
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| 47. | The major obstacle to export-led growth is of course that of limited market access and the highly hypocritical maintenance of export subsidy regimes in the EU and US. perhaps the best thing that developed countries could do to improve the prospects of developing countries such as those in southern Africa would be to practice what they preach, improving market access and eliminating export subsidies, at the same time as helping to build developing countries' export capacity. We urge DFID and the UK Government as a whole to step up its efforts to persuade our European partners that fundamental reform of the Common Agricultural Policy must to be a priority. In addition, consideration should be given to the role of a "development box" in allowing developing countries to maintain subsidies for essential food security reasons. (Paragraph 140)
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| 48. | We appreciate that the priority has been to get enough food of any type through to the hungry, but trust that DFID and the international community will—now that the food pipeline is more secure—seek to improve the nutritional content of food aid, to maximise its effectiveness in addressing the needs of those infected with HIV. (Paragraph 143)
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| 49. | Targeting of assistance is crucial. Targeting is impossible if agencies do not even know where the hungry, and particularly the most vulnerable groups of people, including orphans, are. We would like to know what steps DFID is taking, in partnership with other agencies, to improve the mapping of need. (Paragraph 144)
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| 50. | Efforts must be made to assist HIV-affected households through the provision of appropriate labour-saving technologies, by encouraging diversification into less labour-intensive crops, and by working out how to ensure that agricultural know-how is passed down through the generations despite the early death of HIV-infected parents (Paragraph 145)
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| 51. | We encourage DFID to consider the possibility of designing a public works programme to provide extra labour for child and grandparentheaded households at critical times, in return for food, cash, or agricultural inputs. (Paragraph 146)
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| 52. | DFID officials suggested us in evidence that a first approach to improving capacity ought to be through enticing emigrants from the countries of southern Africa-—perhaps emigrants who have studied and stayed in North America or Western Europe—back to southern Africa. Increasing technical assistance to enable countries to hire expatriate expertise, whether from other parts of Africa, other parts of the developing world, or elsewhere, should be a secondary step. (Paragraph 148)
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| 53. | Access to essential medicines must be improved, and provision must be made within the WTO's agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights for the production of more affordable drugs for public health purposes. Part of the international response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic must be a more flexible application of patent rules in developing countries. The USA and its pharmaceutical industry must not be allowed to obstruct unilaterally such important and sensible initiatives. (Paragraph 149)
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| 54. | In our view, whilst efforts should be made to improve the affordability of ARVs, this must not distract donors and governments from the need to focus on basic health-care systems. (Paragraph 150)
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| 55. | We urge donors, NGOs and governments to do their utmost to promote improved understanding of HIV/AIDS, and to lay the foundations on which attitudinal and behavioural changes are built. (Paragraph 151)
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| 56. | In January 2003, the USA announced that it will treble its spending on HIV/AIDS to $15 billion over the next five years. We applaud the USA for taking this step, and for demonstrating the priority which they attach to the fight against HIV/AIDS. We hope that other donors will be encouraged to do the same. We are concerned however that only $1 billion of the new money will be channelled through the Global Fund. The rest is to be distributed bilaterally, and will therefore be more subject to pressures from domestic interest groups which object to the linking of HIV/AIDS and reproductive health issues. It is of course vital that money is spent effectively, and every effort should be made to ensure that the Global Fund is effective, but marginalising multilateral initiatives is surely counter-productive. (Paragraph 152)
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| 57. | The focus of efforts to tackle HIV/AIDS should be on basic healthcare systems. However, we urge donors, including the UK, to not marginalise the Global Fund, but to work to make it more effective. The language used by the UN's Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa may have been extreme, but the sense of urgency which he injected is welcome. If southern Africa is to move from crisis to food security and sustainable livelihoods, responding effectively to the threat of HIV/AIDS must be integrated into all stages and aspects of relief, recovery and development now. We therefore support the requests made by Oxfam and SCF-UK to the international community to ensure that all programming and funding activities respond to the impact of HIV/AIDS; to increase funding for food aid and food aid that meets the needs of people infected with HIV; and to increase funding for non-food needs including health, nutrition, water and sanitation. We look forward to hearing how DFID is taking account of HIV/AIDS in its continuing response to the immediate crisis, and in its work with partner governments to lay the foundations for longer-term development. (Paragraph 153)
