Crowley Logistics in Miami, Florida, was one of three USAID shipping and logistics facilities in the nation. It could, in times of emergency humanitarian relief aid, respond with supplies delivered to aircraft at Miami International Airport within two hours. Credit: USDAID/Lance Cheung

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jan 30 2014 (IPS)

U.S. lawmakers are in the final stages of approving reforms to a half-century-old system of providing overseas food assistance that critics say is outdated, inefficient and sometimes harmful to local economies in developing countries.

Development experts and implementers have fought for years for an overhaul. They caution that the new changes, which were approved by the House of Representatives on Wednesday and look set for final approval by next week, are modest.“The farm bill dramatically increases flexible government mechanisms to deliver food assistance to people in some of the world’s most fragile countries.” -- Andrea Koppel

Nonetheless, many are lauding the reforms as an important initial step following an unprecedented public discussion over the past year.

“This agreement demonstrates that there’s actual fire behind the smoke on this issue. We’ve seen lots of people talking but now we’re actually seeing the will to move this forward,” Eric Munoz, senior policy advisor for Oxfam America, a humanitarian group, told IPS.

“We’re really happy with the bill, though we recognise there’s a long way to go still. For now we know that these changes will help more life-saving aid reach hungry people in crisis without costing taxpayers one extra penny.”

The changes come in a massive, five-yearly funding agreement, known as a farm bill, that covers nearly all aspects of U.S. agriculture as well as both domestic and international food aid.

The United States remains the world’s strongest provider of food aid, offering around half of such assistance each year, for both emergency and long-term situations each year.

Yet unlike most other major donors, Washington has for decades required that a substantial portion of this assistance be grown in the country and then shipped abroad, mostly on U.S.-flagged ships. These requirements, known as “monetisation”, have been lucrative for U.S. farmers and shippers, and have made these sectors into powerful foes of changes to the system.

Many other donor countries, meanwhile, have adopted food assistance systems that rely largely on purchasing food near crisis-hit areas. This increase in efficiency is able to stretch aid monies further and impact on more people, while simultaneously offering a tool to strengthen local economies under difficult circumstances.

A landmark study by the Government Accountability Office, an official watchdog, found that “the inefficiency of the monetization process reduced funding available to the U.S. government for development projects by $219 million over a 3-year period.”

Implementers on the ground have been saying this for years.

“We know from our own experience in countries such as Niger, Haiti and Kyrgyzstan that local and regional procurement of food assistance not only saves taxpayers money, but also gets food to those in desperate need weeks if not months faster than if it were shipped from the United States,” Andrea Koppel, vice president of global engagement and policy at Mercy Corps, a humanitarian group, said Wednesday.

“The farm bill dramatically increases flexible government mechanisms to deliver food assistance to people in some of the world’s most fragile countries.”

Unprecedented backing

For the past half-decade the United States has run a pilot programme to study the efficacy of reducing its monetisation practices. The new farm bill will now make that programme permanent while also increasing its funding to around 80 million dollars a year, to be used for local and regional procurement of food commodities.

This reform alone will help USAID, the government’s main foreign aid agency, get food assistance to an estimated 1.8 million additional people for no additional money.

The new reforms will also provide $350 million for longer-term programmes in areas hit by chronic food insecurity, addressing a longstanding concern that U.S. non-emergency food aid funding has often been used as a slush fund for emergency missions. Combined with the shift in monetisation priority, this could be an important change, making more money available in cash that can be used for long-term development programmes.

“The House of Representatives is making strides toward reforming our antiquated food aid programme,” Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service, an anti-poverty group, said Wednesday, “to ensure that we are not just helping communities around the world with their immediate food needs, but also supporting local producers so they can feed themselves in the years ahead.”

Although the policy-level understanding of the inefficiencies in U.S. food assistance have been known for years, it has taken until now to be able to overcome political resistance to any changes. President George W. Bush first suggested dialling U.S. monetisation back by a quarter in 2008, but the idea went nowhere in Congress.

