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Monitor
Monitor is a review of selected documents emanating from the four international agencies based in Rome - the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Food Council (WFC) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The column aims to reflect current trends in selected issues and activities within the organizations. Compiled by Ram Saran, this issue’s Monitor looks at the problem of meeting the food security challenge of the 1990s and beyond, future directions of food aid, a high-level meeting on poverty alleviation, and fishery policy issues.
Meeting the food security challenge
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The WFC and the UNDP jointly convened an interregional expert consultation in Cairo, Egypt, from 22 to 24 April 1991 to examine the challenge of feeding the world’s more than 6 billion people expected by the turn of the century and some 8 billion 20 years later. To facilitate its deliberations, the consultation had before it three regional reviews of food-security-focused agricultural research, technology transfer and its application, a synthesis of which is given in a summary report.’ The consultation focused on the food-production dimension of the food-security equation, particularly the future directions of technology development and transfer in the broader context of equity-oriented, sustainable development. The broadly based agreement reached at the meeting recognized that the first green revolution had serious limitations and had not reached sub-Saharan Africa and many developing countries elsewhere. But many participants felt that a new green revolution, which would be significantly different in its approach, would be needed.2 The following are some of the directions for agricultural research and technology which it was suggested could help usher in a new green revolution: 0
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a better coverage of plant- and animal-based foods important for the food security of low-income groups; a shift in emphasis from single-commodity research towards research cutting across commodities and focusing on approaches such as farming systems research and research on natural resource management in different agroecological zones; the importance of ecological sustainability in future technology development and application;
Mr Ram Saran is former head of the Food Security and Food Aid Policy Group in the Commodities and Trade Division of the FAO. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent any of the organizations concerned.
FOOD POLICY October 1991
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better integration of socioeconomic and policy research with technology-focused research; use of new tools provided by biotechnology as a complement to conventional approaches to technology development; the need to build genetic databases (‘genome mapping’) and to ensure the access of developing countries to advanced biotechnology; utilization of technologies which are ‘on the shelf’ especially in Africa and Latin America; effectively addressing problems common to the national agricultural research systems (NARS), seeking cooperative arrangements with universities, the private sector and regional and international research institutions and networks, human resource development for more effective NARS, and greater attention to the sustainability of research and development institutions and long-term commitments by developing countries and donors alike; strengthening sub-regional cooperation through development of research programmes on common commodities in similar agroecological zones or through a division of work in research on complementary commodities.
In stressing the role of agricultural research and technology, the consultation endorsed the need for renewed political commitment to food-security efforts in developing countries. Participants urged that such a commitment should find expression in an overall policy framework conducive to creating a domestic economic environment favourable to sustained agricultural development, including appropriate price relationships, adequate transporta‘WFC, ‘Meeting the developing countries’ food production challenges of the 1990s and beyond: synthesis of the regional overviews of food-security focused agricultural research, technology transfer and application’, WFCl99116, Rome, Italy, March 1991. ‘WFC, ‘Meeting the developing countries’ food production challenges of the 1990s and beyond: summary report of the WFC/ UNDP interregional consultation, Cairo, Egypt, 22-24 April 1991’, WFC/1991/6 Add.1, Rome, Italy, April 1991.
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tion, input availability, appropriate land tenure system and human-resource development. An important conclusion of the meeting was that favourably endowed agricultural lands will bc a principal source of food supplies, with less favourable rainfed agriculture also offering significant potential. In examining the situation in each region, the consultation recognized that, more than any other region, Africa was in dire need of a green revolution, combining a short-term approach to accelerating food production growth as much as possible through existing technologies with longer-term efforts directed at laying the foundation for sustainable food security for all people in the 21st century. Region-specific policy and programme priorities were recommended for this region as well as Asia and Latin America. The report of the consultation as well as a number of other documents prepared by the secretariat will be considered by the 17th ministerial session of the Council (Helsingor, Denmark, S-8 June 1991). Two documents which examine the implications of developments as dverse as the political and economic restructuring in Eastern Europe and the USSR, the economic integration in Western Europe and other regions, the Gulf situation and the outcome of the multilateral trade negotiations in the Uruguay Round, seek to alert the international community to potential risks and opportunities for their efforts to fight hunger which may flow from these developments.’ Although developed countries have repeatedly stressed that there will be no diversion of funds from their official development assistance (ODA) budgets, evidence has been given by the secretariat to suggest that Eastern Europe and the USSR will compete with developing countries for financial flows and certainly lead to upward pressures on world interest rates, increasing the costs of new loans and of servicing existing debt for developing countries. Moreover, a cut in the assistance by Eastern European countries and the USSR will hurt a number of developing countries. The analysis also indicates that while there will be increasing competition between Eastern Europe and developing countries in the markets of industrialized countries in the medium and long term, developing-country export opportunities for feed and tropical products could expand to meet increasing demand in Eastern Europe and the USSR. The WFC assessment is that while the implementation of the ‘Europe 1992’ project will stimulate the growthinduced demand for developing-country primary products, low-income developing countries wil only benefit to a limited extent. Moreover, some developing countries arc likely to be edged out of the EC market, where costs and prices might fall because of the removal of the remaining barriers to intra-EC trade. A number of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries will also suffer because of the removal of national preferential treatment in some 3WFC, ‘Food security implications of the changes in the political and economic environment’, WFC/1991/3, Rome, Italy, March 1991; WFC, ‘The consequences for food security of the multilateral trade negotiations in the Uruguay Round’, WFC/1991/4, Rome, Italy, April 1991.
