Seminar I The Dynamics of Food Security

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Seminar I The Dynamics of Food Security

• Concepts, Policies Threats
• W5

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The existence of massive hunger is even more of
a tragedy because it has been largely accepted as
being essentially unpreventable

• Amartya Sen

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Food Insecurity

• It is recognized that poverty is a major
  cause of food insecurity and that sustainable
  progress in poverty eradication is critical to
  improving access to food but that conflict,
  terrorism, corruption and environmental
  degradation also contribute significantly to food
  insecurity. Rome Declaration, 1996

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Why Do We Need Food Security? FAMINE

• Famine Trajectories
• Natural Disasters
• (severe droughts floods mainly in Africa)
• Malevolent Exercise of State Power
• (Soviet Union China)
• Conflict
• (esp. SSA since 1960s)

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Famine in 20th Century

• Period I
• 1900 1920 Mortality very low and confined to
  Africa
• Period II
• 1920 1970 85 of famine deaths, predominantly
  China and Soviet Union
•  
• Period III
• 1970 2000 12 of famine deaths, all in Africa
  and South/Southeast Asia

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Famine in 20th Century

• 20th century was worst ever for famine mortality
• Drought famines in Nigeria (1927, 1942/43),
  Ethiopia (1980s)
• War famines in Angola (1974/5, 1993/4, 2001/2),
  Zaire (1977/8, 1997), Liberia (1992/3), Sierra
  Leone (1995/8)
• Many famines have no mortality estimates
  available, approx. 70 million to 80 million
  deaths in 20th century
• Technical capacity to eradicate famine was first
  achieved
• 21st century famines still persist
• Mass mortality famines N. Korea, Ethiopia and
  Sudan

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21st Century Deaths related to Famines

• 2000 Ethiopia, tens of thousands of deaths
  (drought)
• 2000 ongoing, Uganda, unknown (conflict)
• 2001 2003 Horn Southern Africa, tens of
  thousands of deaths (drought)
• 2002 Angola, thousands of deaths (conflict)

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Case Asia

• 1940s Bengal famine resulted with Indian govt
  being made accountable for famine prevention
• Apparent eradication of famine in India by the
  early 1970s
• Microeconomic vulnerability to famine persisted ?
  minor floods and major market failure led to
  catastrophic famine in Bangladesh 1974.
• Improvements in infrastructures and political
  accountability have contributed to prevention

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Case Africa

• 1920s 1950 period of low famine incidence
• Military dictatorships replaced colonial
  administrations, led to era of War-Triggered
  Famines
• 1980s and 90s
• Conflict-triggered famines in countries not
  famine-prone
• Drought-triggered famine nations experienced
  complex-emergencies
• Contributing factors poor infrastructure,
  microeconomic vulnerability, political
  instability
• 1980s, information systems international
  response capacity greatly improved
• Increasingly complex negative synergies between
  natural triggers, economic vulnerability
  political culpability have contributed to higher
  frequency

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Hunger Map of AfricaDrought Affected Countries
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Dought Affected Africa

• People at risk? More than 38 million people are
  victims of a vast hunger crisis in Africa.
• Countries affected? Severe food shortages exist
  in several large regions of the continent
  southern Africa, the Horn of Africa, the region
  of Western Sahel and West Africa's Mano River
  countries.
• Southern Africa
  Horn of Africa Lesotho -- 650,000 Uganda
  -- 500,000 Malawi -- 3.3 million Sudan -- 2.9
  million Mozambique -- 590,000 Eritrea -- 3.3
  million Zambia -- 2.9 million Ethiopia -- 11
  million Swaziland -- 270,000 Zimbabwe -- 6.7
  million Zambia -- 2.9 million Angola --
  1.9 million

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Zambia Drought-Related Famine

• 60 of population in the Southern province needs
  immediate food aid
• Severe flooding - the maize crop was almost a
  total failure, previous year's production fell by
  a quarter - most farmers have little in reserve
  to cope with the current crisis.
• Many Zambians collect, sell and eat wild food
  just to get by, or have resorted to crop-stealing
  and poaching.
• Even when the hungry can afford food, Zambia's
  low population density means that an exhausting
  journey on foot is required to reach the
  marketplace.
• Hunger is forcing children to drop out of school.
• The 20 percent rate of HIV/AIDS infection
  prevents thousands of young people from working
  in the fields.