In his budget proposal last year, President Barack Obama laid out a sweeping vision for reform that would have decreased monetisation by 45 percent. It also would have shifted oversight for U.S. food aid from a Congressional committee focused on agriculture to one on foreign assistance, a change that would bring with it implicit shifts in priority.

While a budget appropriations bill that passed a month ago did not adhere to Obama’s requests, it did include an additional 35 million dollars to offer USAID increased flexibility to either address monetisation or increase its ability to respond to food crises. Advocates saw that move as an important indication that Congress is open to further discussion on food aid reforms.

Several more of the president’s proposals were included in an amendment to the farm bill put forth last year in the House of Representatives, where it received a first-ever vote on broad food aid reform. Although the amendment failed to pass, supporters point out that they received bipartisan support from an unprecedented 203 lawmakers.

One of the sponsors on the bill, Congressman Eliot Engel, supports the scaled-back changes included in the new proposal.

“I am encouraged by the modest reforms included in this conference agreement on international food aid programmes,” he said Wednesday. “This is an important starting point for providing USAID additional flexibility and resources to more effectively combat food insecurities around the world.”

The Senate is expected to vote on the new farm bill by next week, after which President Obama would presumably sign it into law. Thereafter, advocates say they will turn their focus to incremental reforms that could be attained outside of the five-yearly farm bill process.

Particular focus will be placed on the president’s budget for the coming year, expected sometime in the spring.

“We cannot wait five years to have this conversation again,” Oxfam’s Munoz says.

“We’ll continue to push for reform and we think there’s good momentum now. There’s a clear signal that this conversation about reform is moving forward, but we need to make sure this progress is sustained and improved upon.”

Men warm their hands by a fire in Homs, Syria, which endured two months of artillery bombardment in 2012. Credit: Freedom House/cc by 2.0

By Ramy Srour
WASHINGTON, Nov 8 2013 (IPS)

The almost three-year-old Syrian civil war has been a “silent war on human and economic development”, destroying the ability of ordinary Syrian citizens to maintain basic livelihoods, according to a report launched here Wednesday by two United Nations agencies.

“There is an informal rule that it usually takes a country around seven years to recover for each year of civil war,” Michael Bowers, the senior director of Strategic Response and Global Emergencies at Mercy Corps, a humanitarian organisation that works closely with Syrian refugees in neighbouring Lebanon and Jordan, told IPS.“The humanitarian situation in Syria continues to deteriorate rapidly and inexorably." -- U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos

“And although it’s hard to justify this type of estimate, if we look at past civil conflicts such as Yugoslavia or Iraq, it usually does take at least a decade for a country to recover.”

The massive displacement of Syrian citizens and widespread job loss have contributed to a “dramatic drop in consumption … [that] tumbled by 18.8 percent in 2012 … and 47 percent in 2013,” according to the report, by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Private consumption, the U.N. researchers note, is a direct measure of household welfare.

In addition, as many as 2.3 million jobs have disappeared since the beginning of the war, primarily due to the large-scale shutdown of economic activities in highly populated areas.

The report comes at a critical time. World leaders are currently struggling to come up with a date for the “Geneva 2” conference, which aims to pave the way for a political solution to a conflict that has left at least 100,000 people dead.

Even if that conference happens and even if a political solution is found, however, experts say the socioeconomic impact of the civil war will go on for decades. According to Alex Pollock, the director of the microfinance department at the UNRWA, the U.N. agency providing assistance to Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, it will take up to 30 years for the Syrian economy to recover to its 2010 growth rate of five percent of gross domestic product.  

Hidden impact

The economic impact in Syria is not the end of the story. The war has also had a devastating effect on key social welfare factors, including education, health assistance, and population displacement, that are going to negatively impact the country’s overall level of human development.

According to the report, as of July 2013 nearly 3,000 schools had been partially or totally damaged, many of which were eventually turned into shelters for the thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs). School dropout rates have also heightened the deep educational crisis that is plaguing the country: by the second quarter of 2013, 49 percent, or one out of two children, had been forced to quit their school.