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EC countries. Developing countries will also be negatively affected by increased total investments in the EC which will exert upward pressures on interest rates in the capital markets and by redistribution of investment flows in favour of the Mediterranean countries. In regard to the economic impact of the Gulf situation, the WFC refers to an assessment of the Overseas Development Institute to show that at least 40 low- and lowermiddle-income developing countries have suffered losses in excess of 1“A,of their GNP because of a rise in oil prices during the six months between the commencement of the crisis and the actual outbreak of war, loss of remittances of foreign workers in the Gulf and the cost of their repatriation, loss of exports to the region and, in some cases, loss of aid. Special aid pledged to these countries is reported to be only a small fraction of total losses incurred. The WFC’s analysis of the food-security implications of the multilateral trade negotiations in the LJruguay Round shows that developing countries are expected to achieve sizeable increases in export earnings, above all from trade beverages, liberalization in sugar, as well as tropical tobacco, meat, coffee, cocoa, vegetable oils and fats, although a major share of the gains would flow to a small number of largely middle-income countries. In cereals and other temperate-zone products, although a limited number of developing countries are expected to gain from liberalization, a large number of net food-importing countries would face higher import bills due to rising world market prices and also suffer because of reduced availability of food aid following depletion of surplus stocks in the hands of governments. Thus in the short run agricultural trade liberalization may produce hardships for the world’s hungry people. But its longer-run effects upon food security will be positive due to efficiency gains in developing countries’ food and agriculture sector and greater, longerterm market stability. The WFC has also summarized the progress made by developed countries towards reorienting aid policies and programmes for alleviating hunger and poverty. In the light of the progress reported, issues are raised seeking to explore ways of improving policy dialogue in favour of a better policy environment in developing countries. sharpening the hunger and poverty focus in current aid activities and tackling poverty by striking the right balance between support to economic growth and more direct poverty-focused activitics.J
Future directions of food aid The WFP has examined in a special review Programme’s major strengths and constraints to explore the directions that the organization the 1990s. The WFP’s annual review of food and programmes also includes a section on prospects of food aid. The key issues that
paper the to enable it may take in aid policies the future should be
4WFC, ‘Focusing development assistance on hunger- and poverty alleviation’, WFCil99115, Rome, Italy, March 1991.
FOOD POLICY
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1991
Monitor addressed in order to improve the supply and use of food aid in Africa are analysed in a joint study by the World Bank and WFP. An FAO report which was reviewed in the Monitor of Food Policy, Vol 16, No 3, identified possible developments during the 1990s that could affect the supply of and demand for food aid, and suggested alternatives to present practices in the programming, allocation and use of food aid. All these studies are intended to assist the WFP Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes (CFA) in considering at its 31st session (Rome, 2(&27 May 1991) modifications in food aid policies and practices and the role of the WFP in the 199os.s The FAO report on food aid recognizes that food aid availability in the 1990s would possibly be insufficient to meet the potential requirements. On the issue of food aid prospects for the 1990s the WFP’s annual review also comes to the conclusion that there is cause for concern about the sustainability of food aid flows to meet future needs. The conclusion stems from the fact that there has been a declining trend in both the volume and share of total food aid to the low-income. food-deficit and leastdeveloped groups of countries and that food aid now being programmed to Eastern European countries and the USSR could be at the expense of food aid to the Third World. Further, should world food prices and transport costs rise, the volume of food aid commodities may decline as food aid budgets are often established in value terms.’ Although there will remain a protected area in aid budgets for food aid owing to its humanitarian connotations and to the influence of commercially involved groups, a conscious and determined effort is considered essential if the flow of food aid is to be maintained and progressively increased to match needs. The special review paper on the role of the WFP in the 1990s has identified three major strengths of the Programme, which arise from its multilateral character, its institutional assets in the form of professional staff and expertise, and the potential it has to use food aid resources in sustainable ways targeted to protect poor and vulnerable groups. Among the constraints under which the WFP has to work, attention is drawn to scarcity of food, cash, staff capabilities and non-food resources. The analysis assumes that in the 1990s the amount of food pledged to the WFP will not increase substantially, that there are limits to the proportion of cash that can be obtained, that unless the WFP is assigned additional unforeseen tasks there will be no increase in core staff and that obtaining needed nonfood inputs, attracting adequate technical and financial assistance and eliciting sufficient investment in management will not become easier. But on the other hand, 5WFP, ‘The role of WFP in the nineties’, CFA: 31/P/5-A, Rome, Italy. April 1991; WFP, ‘Review of global food policies and programmes’, CFA: 31/P/5-B, Rome, Italy, April 1991; WFP, ‘Joint World Bank/World Food Programme study on food aid in Africa’, CFA: 31/P/5-D, Rome, Italy. April 1991; WFP, ‘FAO study on prospects for food aid and its role in the 1990s’. CFA: 31/P/5-C, Rome, Italy, April 1991. ‘The WFP’s annual review points out, ‘the lower the prices, the higher the quantities and hence related transport costs’.