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Uganda Conflict-Related Famine
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Uganda Conflict-Related Famine

• Last 18 years, people in northern Uganda have
  endured brutal conflict
• 1.6 million people have been displaced and now
  live in squalid conditions
• Civilians have been attacked and killed by the
  Lords Resistance Army (LRA) in their villages,
  as well as in the camps
• LRA has abducted tens of thousands of children,
  forcing them into combat and sexual slavery
• Ugandan army has moved hundreds of thousands of
  civilians against their will into protected
  villages that offer little security and hardly
  any assistance, and has victimized ordinary
  people with brutal raids against suspected LRA
  militants.
• Death toll from direct violence is tens of
  thousands, chronic food and water shortages in
  the 200 makeshift settlements throughout the
  north have also exacted a heavy price.
• Many are dying from preventable diseases like
  malaria, respiratory disease, and diarrhea

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The Persistence of Famine?

• Recent successes in averting famine in
  Bangladesh, Bosnia Mongolia
• Recent food crises in Ethiopia, Iraq, Madagascar,
  Malawi Sudan
• Recent drop in number of mortalities due to
  famine
• Since 1980s, famines have resided in the Horn of
  Africa
• Shift in famines from Europe Asia to
  Sub-Saharan Africa is associated with drop in
  famine mortality

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What is Food Security?

• Food security as the availability at all times
  of adequate world supplies of basic
  foodstuffs..to sustain a steady expansion of food
  consumption ..and to offset fluctuations in
  production and prices. Rome Declaration 1975

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Types of Food Security

• Household Food Security assuring or enhancing
  access to food for the poorest, most
  food-insecure households and groups
•  
• National Food Security ensuring availability,
  adequacy and stability of supplies of food at the
  global and national level
•  
• Acute Food Insecurity severe short-term
  problem, a crisis associated with an
  environmental or economic shock or a continuing
  emergency
•  
• Chronic Food Insecurity long-term problem, lack
  of access of vulnerable households to adequate
  levels of food for normal human development
  fundamentally intertwined with problems of
  poverty and inadequate livelihoods
•  

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Evolution of Thinking About Food Security

• Three fundamental shifts in food security
  thinking since the 1970s
• Level of analysis from global and national to
  the household and individual
• Scope of analysis from a narrow food first
  perspective to a broader livelihood perspective
  (sustainable)
• Assessment of food (in)security from objective
  indicators to subjective perceptions

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Who are the Key Actors?

• Donors
• Bilateral Governments
• Multilateral United Nations
• Non-Governmental Organisations
• Farmers, Public
• Private Corporations Agri Biotech Industry
• Recipient Nations

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Donors Bilateral - Government

• Bilateral flows generally are budgeted in
  monetary rather than volume terms
• Traditionally, donors/suppliers interest have
  been in expanding export markets and reducing
  surplus stocks
• US is the worlds primary bilateral donor,
  accounting for more than half of all donor food
  aid commitments worldwide

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Donors Multilateral UN/WFP

• Multilateral donors are dependent on bilateral
  donors for their resources or private donations
• Focus on recipient needs or obliged to supplier
  interests?
• Growing rapidly in the past quarter century,
  tracking the hyper-expansion of emergency food
  aid
• World Food Programme (WFP), est. by UN FAO and
  General Assembly in 1961,
• Responsible for 90 of multilateral food aid
  30 of all food aid worldwide
• Main channel for emergency food aid
• Develop ways to use food in food-for-work
  projects
• Raise share of resources through consolidated
  appeals to donor govt for supplemental aid
• Triangular Transactions and local purchases

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Donors Private Sector

• Multinational Corporations, involved in
  Agriculture Biotech
• Provision of agricultural inputs seeds,
  herbicides, fertilizers
• Provide financial resources - donations
• Donating technologies genetic markers, gene
  promoters, insect protection technology
• Transfer of information
• Provide training session to adopt improved
  practices

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Donors Non-Governmental Orgs

• Since 1980s, a sharp increase in the role of NGOs
  as channel for food aid
• Provide greater degree of direct accountability
  to donor govts, esp. where donor distrust of
  recipient govt is high
• Provide a way of quietly circumventing
  traditional reluctance to violate sovereignty of
  a nation
• Perceived as more neutral in conflict situations
• Have staff in areas where donors and multilateral
  agencies may not have, so can provide
  independent, on-site assessments of rapidly
  changing situations

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NGOs..

