Memorandum submitted by Oxfam GB
SUMMARY
— This submission focuses on the Immediate
threat posed to food security and the livelihoods of millions
of people In the poorest countries due to high cereal prices.
— We state that there is little evidence
that so-called "development food aid" can effectively
serve development purposes.
— Whilst the World Food Programme's
(WFP) strategy to meet increased food needs is not yet clear we
behave that a new approach will provide opportunities to meet
food needs of vulnerable communities.
— Oxfam acknowledges WFP's very open
and participative approach and dialogue with NGOs around this
new issue in recent months.
— We address the questions about co-ordination
and the prospects for a one UN approach, and believe that the
work of the three Rome-based agencies—WFP, FAO and IFAD—must
be more integrated.
The effects on food prim and availability of Increasing
demand and changes In energy and agricultural policies
Oxfam is concerned by the immediate threat posed
by high cereal prices to the food security and the livelihoods
of millions of people. The poorest people in developing countries
spend most of their available Income on food purchases; any increase
in food prices is likely to result in a reduction of food consumption
and to increase hunger.
The rise in oil price also affects other basic
expenditures such—transport or hygiene products. For instance
the price of soap has increased by 50% in Pakistan since last
year. Higher costs of other essential products reduce available
budgets for food consumption. This may have a direct impact on
malnutrition and mortality for the poorest, especially during
lean seasons when traditional seasonally of hunger is likely to
be exacerbated by higher food prices. Studies in rural Bangladesh
in the 1990's showed the strong impact of high cereal prices on
children being underweight, in particular through the reduction
of non-cereal food expenditures.[103]
Other consequences may Inciude the sale of productive
assets and even land, which may permanently harm livelihoods.
All the 50 Least Developed Countries (LDCs)
except two (the Maldives and Samoa) are Low Income Food Deficit
Countries (LIFDC)—this means that they rely on food imports
for their food consumption and / or have to cope with food deficits.
The 2005 crisis in the Sahel, as with the 2002
crisis in Malawi, was triggered by high food prices—with
cereal prices increasing by up to 200% in some parts of the country.
In both these landlocked countries, a modest decrease in domestic
cereal production created dramatic changes in cereal markets.
Because of widespread poverty, the population could not purchase
more expensive imported food. As a result of the lack of effective
demand, the markets failed to supply the food required, which
then in turn resulted in higher inflation and impossibility for
the poor to buy the food they needed.
Price rises also affect the food aid system—in
years when food prices rise, in-kind food aid usually declines.
Current food aid levels are the lowest of the past five decades.
This makes it more relevant than ever for donors to make additional
cash resources available to meet food needs through local purchase
of food, the direct provision of cash resources and other livelihood
support interventions.
How the WFP engages with local communities to
identify needs, and to assist in programme design
Oxfam recognises WFP's efforts to strengthen
its Emergency Needs Assessment Capacity (the SENAC initiative)
and to increasingly integrate the analysis of markets into needs
assessments. However, given its specialization in food deliveries,
WFP's assessments generally mainly provide estimates of needs
for food distribution rather than considering a range of possible
response options. Yet a comprehensive problem analysis may not
necessarily point to food distributions as the best and only option.
Furthermore, in protracted crises and countries
dealing with chronic hunger, WFP should not just conduct need
assessments to estimate, year after year, the needs for aid deliveries.
A comprehensive problem analysis should also inform medium and
long-term intervention strategies in which:
— When appropriate, WFP would establish
or support local safety net mechanisms and plan a phasing-out
and handover of direct aid delivery once local capacities are
in place.
— WFP would develop with others vulnerability
and risk reduction interventions aiming at reducing food aid needs
on the long run, for instance through the enhancement of local
food production and the establishment of prevention and mitigation
mechanisms (eg village food stocks).
Such a shift requires WFP to work within institutional
structures and processes at national, regional and global levels
in order to reach consensus with other stakeholders on the severity,
scale and causes of food insecurity and on the contents of consistent
strategies of hunger reduction.
This broader needs-assessment and the design
of appropriate responses must necessarily involve people at local
level, including community leaders, whose views on what the problems
and solutions are vital ingredients for good decision-making and
whose engagement is equally vital for effective implementation
of that response. Being in dialogue with and, in some measure,
accountable to the people in need is critical to the design of
appropriate interventions.
The World Food Programme strategy to meet increased
needs in the context of higher food prices
WFP's strategy to meet increased needs is not
yet clear but Oxfam praises WFP's very open and participative
approach and the way in which the organisation has sought dialogue
with NGOs around this new issue in the past few months.
Oxfam believes that this new threat of higher
food prices provides fresh incentives for WFP to:
— Prioritize local purchases and small-holders
for the procurement of food commodities.
— Seek synergies between immediate
assistance and support to local food production.
— Broaden the WFP "tool box"
to include alternatives to food aid such as cash and vouchers
in emergencies.
— Give more emphasis to mitigation,
preparedness and prevention interventions.
— Go beyond aid delivery (food or cash)
and start supporting more actively governments and communities
to establish local mechanisms of prevention and response (eg reserves
and safety nets).
The effectiveness of WFP's development food aid
activities
Despite decades of providing so-called "development
food aid" (primarily through Food For Work or similar activities)
there is little evidence that this form of intervention can result
insubstantial development gains. Some public work schemes can
effectively provide food assistance to very needy people while
at the same time providing or rehabilitating public goods (eg
road construction), but the primary purpose of these programmes
should be to provide emergency food assistance, or cash if more
appropriate, even though there may be a development by-product.