FOOD POLICY
October 1991
increased demand for emergency and refugee operations and growing requests for bilateral services are putting great pressure on the WFP’s limited resources. The WFP’s concern therefore is that if feeding of refugees and displaced persons, especially in Africa, continues to grow as a major activity, then resources required for these activities will exacerbate existing constraints on its development work. In light of the strengths and constraints outlined and changes in development opportunities, the WFP’s review suggests the need to use the 1990s as a time to move in two directions. First, for the WFP to continue to meet emergencies and provide services, a revised formula must take account of the interdependence of its activities. This implies that emergency actions should be better integrated into and given credit for their role of protecting national development investments, and in turn development projects should play a protective role in those areas that are prone to disasters to help prevent future emergencies. Second, the WFP should sharpen the focus of its project portfolio, giving priority to a food-intensive resource mix, providing the same or larger amounts of food through fewer and bigger projects in order to reach large numbers of poor people more efficiently, exercising greater selectivity in supporting employment-intensive projects, and emphasizing activities to prevent or prepare for emergencies. Moving in this direction, the WFP is expected to concentrate its development efforts on countries with food insecurity and emphasize activities that have substantial effects on the food supplies of the hungry.
Food aid in Africa The joint study by the World Bank and the WFP about the future of food aid in Africa will be published shortly. The main conclusions of the study are given in a summary report produced by the WFP secretariat. An important conclusion is that the scope for food aid to Africa is large and that a higher level of food aid than now received can be accommodated to offset growing food imports and help increasing numbers of malnourished people. The report notes the positive contribution made by programme and project food aid to food security and long-term development. It recognizes that programme food aid can be an efficient means of resource transfer, but that it seldom makes a large, direct contribution to the alleviation of poverty and hunger. On the other hand, project food aid has the capacity to reach the poor and hungry directly. But the costs of direct distribution of food are high; moreover such food aid has been handicapped by lack of complementary financial and technical resources and by administrative and logistical difficulties. To address the issues of food aid affecting its level and use, the report has proposed a number of guiding principles for food aid to Africa in the 1990s. These include the following: 0
First, Africa will continue to require not emergency food aid but also non-emergency
only food
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aid. Emergency food aid should better respond to short-term needs while non-emergency food aid should be provided on a predictable and flexible basis. Second, the intercountry allocation of food aid which often reflects a higher priority given to political and commercial considerations should be more clearly aligned to development needs and opportunities. Third, to achieve better integration with financial and technical assistance and increase its cost effectiveness, food aid needs to be brought into the mainstream of aid planning and programming in donor countries and aid organizations. Fourth, monetization of food aid should normally be favoured wherever the efficient management of the process can be assured, with a special emphasis on the use of generated funds for the poor and food insecure. Fifth, triangular transactions, trilateral operations, local purchases and exchange arrangements can be more cost effective in many cases than using donated foods. Sixth, greater timeliness of emergency aid will require strengthening the disaster preparedness and prevention structures. Development assistance (food and other aid) in drought-prone areas can help address the causes of recurring emergencies. The International Emergency Food Reserve (IEFR) should be revised to provide a sound resource base in advance of emergency food aid needs. Further. refugees and displaced persons needing long-term assistance require a more developmental approach to their support. Finally, both donors and recipients need to strengthen design, appraisal, monitoring and evaluation of food aid programmes.
