The Obama administration’s proposal for food aid reform is evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, but it is still a big step in the right direction. Overall, the administration estimates that the proposal would allow roughly the same level of funds for food aid to reach an additional 4 million people, and do so more quickly in emergencies.
With the Spice Girls back together, temporarily we must hope, for the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, David Cameron could have been forgiven for making the most of the public’s desire to celebrate the success of the Olympics. Instead he risked being the party pooper, by convening a summit in Downing Street about hunger with Vice President Michel Temer of Brazil.
Under the Budget Control Act, a Joint Deficit Reduction Committee is tasked with finding up to $1.5 trillion in savings over ten years. The Committee is free to look at revenues, entitlements, and discretionary spending.
I was delighted to learn yesterday that Tufts University’s Global Development And Environment Institute, will award its 2012 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought to Michael Lipton of Sussex University and to world-renowned agricultural expert and CGD Non-Resident Fellow Peter Timmer. This year's award, titled "The Global Food
Every year, billions of dollars are spent on food assistance to provide lifesaving sustenance to millions of people. That’s a lot of money, and an important cause, so it was encouraging to learn last week that the United States and the G-20 are starting to seriously scrutinize food aid policy. Recent developments in Washington and Paris show a growing consensus that it’s about time to overhaul outdated approaches to feeding the hungry.
This post is co-authored by Vijaya Ramachandran
Last week, the G-20 agriculture ministers meeting in Paris issued a communiqué calling for the World Food Programme to develop hedging strategies to purchase food. In a little-noticed section towards the end of a 24-page document, the ministers stated:
We invite the multilateral, regional and national development banks or agencies to further explore, in connection with the private sector as appropriate:
Development of hedging strategies that could help international humanitarian agencies, in particular WFP, to optimize food procurements and maximize the purchasing power of financial resources, building upon forward purchase… (Annex 5)
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) just issued a new report critical of how the United States manages some aspects of its international food assistance. That U.S. food aid is not managed as efficiently as it could be will come as no surprise to anyone who has braved the world of U.S.
The Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa held an event on Capitol Hill on Friday to launch an excellent report by Stephanie Mercier, a former Senate Ag Committee staffer. I had the pleasure of serving as a discussant. Though the report title focuses on food aid and the next farm bill, the report also covers the evolution of U.S. food aid and the modest but important improvements that were made in the 2008 farm bill.
This is a joint post with Vijaya Ramachandran.
The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) recently reported that the December 2010 Food Price Index surpassed the peak reached in June 2008. A closer examination of the data, however, provides some modest hope that the worst effects of the 2007-08 price spikes can be avoided, with luck and better policies.
First, it is important to note that only two of the five components of the Food Price Index were above 2008 levels—meat (slightly above) and sugar (more than twice as high). Second, as shown in the chart below, staple grain prices, which are key to preventing hunger among the poor, are increasing sharply, while rice and, to a lesser degree, wheat remain well below their 2008 peaks. Maize is the exception, thanks in part to U.S. policies supporting corn-based ethanol that bring to mind the zombies populating popular culture—they just won’t die!
Over 7 million people are expected to face severe food shortages in Niger over the next few months. When I was there in early June, many villages in the far east of the country had not yet received rain, there had been an exodus of young men to Nigeria, Benin and Libya, and women were searching for the bitter green berry – known as dilo – to cook and eat, a last resort for those who have nothing.