• Often the only viable orgs remaining/functioning
  on the ground in emergency situations
• Since mid-1990s, NGOs accounted for 20 of global
  food aid transfers, a larger share of emergency
  resources are now directed through NGOs
• UN agencies have established more formal
  contractual relations with NGOs, (WFP in 95)
• NGOs receive surplus crops from some
  Northern-based farmers
• NGOs receive private donations from the public

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When did the notion of Food Security come about?

• 1950s
• Food aid programs took present form in the early
  1950s
• US Public Law 480 (PL480), the Agricultural Trade
  Development and Assistance Act of 1954, a legal
  framework for US food aid
• 1950s and 1960s, food aid was a surplus disposal
  mechanism for dealing with the growing grain
  surpluses in North America

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• 1960s
• Allocations on a bilateral basis, to politically
  friendly allies
• 1961, World Food Programme (WFP)
• Insignificant role in international food aid, 4
  of total food aid transfers
• Two fundamental norms of food aid
• Reflect the political and economic goals of the
  donors foreign policy
• Transfers were allocated in order to not
  undermine commercial food exports, to protect
  commercial trade

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• 1970s
• Transformation of foreign aid policy emergence
  of development-oriented food aid regime
• World food crisis 1972-74, severe food shortages
• World Food Conference in Rome, 1974
• New consensus that food aid was to be
  conceptualized as a development resource
• New principles
• Improvement in agricultural production
• Multi-year programming of food aid
• Triangular food aid transactions
• Increased use of multilateral channels
• More criteria for bilateral allocations
• More emphasis on evaluations for programming of
  additional quantities

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1980s

• Food aid integrated into development projects
• Reform of WFP into full-fledged development
  agency
• Responsible for coordination of large-scale
  international emergency operations
• Transport and logistics for bilateral programmes
  NGOs
• New relations with leading international agencies
• Increase in channelling allocations for donors,
  25 of all shipments

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1990s

• Sharp distinction between emergency food aid and
  longer term development aid
• Emergency food aid increasingly seen as residual
  component of food aid
• Notion that food security is best achieved by
  ensuring food aid contributes to long-term
  agricultural development of recipient countries
• Trend Donors differ in their approach to food aid

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Food Security Evolution of Thinking Conceptually
and Chronologically

• Three Fundamental Shifts in Food Security
  Thinking Since the 1970s
• Six Phases of Food Security Policy and Practice

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Three Paradigm Shifts of Food Security

1. Level of Analysis from the Global and the
   National to the Household and the Individual

1. Scope of Analysis from a Food First Perspective
   to a Livelihood Perspective

3. Assessment of Food (In)Security from
Objective Indicators to Subjective
Perception
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From the Global National....to
Household/Individual

• Food security as the availability at all times
  of adequate world supplies of basic
  food-stuffs..to sustain a steady expansion of
  food consumption ..and to offset fluctuations in
  production and prices. (UN 1975)
• Focus on supply, national self-sufficiency and
  proposals for world food stocks
• However, widespread hunger could/did co-exist
  with adequate food supply at national and
  international levels
• Amartya Sen (1981) initiated the shift away from
  national to the issue of access of the individual
  to food

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2. From a Food First Perspective....to a
Livelihood Perspective

• Began 1985 - stimulated by observation of the
  African famine in 1984
• Conventional view of food security - food as a
  primary need
• Food security stands as a fundamental need,
  basic to all human needs and the organisation of
  social life. Access to necessary nutrients is
  fundamental, not only to life per se, but also to
  stable and enduring social order (Hopkins, 1986)
• Shift - short-term nutritional intake is only one
  of the objectives people pursue.

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Central Findings of the Period

• Time preference people going hungry now, in
  order to avoid going (more) hungry later

• Livelihood objectives other than nutritional
  adequacy were pursued

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3. From Objective Indicators.. ..to Subjective
Perception

• Conventional approaches relied on objective
  measurements
• Target levels of consumption
• Timely, reliable and nutritionally adequate
  supply of food

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Problems Related to an Objective Approach

• Quantitative measure without qualitative aspects
  is problematic because..
• A function of age, health, size, workload,
  environment and behaviour.
• Calorie requirements for average adults and
  children with average activity patterns in
  average years are subject to constant revision.
• Nutritional requirements have to be treated as
  value judgements.
• technical food quality
• consistency with local food habits
• cultural acceptability
• human dignity

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Considering the subjective dimension, a further
definition arose

• A country people are food secure when their
  food system operates in such a way as to remove
  the fear that there will not be enough to eat.
  In particular, food security will be achieved
  when the poor and vulnerable, particularly women
  and children and those living in marginal areas,
  have secure access to the food they want(1988).