Oxfam therefore does not believe that WFP should
use imported, in-kind food to run "development" programmes.
Nevertheless, WFP can potentially play a positive development
role in other ways:
— Local purchases prioritizing small
holders in the poorest countries can effectively improve farmers'
income, enhance off-farm and trade activities and reduce countries'
dependency on food imports.
— WFP can help national or local governments
reduce the risk of and prepare responses to serious food insecurity,
For instance, grain banks, as well as emergency reserves and other
national mechanisms, can play a key role in mitigating the impact
of shocks, including the effects of failing or volatile markets.
WFP can deploy its expertise and know-how, including the management
of the systems, their funding, the procurement of food commodities,
storage, and also distribution and targeting.
Cooperation between the WFP and other UN Agencies,
for example the Food and Agriculture Organisation
WFP's overall logistics support to the UN system
is critical in most emergency set-ups. The strong and effective
relationship that WFP maintains with UNICEF and UNHCR is also
very important in emergencies. It is unfortunate that WFP does
not have such a strong relationship with FAO, given that most
of WFP business takes place in protracted crises where hunger
primarily affects farmers and pastoralists. This undermines the
ability of the UN system to develop interventions that could go
beyond food distributions, and be more effective in terms of prevention,
mitigation as well as post-crisis rehabilitation. Oxfam feels
that the bias of the old system towards food aid (the most appealed
for and the most funded form of response) is not consistent with
donors' commitments towards more appropriate and more consistent
forms of humanitarian assistance.
WFP may not be to blame for this situation,
which partly due to donors' funding priorities and to the historic
preference given to food aid at the time of Western cereal surpluses
and massive state support to agriculture. Interestingly today,
whereas surpluses have gone away, the food aid bias remains.
The prospects for a "one UN" approach
In meeting food security needs
The realization of the MDG1 requires greater
coherence and co-ordination of international assistance and a
better integration of food and agriculture within the "One
UN" approach. This necessitates more collaboration and co-ordination
of the activities of the three Rome-based agencies.
This integration of food security interventions
should happen at different levels:
— There must be more consistent and
comprehensive strategies when looking at global issues, starting
with the achievement of MDG1, but also including other specific
issues such as food prices and bio-fuel production.
— Fundraising and resource mobilisation
related to such strategies should be also more integrated.
— Integrated, joint food security strategies
must also be designed and Implemented at country level. The Rome-based
agencies must participate to the design and the implementation
of Poverty Reduction strategies, and ensure that food and agriculture
are adequately taken Into consideration in national plans and
in the plans of other development actors such as the World Bank
and IMF.
— Multi-year pool funding at country
level is also important to ensure that aid is provided according
to needs. In situations of chronic food Insecurity, this should
allow to shift from stop and go, emergency types of response to
the establishment of safety nets as nil as preventive interventions
and mechanisms.
Oxfam's experience
In the recent yearn, Oxfam has diversified its
toolbox for humanitarian relief to include interventions adapted
to varying market conditions. We can choose between food distributions
and the direct provision of cash to people, but also work to reduce
risks and people's vulnerability to market fluctuations (eg support
to grain banks) or direct market interventions (eg destocking
for pastoralist populations). Essential to a broadened toolbox,
Oxfam has recently developed a market analysis tool to be used
in assessments of food crises in order to help determine what
type and scale of response is required, eg imported food aid,
nationally procured food aid, cash transfers to affected families,
livelihood support etc.
While adapting its own programming, Oxfam recognises
that in most countries, governments must put in place adequate
safety nets to protect the poorest against market fluctuations
and increase in food prices. This should be part of broader national
policies, which prevent and respond to food insecurity while also
developing more durable solutions to the problem. Governments
thus have the responsibility to support agricultural and particularly
food production in order to reduce dependency on food imports
and vulnerability to high prices.
Following the publication of the "World
Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development" Oxfam
has called for more attention to smallholder agriculture. More
effort will be required by donors and governments to support growth
that benefits the poor in rural areas.
CONCLUSIONS
The call for submissions indicates "The
World Food Programme is the UN agency responsible for reducing
the number of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition by
providing food aid to prevent and respond to food emergencies.
The WFP is expected to feed 70 million people in 2008".
Oxfam believes that food aid as it has been
delivered for the past five decades—mainly in-kind food
commodities from donor counties—may provide a temporary
relief from hunger but does not allow durable hunger reduction,
and it may have negative short-term side effects, such as harming
local farmer livelihoods.
WFP's partial shift towards local purchases
may support local farmers and traders and contribute positively
to lasting hunger reduction, but it must also be clear that local
purchase alone is not going to bring about the tremendous changes
needed to meet the MDG1.
As a food delivery agency, WFP is thus not in
a position to assume the responsibility of reducing the number
of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Other agencies
must also be engaged, and collectively tasked with this goal.
The fact that the WFP is the largest operational UN agency demonstrates
the bias in the current aid system and the institutional and donor
neglect of other short-term and long-term measures to tackle hunger.
2 April 2008
103 Harris Torlassc*, Lynnda Kiess and Martin W. Bloem
Community and International Nutrition Association of Household
Rice Expenditure with Child Nutritional Status Indicates a Role
for Macroeconomic Food Policy in Combating Malnutrition <fy10>K<fy1>2003
The American Society for Nutritional Sciences J. Nutr. 133:1320-1325,
May 2003 Back
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