And while the conflict has taken a toll on school buildings across the country, medical facilities have not been spared either. The report estimates that over 40 percent of the country’s hospitals are currently out of service, making it increasingly difficult for ordinary Syrians to receive basic medical assistance, not to mention the more serious health threats posed by larger and more devastating epidemics.

Although the international community, with the U.S. and the European Union at the forefront, have been providing millions of dollars in humanitarian aid and funds to foster economic development, this assistance is unlikely to pull the Syrian socioeconomic situation out of the abyss.

International assistance

International agencies such as the UNRWA have been engaged in a number of economic development projects aimed at helping ordinary Syrians to at least maintain a basic level of livelihood, including building up microfinance projects, education facilities and health infrastructure.

“We have been receiving a lot of support, primarily from the Europeans, but also from some of the Arab countries in the region,” Pollock told IPS. “And although the assistance from the Arab world has been rather small, countries such as Saudi Arabia have provided food assistance to those who have been displaced within the country.”

The Syrian government itself has been quite supportive of UNRWA’s work, Pollock says.

“We’re primarily engaged with the governing Ba’ath Party, which is also our main contact at the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he says, noting that the central government has also facilitated assistance to the large Palestinian refugee population in the country.

But despite the political support these organisations have been receiving, the future of the Syrian economy remains grim.

The escalation of the civil conflict has resulted in armed factions “destroying the economic and productive assets of the country,” the report argues. This has pushed the Syrian population to rely on agriculture, a highly unstable and unpredictable sector in the country.

As of Nov. 6, the war has produced nearly three million Syrian refugees, of which only 2.2 million have been granted refugee status, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Nearly 40 percent of these are children below the age of 12.

The catastrophic humanitarian crisis, however, does not seem to be moving toward any solution. On Monday, the U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos told the Security Council behind closed doors that the “humanitarian situation in Syria continues to deteriorate rapidly and inexorably,” according to her spokeswoman Amanda Pitt. The number of Syrian people in need of humanitarian assistance may have risen to over nine million, Pitt said.

World powers, however, are still struggling to coordinate strategies to achieve a political solution to the conflict. On Tuesday, U.S, Russian, and U.N. diplomats met in Geneva to try to fix a date for the “Geneva 2” conference, but to no avail.

During a U.S. Department of State background briefing on the negotiations, a senior U.S. official noted that despite the lack of an agreement now, “the conference will take place before the end of the year.”

A camel outside a traditional Mongolian felt tent (yurt). Credit: Michelle Tolson/IPS

By Michelle Tolson
ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia, May 6 2013 (IPS)

Genghis Khan knew about hard times. The founder of the Mongol Empire, which spanned most of Eurasia until roughly 1227, Genghis and his clan had to survive on their wits and natural surroundings, often resorting to meals of “green leafy things” when food was scarce.

Today that history seems to have been lost, with most Mongolians dismissing fruits, vegetables and cultivation as “unmanly”, according to Marissa Markowitz, a food security consultant with the ministry of industry and agriculture (MoIA).

Less than one percent of the country’s land is used for crop production. Instead, following the instincts of their ancestors who were primarily nomadic herders, Mongolians rely on livestock for their food needs, guiding massive herds across the vast grasslands of the Central Asian Steppes.

The Soviet-era meat and dairy industries that flourished here between 1921 and 1990 collapsed along with the Soviet Union, robbing Mongolians not only of the centralised economic structure that had regulated production and distribution for years, but also of major markets for their products, tipping the country towards food insecurity.

One third of households in urban provincial centres and the capital, Ulaanbaatar, were found to be food insecure in 2009, according to a seminal study by Mercy Corps.

The standard diet here is comprised of wheat, meat and rice, said Markowitz, citing reports by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Research released by the ministry of health in 2008 and 2010 revealed that a full third of the country’s population of three million eat no fruits or vegetables at all.