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History of Food Security

1. 1974-80 Global Food Security
2. 1981-90 Food Entitlement Structural Adjustment
3. 1991-00 Poverty, Not Food Security
4. 2001.. Where Next?

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1974-80 Global Food Security

• World food crisis, famine in parts of the Africa,
  esp. the Sahel and Horn
• Doubling of grain prices, caused by harvest
  failure in, and grain imports by, the Soviet
  Union.
• ..from 1945 until the early 1970s, US food
  surpluses had, in effect, been the guarantor of
  world food security. The massive food aid to
  India during its drought crisis of 1965-66 is a
  good example. The US abdicated this solo role by
  its prioritization of commercial sales to the
  then USSR and its explicit use of food as a
  political weapon. By 1974..there was a
  considerable institutional gap to be filled.

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Milestones (cont)

• 1974, World Food Conference recognized global
  problem, focused attention on global production,
  trade and stocks.
• World Food Council was established, to monitor
  world food availability.
• FAO set up a committee on World Food Security

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1981-5 Food Entitlement Structural
Adjustment

• Academically, question of poverty and access
  began
• Acceptance that food production on its own did
  not assure consumption - people needed access to
  food.
• Amartya Sens Poverty and Famines (1981) codified
  the idea of food entitlement
• European Community launched its Plan of Action
  to Combat Hunger in the World
• FAO adopted a broader concept of food security,
  prominence on access, production stability of
  food

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1986-90 The Golden Age

• African famine renewed impetus to action on
  hunger its causes
• World attention drawn to social costs of
  structural adjustment, (UNICEF, Adjustment with a
  Human Face)
• WB, FAO, EC continued to commission reseach on
  Food Strategies
• Many African countries hosted food security
  studies by leading international organisations
• Great deal of academic work on food security,
  Hunger and Public Action (Jean Dreze and Sen,
  1989)

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1991-5 Poverty, Not Food Security

• Donors dropped/downgraded food security studies
  programmes in favour of poverty assessments and
  reduction programmes
• Change in nature of famines 80s associated with
  drought but 90s associated with war
• Problems were with food supplies in complex
  emergencies

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1996 2000 All Talk, No Action

• 1996, World Food Summit, more than 100 heads of
  states and governments met to address issue that
  800 million women, men and children do not have
  access to sufficient food
• Objective to raise political will
• ..the World Food Summit, like other summits, was
  premised on the assumption that, by drawing
  national leaders together in a public forum to
  commit themselves collectively to tackle major
  issues to global concern in a concerted manner,
  it would reinforce their determination to bring
  about change and heighten their accountability
  (FAO, 2001).

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WFSResults?

• A single commitment to reduce chronic
  under-nutrition in half by 2015
• Countries to prepare national action plans to be
  monitored by FAO committee
• Main difficulty of the Summit - lack of firm
  commitment and actions by national governments

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2001 What Next?

• Reviews 5 yrs showed that little action followed
  on the commitments made, implementation and
  follow-ups are off target
• National governments are unable/unwilling to
  follow-up on commitments
• 1 in 6 persons live in poverty and food
  insecurity, 842 million suffer from chronic
  hunger
• Many nations cannot create conditions for
  ensuring food security for its entire people

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Basics of Food Aid

• Key Distinctions/Definitions
• Food Assistance Programs (also food-related
  transfers) any intervention to address hunger
  and undernutrition (e.g., food stamps, WIC, food
  subsidies, food price stabilization, etc.).
• Food Aid
• - international concessional flows in the form
  of food or of cash to purchase food in support of
  food assistance programs.
• Key distinction international sourcing of
  concessional resources tied to the provision of
  food.

