US amends food aid priorities, more for Africa

By Lisa Haarlander

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The Bush administration, in an overhaul
of a key food aid program, may halve the number of nations
receiving assistance while boosting spending on the neediest
countries, mostly in Africa, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

“This is not a cut in food aid. It’s shifting it to the
places that need it most,” said Jonathan Dworken, acting
director of U.S. Agency for International Development’s Food
for Peace program, funded through the 50-year-old Public Law
480, Title II.

“We want our food aid to have the greatest impact and help
the neediest people,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

About 31 countries currently are served by the Food for
Peace program or under consideration for nonemergency
assistance, which totaled $330 million in the fiscal year ended
September 2005.

In fiscal 2006, priority would go to 15 countries USAID has
identified as having the greatest need for food aid, Dworken
said.

Only after approved programs are funded in priority nations
would Food for Peace aid go to other countries fighting hunger,
starvation and malnutrition, Dworken said. Programs in
non-priority nations that do not receive funding will be
gradually phased out.

The United States is the world’s largest provider of food
aid to poor nations, which are also markets for American
commodities such as corn, wheat and soybeans. Food for Peace is
one part of the U.S. food aid program, which provided a market
for American farmers to sell $1.1 billion, or 3.72 million
tonnes, of their products in 2004.

The 15 counties on the priority list are Bangladesh,
Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Liberia,
Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Sierra
Leone, Uganda and Zambia, according to USAID.

Among the 16 countries that may face a stoppage in aid are
Benin, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Honduras, Indonesia,
Kenya, Nicaragua and Senegal. Programs are already being phased
out in India, Mali, Peru, Rwanda and Tajikistan.

No decision has been made regarding Bolivia.

Private volunteer groups that distribute aid provided
through the Food for Peace program view the changes as a mixed
blessing.

“For all organizations, it has implications for program
portfolios and implications for country office viability,” said
Bob Bell, director at CARE, a humanitarian agency with Food for
Peace programs in 17 countries — including seven countries not
on the priority list.

“Our hope is with the prioritization by Food for Peace, we
will begin to see for those countries increased resources, not
only with food but also cash,” Bell added.

The decision to prioritize countries comes on the heels of
calls by U.S. President George W. Bush to send up to a quarter
of U.S. food aid in the form of cash rather than U.S.
commodities.

The United States currently sends donations to developing
countries in the form of its own domestic corn, wheat and other
commodities. The World Trade Organization has pushed for cash
when dealing with emergency food crises to speed up relief and
not upset local trade balances.

(Additional reporting by Maureen Lorenzetti in Washington.)