High-level meeting on poverty alleviation The joint consultative group on policy comprising five operational funds and programmes of the United Nations (the United Nations Development Programme. the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development) held discussions in Rome, Italy, on 31 August-1 September I990 on the question of both assessing and combating poverty by enforcing their common efforts. The Office of the Director-General for United Nations Development and International Economic Cooperation was also represented at the meeting. The report of the meeting contains presentations by each of the agencies and their resource people invited to the meeting and a summary of discussions.’ The participants strongly stressed the need for a clearer
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focus on poverty alleviation within a framework of growth and development. They stressed that overcoming poverty was a means of assuring the most basic of human rights, ie the right to food and therefore to life. and that this could be achieved in a cost-effective manner by harnessing the capacity and talents of the poor themselves. The poor, then, become a source of growth and not an object of charity. The five agencies emphasized that the only sustainable solution to global poverty lay in strengthening the hands of the poor groups by giving them the means, the methods and the markets as well as access to high-quality social services and education, but that this had to be accompanied by effective population policies and concern for the environment. Further, agreeing that, among the poor, women were doubly disadvantaged, being victims of poverty and sex discrimination, the agencies reiterated that bringing them into the mainstream of development and recognizing them as a resource as well as beneficiaries was a prerequisite for sustainable development and would be given central priority in their programmes. The meeting cautioned that the focus on poverty alleviation should not be seen as a new form of conditionality. On the contrary, it was necessary to put the limited resources available to the best use to alleviate poverty and to accelerate growth. Finally, the meeting emphasized five issues which called for attention: (a) structural adjustment must be integrated into a long-term development strategy with poverty alleviation at its core, which is what is meant by going beyond Adjustment with a Human Face to promoting Development with a Iluman Face; (b) external factors should be internalized into development projects so that resource allocations for environmental preservation can be justified; (c) interventions in favour of poverty alleviation should not be allowed to result in demobilization of domestic efforts to save and invest; (d) the challenge of poverty alleviation through food aid is not one of targeting a firm basis for lasting pr sc, but one of providing development; and (e) while a favourable macroeconomic framework is essential for poverty alleviation, it is no substitute for microeconomic investments involving the poor directly.
Fishery policy issues The FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) considered at its 17th session, held in Rome, 8-12 April 1991, policy issues relating to the environment and sustainability in fisheries and the role of women in fisheries development. The discussion on the subject of the environment and sustainability in fisheries was based on a secretariat document which described the characteristics and present state of aquatic living resources and their environment, examined the various technical issues relevant to the sustain‘IFAD, ‘Report of the 1990 Joint Consultative Group on Policy (JCGP) high level meeting on poverty alleviation - a global challenge’, Rome, Italy, 31 August-l September 1990.
FOOD POLICY
October
1991
Monitor able use of fishery resources and the protection of the aquatic environment, and proposed actions for the consideration of COFI. The Committee accorded high priority to promoting the concept of integrated coastal zone management which needed policies and mechanisms to integrate fisheries conservation into the pattern of resource use at the river basin and coastal areas level. Considering that a number of resources were overfished, resulting in severe biological and socioeconomic consequences, attention was drawn to the need for continued efforts to maintain fishing intensities in inland waters and in the sea at sustainable levels that were economically viable, ecologically sound and socially acceptable. Emphasizing the importance of extensive cooperation at the regional level, it was suggested that more attention should be given to protection and restoration of water quality, to appropriate technologies in industry, agriculture and waste disposal, to selective fishing as well as to other measures promoting marine habitat conservation.X The role of women in fisheries development was considered by COFI on the basis of a secretariat review of prevailing patterns of women’s participation in fisheries, aquaculture and related industries and of the constraints affecting women as distinct from those common to the fishing sectors in general. The Committee took note of the fact that women were involved in subsistence fishing, commercial fishing, gathering and harvesting activities, processing operations, fish retailing and aquaculturerelated activities. It recognized, however, that the scope for increasing the number of women in capture fisheries was limited and that the actual number of workers had decreased as technologies changed, reducing the demand for their labour. Stress was laid on the need to monitor and anticipate the negative effects of technology on the fishery and non-fishery income-generating activities of women.
FOOD POLICY
October
1991
Noting that women’s work was labour-intensive and timeconsuming, which added to their household chores, the Committee observed that this aspect should be taken into account in planning activities for women.” The April 1991 issue of TCDC newsletter”’ reviews the FAO’s latest activities under its programme for Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC). These activities, promoted through the mechanism of regional networks, meetings, seminars, consultations, workshops and training courses, cover the fields of seed technology, plant biotechnology, watershed management, research in tropical rice, tropical fruit industry, agricultural marketing, food quality control, rural development, decentralized planning, small farmers’ livestock production, pasture and fodder research, integration of women in the fisheries and agriculture sector, fisheries investment, fish inspection and quality assurance, seamoss cultivation technology, wood energy development, policy analysis and personnel training, and assessment of the impact of grassroots and people’s organizations. The newsletter also presents a detailed analysis of the options available for financing TCDC activities. Information is given on different sources of funding, including national budgets of developing countries, support by developed countries and support by the United Nations development system, ie FAO, UNDP and regional and sub-regional development banks and funds ‘FAO, ‘Environment and sustainability in fisheries’, COFV9113, Rome, Italy, February 1991; FAO, ‘Report of the nineteenth session of the Committee on Fisheries’, Rome, Italy, 8-12 April 1991. ‘FAO, ‘The role of women in fisheries development’, COFl/91/4, Rome, Italy, December 1990; FAO, ‘Report of the nineteenth session of the Committee on Fisheries’, Rome, 19-12 April 1991. “‘FAO, TCDC newsletter, Rome, Italy, No 8, April 1991.