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Basics of Food Aid

• A Quick History of Modern Food Aid
• 1954, Public Law 480 (PL480) in the U.S. The
  U.S. and Canada accounted for gt90 of global
  flows through early 1970s, when the UNs World
  Food Programme became a major player. 
• Peaked at 22 of global aid flows in 65, now lt5
• Food Aid Convention agreed 1967, guides policies
  of 22 nations and EU, monitored through the
  Consultative Sub-Committee on Surplus Disposal.
• - Rise of WFP since mid-1970s, decline of US PL
  480. Move to multilateralism. EU/Canada move to
  cut program food aid and to decouple from
  domestic farm programs.
• - Modest rise of triangular transactions/local
  purchases since 1984.

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Basics of Food Aid

• Relative to international standards, 30 of the
  worlds nations suffer macronutrient availability
  shortfalls relative to international standards
  (2350 Kcal/55 g protein/day per capita)

concessional food flows have potential to fill
the gap.
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Basics of Food Aid

• Program subsidized deliveries of food to a
  central government that subsequently sells the
  food and uses the proceeds for whatever purpose
  (not necessarily food assistance). Program food
  aid provides budgetary and balance of payments
  relief for recipient governments.
• Project provides support to field-based
  projects in areas of chronic need through
  deliveries of food (usually free) to a government
  or NGO that either uses it directly (e.g., Food
  for Work, school feeding) or monetizes it, using
  the proceeds for project activities.
• Emergency/Humanitarian deliveries of free food
  to GO/NGO agencies responding to crisis due to
  natural disaster or conflict.

3 Types of Food Aid
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Where are we now?

1. Shift towards emergency food aid
2. Shift in the geographical focus of food aid
3. Shift in channels of distribution
4. A general decline in food aid levels
5. Growing diversity in donor approaches

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1. Shift Towards Emergency Food Aid

• 1970s - emergency food aid accounted for 10 of
  total food aid transfers (1mil tons/annum)
• 1980s - emergency food aid accounted for 20 of
  total food aid
• 1990s - emergency food aid in global transfers
  continued to increase (4mil tons/annum)
• Trend Increase in the volume of food aid for
  relief

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2. Shift in the Geographical Focus of Food Aid

• 1950s - 70s global food aid primarily to Asia
  (75)
• 1980s - 90s growing food crises in SSA major
  shift
• 1990s channelling to Eastern Europe and former
  Soviet Union increased (27)
• 1993 29 countries had acute food shortages from
  armed conflict where food was used as weapon
• 1994 20 mil displaced persons as interl
  refugees and 30 mil IDPs
• Trend During Cold War era, regional conflicts
  focused in S.E. Asia L.A., in post-Cold War,
  emergencies tend to be in Africa, E. Europe,
  Caucasus and C.Asia

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3. Shift in Channels of Distribution

• 1960s 7 of food aid directed by multilateral
  agencies
• 1970s bilateral food aid transfers accounted for
  80 of global totals
• 1974 WFC, called for greater multilateralization
  of food aid by channelling increased resources to
  WFP
• 1980s 20 of food aid transfers shipped through
  multilateral agencies
• Mid-1990s multilateral aid increased to 30,
  govt-to-govt transfers 50
• Trend General decline in overall importance of
  government-to-government food aid transfers

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4. General Decline in Food Aid Levels

• Highest level recorded in 1960s, 18mil metric
  tons
• 1970s drop to 7mil metric tons
• World Food Conference responded by establishing
  an annual minimal target for donors of 10mil
  metric tons
• 1980s averaged the target amount
• Early 1990s amounts rose sharply because USA was
  channelling to E. Europe (15mil 92)
• 1995 amount was 9.5mil and dropped to 7.5mil in
  1996
• Trend Global food aid levels fluctuate
  dramatically

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5. Growing Diversity in Donor Approaches

• USA - dominant food aid donor
• Largest supporters of multilateral channels
  Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden
• Greatest use of NGOs USA, EU, Germany and UK
• Donors have diverse geographical areas of
  interest
• USA and EU have most significantly contributed to
  E. Europe and former Soviet Republics
• Canada, Australia and Japan are more oriented to
  Asian and Pacific regions
• EU, UK and several other European states are more
  directed to Sub-Saharan Africa

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Diversity in Approaches cont..

• Donors differ in the uses of food aid
• USA, Germany and France, program food aid
  constitute the largest share of their food aid
  disbursements
• Project food aid constitutes the largest share of
  Canadian, Australia and Dutch food aid
• EU, Germany, Japan and UK provide the majority of
  their disbursement in emergency food aid
• Trend Donors differ in their approach to food aid