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| From a vicious circle to a virtuous circle
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| 58. | We urge DFID, with its partners, to consider the proposals made by Professor Kydd and Dr. Dorward, and to examine what a poverty-reducing "ecology of variety" might look like, and how it might be nurtured in southern Africa. We also encourage DFID to continue its work in helping healthy civil societies to grow in the countries of southern Africa. Civil society provides an important counter-balance to government, making governments more accountable to their electorates and improving governance. Finally, of perhaps greatest importance, we would like to hear from DFID as to how it plans-—with its partners—to help to build the capacity of governments, and key ministries such as those concerned with agriculture, education and health. (Paragraph 156)
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| 59. | Africa is missing the Millennium Development Goals partly because donors are missing the 0.7% target. We once again urge the UK Government to make swift progress towards its target of providing 0.7% of GNI in aid, to set out a timetable for meeting this target, and to encourage other donors to do likewise. We welcome in this regard, the Chancellor's innovative proposal for an international financing facility. On trade, we urge the UK Government to press its EU partners, and to press them harder, to agree to substantial reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. It is disgraceful for the developed world to subsidise over-production and the dumping of surplus agricultural products, and to restrict access to the EU's market, whilst preaching the virtues of trade liberalisation to developing countries. (Paragraph 157)
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| 60. | We urge DFID—particularly at a time when WFP's Executive Board is chaired by a DFID representative—to help WFP to make progress on three fronts: one, to consider a change to WFP's funding regime, to provide it with some predictable base funding; two, to engage more with a wider range of donors such as India, Russia, China and the oil-exporting countries; and three, to encourage donors including the USA to provide cash donations rather than food, in order to increase WFP's flexibility and ability to deliver timely and effective humanitarian assistance. (Paragraph 159)
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| 61. | Moves to enhance the role of SADC are a matter for the member states themselves, involving, as they do, sharing of responsibility and even sovereignty. But they could provide one way of enhancing the region's food security and prospects for sustainable development. As DFID noted in evidence, moves towards regional cooperation and economic integration are in line with the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) agenda. DFID should encourage governments in the region to consider seriously the benefits which enhanced coordination of policy through SADC might confer. (Paragraph 162)
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| International development, human rights and accountability
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| 62. | We urge DFID to encourage its governmental partners to pay more attention to rural livelihoods and food security in their PRSPs, and trust that the World Bank will be supportive of this move. (Paragraph 164)
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| 63. | "Good governance" must be more than a badge given to countries which accept the donors' policy advice. Good governance, fundamentally, is about being accountable to those who one is supposed to serve. Governments, if they are to be democratic, must be accountable to their citizens. Donors, in their use of policy conditionality, must take care not to undermine the relationship between developing country governments and their citizens upon which true good governance is based. As Clare Short recently wrote: "The old approach to aid, with a plethora of projects, reporting requirements, conditionality and management systems, undermines sovereignty and accountability." We would welcome more information about DFID's work on defining and assessing standards of governance. In addition, we encourage DFID to show leadership in the donor community and put itself forward for the donor review process which is envisaged as part of (NEPAD). (Paragraph 166)
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| 64. | We welcome DFID's commitment to the humanitarian imperative and its efforts to remain free from undue political interference, in what have been very difficult circumstances. (Paragraph 167)
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| 65. | DFID plays a major role in the international humanitarian system in its own right as well as a supporter of UN agencies. We believe that DFID and other donors should be accountable for the humanitarian assistance they provide; such accountability must begin with clarity about the purpose and methods of humanitarian assistance, and about how the effectiveness of humanitarian assistance might be measured. (Paragraph 168)
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| 66. | If the right to food is to mean anything, someone—governments, organisations and individuals—should be held accountable when the basic human right to food is violated. (Paragraph 169)
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| 67. | We urge DFID to consider how progress towards realising the right to food might be furthered by improving accountability within the international humanitarian system, and what this might mean in practice for the provision of food security in southern Africa. We would be interested too, to hear DFID's views about the wider relationship between international development partnerships, sovereignty, and accountability. (Paragraph 172)
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