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Meeting the food security challenge
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The WFC and the UNDP jointly convened an interregional expert consultation in Cairo, Egypt, from 22 to 24 April 1991 to examine the challenge of feeding the world’s more than 6 billion people expected by the turn of the century and some 8 billion 20 years later. To facilitate its deliberations, the consultation had before it three regional reviews of food-security-focused agricultural research, technology transfer and its application, a synthesis of which is given in a summary report.’ The consultation focused on the food-production dimension of the food-security equation, particularly the future directions of technology development and transfer in the broader context of equity-oriented, sustainable development. The broadly based agreement reached at the meeting recognized that the first green revolution had serious limitations and had not reached sub-Saharan Africa and many developing countries elsewhere. But many participants felt that a new green revolution, which would be significantly different in its approach, would be needed.2 The following are some of the directions for agricultural research and technology which it was suggested could help usher in a new green revolution: 0
0
0
a better coverage of plant- and animal-based foods important for the food security of low-income groups; a shift in emphasis from single-commodity research towards research cutting across commodities and focusing on approaches such as farming systems research and research on natural resource management in different agroecological zones; the importance of ecological sustainability in future technology development and application;
Mr Ram Saran is former head of the Food Security and Food Aid Policy Group in the Commodities and Trade Division of the FAO. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent any of the organizations concerned.
FOOD POLICY October 1991
0
0 0
0
better integration of socioeconomic and policy research with technology-focused research; use of new tools provided by biotechnology as a complement to conventional approaches to technology development; the need to build genetic databases (‘genome mapping’) and to ensure the access of developing countries to advanced biotechnology; utilization of technologies which are ‘on the shelf’ especially in Africa and Latin America; effectively addressing problems common to the national agricultural research systems (NARS), seeking cooperative arrangements with universities, the private sector and regional and international research institutions and networks, human resource development for more effective NARS, and greater attention to the sustainability of research and development institutions and long-term commitments by developing countries and donors alike; strengthening sub-regional cooperation through development of research programmes on common commodities in similar agroecological zones or through a division of work in research on complementary commodities.
In stressing the role of agricultural research and technology, the consultation endorsed the need for renewed political commitment to food-security efforts in developing countries. Participants urged that such a commitment should find expression in an overall policy framework conducive to creating a domestic economic environment favourable to sustained agricultural development, including appropriate price relationships, adequate transporta‘WFC, ‘Meeting the developing countries’ food production challenges of the 1990s and beyond: synthesis of the regional overviews of food-security focused agricultural research, technology transfer and application’, WFCl99116, Rome, Italy, March 1991. ‘WFC, ‘Meeting the developing countries’ food production challenges of the 1990s and beyond: summary report of the WFC/ UNDP interregional consultation, Cairo, Egypt, 22-24 April 1991’, WFC/1991/6 Add.1, Rome, Italy, April 1991.
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tion, input availability, appropriate land tenure system and human-resource development. An important conclusion of the meeting was that favourably endowed agricultural lands will bc a principal source of food supplies, with less favourable rainfed agriculture also offering significant potential. In examining the situation in each region, the consultation recognized that, more than any other region, Africa was in dire need of a green revolution, combining a short-term approach to accelerating food production growth as much as possible through existing technologies with longer-term efforts directed at laying the foundation for sustainable food security for all people in the 21st century. Region-specific policy and programme priorities were recommended for this region as well as Asia and Latin America. The report of the consultation as well as a number of other documents prepared by the secretariat will be considered by the 17th ministerial session of the Council (Helsingor, Denmark, S-8 June 1991). Two documents which examine the implications of developments as dverse as the political and economic restructuring in Eastern Europe and the USSR, the economic integration in Western Europe and other regions, the Gulf situation and the outcome of the multilateral trade negotiations in the Uruguay Round, seek to alert the international community to potential risks and opportunities for their efforts to fight hunger which may flow from these developments.’ Although developed countries have repeatedly stressed that there will be no diversion of funds from their official development assistance (ODA) budgets, evidence has been given by the secretariat to suggest that Eastern Europe and the USSR will compete with developing countries for financial flows and certainly lead to upward pressures on world interest rates, increasing the costs of new loans and of servicing existing debt for developing countries. Moreover, a cut in the assistance by Eastern European countries and the USSR will hurt a number of developing countries. The analysis also indicates that while there will be increasing competition between Eastern Europe and developing countries in the markets of industrialized countries in the medium and long term, developing-country export opportunities for feed and tropical products could expand to meet increasing demand in Eastern Europe and the USSR. The WFC assessment is that while the implementation of the ‘Europe 1992’ project will stimulate the growthinduced demand for developing-country primary products, low-income developing countries wil only benefit to a limited extent. Moreover, some developing countries arc likely to be edged out of the EC market, where costs and prices might fall because of the removal of the remaining barriers to intra-EC trade. A number of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries will also suffer because of the removal of national preferential treatment in some 3WFC, ‘Food security implications of the changes in the political and economic environment’, WFC/1991/3, Rome, Italy, March 1991; WFC, ‘The consequences for food security of the multilateral trade negotiations in the Uruguay Round’, WFC/1991/4, Rome, Italy, April 1991.
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EC countries. Developing countries will also be negatively affected by increased total investments in the EC which will exert upward pressures on interest rates in the capital markets and by redistribution of investment flows in favour of the Mediterranean countries. In regard to the economic impact of the Gulf situation, the WFC refers to an assessment of the Overseas Development Institute to show that at least 40 low- and lowermiddle-income developing countries have suffered losses in excess of 1“A,of their GNP because of a rise in oil prices during the six months between the commencement of the crisis and the actual outbreak of war, loss of remittances of foreign workers in the Gulf and the cost of their repatriation, loss of exports to the region and, in some cases, loss of aid. Special aid pledged to these countries is reported to be only a small fraction of total losses incurred. The WFC’s analysis of the food-security implications of the multilateral trade negotiations in the LJruguay Round shows that developing countries are expected to achieve sizeable increases in export earnings, above all from trade beverages, liberalization in sugar, as well as tropical tobacco, meat, coffee, cocoa, vegetable oils and fats, although a major share of the gains would flow to a small number of largely middle-income countries. In cereals and other temperate-zone products, although a limited number of developing countries are expected to gain from liberalization, a large number of net food-importing countries would face higher import bills due to rising world market prices and also suffer because of reduced availability of food aid following depletion of surplus stocks in the hands of governments. Thus in the short run agricultural trade liberalization may produce hardships for the world’s hungry people. But its longer-run effects upon food security will be positive due to efficiency gains in developing countries’ food and agriculture sector and greater, longerterm market stability. The WFC has also summarized the progress made by developed countries towards reorienting aid policies and programmes for alleviating hunger and poverty. In the light of the progress reported, issues are raised seeking to explore ways of improving policy dialogue in favour of a better policy environment in developing countries. sharpening the hunger and poverty focus in current aid activities and tackling poverty by striking the right balance between support to economic growth and more direct poverty-focused activitics.J
Future directions of food aid The WFP has examined in a special review Programme’s major strengths and constraints to explore the directions that the organization the 1990s. The WFP’s annual review of food and programmes also includes a section on prospects of food aid. The key issues that
paper the to enable it may take in aid policies the future should be
4WFC, ‘Focusing development assistance on hunger- and poverty alleviation’, WFCil99115, Rome, Italy, March 1991.
FOOD POLICY
October
1991
Monitor addressed in order to improve the supply and use of food aid in Africa are analysed in a joint study by the World Bank and WFP. An FAO report which was reviewed in the Monitor of Food Policy, Vol 16, No 3, identified possible developments during the 1990s that could affect the supply of and demand for food aid, and suggested alternatives to present practices in the programming, allocation and use of food aid. All these studies are intended to assist the WFP Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes (CFA) in considering at its 31st session (Rome, 2(&27 May 1991) modifications in food aid policies and practices and the role of the WFP in the 199os.s The FAO report on food aid recognizes that food aid availability in the 1990s would possibly be insufficient to meet the potential requirements. On the issue of food aid prospects for the 1990s the WFP’s annual review also comes to the conclusion that there is cause for concern about the sustainability of food aid flows to meet future needs. The conclusion stems from the fact that there has been a declining trend in both the volume and share of total food aid to the low-income. food-deficit and leastdeveloped groups of countries and that food aid now being programmed to Eastern European countries and the USSR could be at the expense of food aid to the Third World. Further, should world food prices and transport costs rise, the volume of food aid commodities may decline as food aid budgets are often established in value terms.’ Although there will remain a protected area in aid budgets for food aid owing to its humanitarian connotations and to the influence of commercially involved groups, a conscious and determined effort is considered essential if the flow of food aid is to be maintained and progressively increased to match needs. The special review paper on the role of the WFP in the 1990s has identified three major strengths of the Programme, which arise from its multilateral character, its institutional assets in the form of professional staff and expertise, and the potential it has to use food aid resources in sustainable ways targeted to protect poor and vulnerable groups. Among the constraints under which the WFP has to work, attention is drawn to scarcity of food, cash, staff capabilities and non-food resources. The analysis assumes that in the 1990s the amount of food pledged to the WFP will not increase substantially, that there are limits to the proportion of cash that can be obtained, that unless the WFP is assigned additional unforeseen tasks there will be no increase in core staff and that obtaining needed nonfood inputs, attracting adequate technical and financial assistance and eliciting sufficient investment in management will not become easier. But on the other hand, 5WFP, ‘The role of WFP in the nineties’, CFA: 31/P/5-A, Rome, Italy. April 1991; WFP, ‘Review of global food policies and programmes’, CFA: 31/P/5-B, Rome, Italy, April 1991; WFP, ‘Joint World Bank/World Food Programme study on food aid in Africa’, CFA: 31/P/5-D, Rome, Italy. April 1991; WFP, ‘FAO study on prospects for food aid and its role in the 1990s’. CFA: 31/P/5-C, Rome, Italy, April 1991. ‘The WFP’s annual review points out, ‘the lower the prices, the higher the quantities and hence related transport costs’.
FOOD POLICY
October 1991
increased demand for emergency and refugee operations and growing requests for bilateral services are putting great pressure on the WFP’s limited resources. The WFP’s concern therefore is that if feeding of refugees and displaced persons, especially in Africa, continues to grow as a major activity, then resources required for these activities will exacerbate existing constraints on its development work. In light of the strengths and constraints outlined and changes in development opportunities, the WFP’s review suggests the need to use the 1990s as a time to move in two directions. First, for the WFP to continue to meet emergencies and provide services, a revised formula must take account of the interdependence of its activities. This implies that emergency actions should be better integrated into and given credit for their role of protecting national development investments, and in turn development projects should play a protective role in those areas that are prone to disasters to help prevent future emergencies. Second, the WFP should sharpen the focus of its project portfolio, giving priority to a food-intensive resource mix, providing the same or larger amounts of food through fewer and bigger projects in order to reach large numbers of poor people more efficiently, exercising greater selectivity in supporting employment-intensive projects, and emphasizing activities to prevent or prepare for emergencies. Moving in this direction, the WFP is expected to concentrate its development efforts on countries with food insecurity and emphasize activities that have substantial effects on the food supplies of the hungry.
Food aid in Africa The joint study by the World Bank and the WFP about the future of food aid in Africa will be published shortly. The main conclusions of the study are given in a summary report produced by the WFP secretariat. An important conclusion is that the scope for food aid to Africa is large and that a higher level of food aid than now received can be accommodated to offset growing food imports and help increasing numbers of malnourished people. The report notes the positive contribution made by programme and project food aid to food security and long-term development. It recognizes that programme food aid can be an efficient means of resource transfer, but that it seldom makes a large, direct contribution to the alleviation of poverty and hunger. On the other hand, project food aid has the capacity to reach the poor and hungry directly. But the costs of direct distribution of food are high; moreover such food aid has been handicapped by lack of complementary financial and technical resources and by administrative and logistical difficulties. To address the issues of food aid affecting its level and use, the report has proposed a number of guiding principles for food aid to Africa in the 1990s. These include the following: 0
First, Africa will continue to require not emergency food aid but also non-emergency
only food
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aid. Emergency food aid should better respond to short-term needs while non-emergency food aid should be provided on a predictable and flexible basis. Second, the intercountry allocation of food aid which often reflects a higher priority given to political and commercial considerations should be more clearly aligned to development needs and opportunities. Third, to achieve better integration with financial and technical assistance and increase its cost effectiveness, food aid needs to be brought into the mainstream of aid planning and programming in donor countries and aid organizations. Fourth, monetization of food aid should normally be favoured wherever the efficient management of the process can be assured, with a special emphasis on the use of generated funds for the poor and food insecure. Fifth, triangular transactions, trilateral operations, local purchases and exchange arrangements can be more cost effective in many cases than using donated foods. Sixth, greater timeliness of emergency aid will require strengthening the disaster preparedness and prevention structures. Development assistance (food and other aid) in drought-prone areas can help address the causes of recurring emergencies. The International Emergency Food Reserve (IEFR) should be revised to provide a sound resource base in advance of emergency food aid needs. Further. refugees and displaced persons needing long-term assistance require a more developmental approach to their support. Finally, both donors and recipients need to strengthen design, appraisal, monitoring and evaluation of food aid programmes.
High-level meeting on poverty alleviation The joint consultative group on policy comprising five operational funds and programmes of the United Nations (the United Nations Development Programme. the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development) held discussions in Rome, Italy, on 31 August-1 September I990 on the question of both assessing and combating poverty by enforcing their common efforts. The Office of the Director-General for United Nations Development and International Economic Cooperation was also represented at the meeting. The report of the meeting contains presentations by each of the agencies and their resource people invited to the meeting and a summary of discussions.’ The participants strongly stressed the need for a clearer
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focus on poverty alleviation within a framework of growth and development. They stressed that overcoming poverty was a means of assuring the most basic of human rights, ie the right to food and therefore to life. and that this could be achieved in a cost-effective manner by harnessing the capacity and talents of the poor themselves. The poor, then, become a source of growth and not an object of charity. The five agencies emphasized that the only sustainable solution to global poverty lay in strengthening the hands of the poor groups by giving them the means, the methods and the markets as well as access to high-quality social services and education, but that this had to be accompanied by effective population policies and concern for the environment. Further, agreeing that, among the poor, women were doubly disadvantaged, being victims of poverty and sex discrimination, the agencies reiterated that bringing them into the mainstream of development and recognizing them as a resource as well as beneficiaries was a prerequisite for sustainable development and would be given central priority in their programmes. The meeting cautioned that the focus on poverty alleviation should not be seen as a new form of conditionality. On the contrary, it was necessary to put the limited resources available to the best use to alleviate poverty and to accelerate growth. Finally, the meeting emphasized five issues which called for attention: (a) structural adjustment must be integrated into a long-term development strategy with poverty alleviation at its core, which is what is meant by going beyond Adjustment with a Human Face to promoting Development with a Iluman Face; (b) external factors should be internalized into development projects so that resource allocations for environmental preservation can be justified; (c) interventions in favour of poverty alleviation should not be allowed to result in demobilization of domestic efforts to save and invest; (d) the challenge of poverty alleviation through food aid is not one of targeting a firm basis for lasting pr sc, but one of providing development; and (e) while a favourable macroeconomic framework is essential for poverty alleviation, it is no substitute for microeconomic investments involving the poor directly.
Fishery policy issues The FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) considered at its 17th session, held in Rome, 8-12 April 1991, policy issues relating to the environment and sustainability in fisheries and the role of women in fisheries development. The discussion on the subject of the environment and sustainability in fisheries was based on a secretariat document which described the characteristics and present state of aquatic living resources and their environment, examined the various technical issues relevant to the sustain‘IFAD, ‘Report of the 1990 Joint Consultative Group on Policy (JCGP) high level meeting on poverty alleviation - a global challenge’, Rome, Italy, 31 August-l September 1990.
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Monitor able use of fishery resources and the protection of the aquatic environment, and proposed actions for the consideration of COFI. The Committee accorded high priority to promoting the concept of integrated coastal zone management which needed policies and mechanisms to integrate fisheries conservation into the pattern of resource use at the river basin and coastal areas level. Considering that a number of resources were overfished, resulting in severe biological and socioeconomic consequences, attention was drawn to the need for continued efforts to maintain fishing intensities in inland waters and in the sea at sustainable levels that were economically viable, ecologically sound and socially acceptable. Emphasizing the importance of extensive cooperation at the regional level, it was suggested that more attention should be given to protection and restoration of water quality, to appropriate technologies in industry, agriculture and waste disposal, to selective fishing as well as to other measures promoting marine habitat conservation.X The role of women in fisheries development was considered by COFI on the basis of a secretariat review of prevailing patterns of women’s participation in fisheries, aquaculture and related industries and of the constraints affecting women as distinct from those common to the fishing sectors in general. The Committee took note of the fact that women were involved in subsistence fishing, commercial fishing, gathering and harvesting activities, processing operations, fish retailing and aquaculturerelated activities. It recognized, however, that the scope for increasing the number of women in capture fisheries was limited and that the actual number of workers had decreased as technologies changed, reducing the demand for their labour. Stress was laid on the need to monitor and anticipate the negative effects of technology on the fishery and non-fishery income-generating activities of women.
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Noting that women’s work was labour-intensive and timeconsuming, which added to their household chores, the Committee observed that this aspect should be taken into account in planning activities for women.” The April 1991 issue of TCDC newsletter”’ reviews the FAO’s latest activities under its programme for Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC). These activities, promoted through the mechanism of regional networks, meetings, seminars, consultations, workshops and training courses, cover the fields of seed technology, plant biotechnology, watershed management, research in tropical rice, tropical fruit industry, agricultural marketing, food quality control, rural development, decentralized planning, small farmers’ livestock production, pasture and fodder research, integration of women in the fisheries and agriculture sector, fisheries investment, fish inspection and quality assurance, seamoss cultivation technology, wood energy development, policy analysis and personnel training, and assessment of the impact of grassroots and people’s organizations. The newsletter also presents a detailed analysis of the options available for financing TCDC activities. Information is given on different sources of funding, including national budgets of developing countries, support by developed countries and support by the United Nations development system, ie FAO, UNDP and regional and sub-regional development banks and funds ‘FAO, ‘Environment and sustainability in fisheries’, COFV9113, Rome, Italy, February 1991; FAO, ‘Report of the nineteenth session of the Committee on Fisheries’, Rome, Italy, 8-12 April 1991. ‘FAO, ‘The role of women in fisheries development’, COFl/91/4, Rome, Italy, December 1990; FAO, ‘Report of the nineteenth session of the Committee on Fisheries’, Rome, 19-12 April 1991. “‘FAO, TCDC newsletter, Rome, Italy, No 8, April 1991.
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