Vegetables and fruits are expensive compared to the monthly minimum wage of about 100 dollars. Spring is a particularly difficult period, when national food stores are depleted and prices skyrocket – during this time, local sea buckthorn berries sell for about three to four dollars a kilo; carrots for roughly two dollars a kilo and tomatoes for nearly four dollars a kilo.

A severe lack of storage capacity in rural areas and informal settlements known as “ger districts” — shantytowns comprised of traditional Mongolian felt tents, or yurts — exacerbates the problem, with transportation costs adding to the price.

The poverty index is 23.4 percent in Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with 60 percent of the city’s one million residents living in informal settlements or shantytowns.

A fifth of Mongolian children under the age of five are stunted, according to the MoIA’s statistics on malnutrition.

Experts on food security are also concerned about extreme desertification brought on by the introduction of a market-based food system, which saw herds increase by 20 million heads between 1999 and 2007.

Bringing back gardens

In light of these alarming trends, the country has recently embarked on the slow process of rebuilding its agricultural sector.

In the northwestern Songino Khairkhan district in Ulaanbaatar, in a neighbourhood crowded with gers surrounded by wooden fences, a two-acre farm flanked by snow-capped mountains is thriving. Warm greenhouses nurture vegetable seedlings and, outside, the hardy sea buckthorn bush saplings are preparing to explode into ripe orange fruit.

This is the headquarters of the Mongolian Women Farmers Association (MWFA), a volunteer-led NGO that works in all 21 of Mongolia’s provinces to promote vegetable and fruit cultivation among poor families.

The climate here – cold and dry with a short growing season from May until September – is ideal for potatoes, beets, cabbage, carrots, onions and radishes, which can be stored during the long winter months when temperatures drop to minus 40 degrees Celsius.

But a survey published by the Mercy Corps showed that despite 40 percent of the urban poor having access to land, only six percent grew their own vegetables – and even these families cultivated the produce for their own personal use rather than additional income.

Markowitz, coordinator of the project, says the NGO has already worked with 4,500 families on “enhanced nutrition and resource conservation”, and supported vegetable gardens as a “viable way to generate household income”. MWFA also teaches families how to cook and preserve vegetables by canning.

The organisation hopes this will reduce dependence on Russian and Chinese imports that typically flood the local market during the cold season that lasts from October through April.

A volunteer named Tuya told IPS the farm is very popular among locals, particularly for their cultivation of sea buckthorn, which thrives in Mongolia’s harsh weather and helps to stem desertification.

Over 30 grafted varieties of the plant grow in the central and northeastern parts of the country. The yellow berry, known as a “super plant,” is high in vitamin C, omega-3 fatty acids and can remove toxins in the body. Families freeze harvested berries in the winter, and often turn them into juice for a quick meal.

In 2007, the far-western Uvs province, considered the birthplace of wild buckthorn domestication in the 1940s, attained the coveted geographic indicator status, comparable to the Champagne region in France, which ensures a higher price for specialised produce. Today, Uvs supplies the nation with 60,000 saplings yearly, according to a FAO case study.

In addition to helping spread sea buckthorn plants, MWFA has published two books and 30 texts on agriculture, using their greenhouses as teaching aids. They also provide free classes to the local community in the surrounding ger districts.

One of the teachers, Bayraa, told IPS classes span twenty days and instruct individuals interested in subsistence agriculture or entrepreneurs aiming to start a business.

Some teachers travel to the countryside to impart knowledge of vegetable cultivation to populations in more remote provinces.

It remains to be seen if sea buckthorn berries or vegetables can stand alongside meat or dairy as a traditional Mongolian meal, even though agricultural production was practiced on the steppes as far back as 2,000 years ago.

Today, Ulaanbaatar boasts over 20 vegetarian restaurants, helping to fuel a demand for local greens and reduce the impact of herding on the country.

If the expansion of agriculture here is successful, Mongolia could build a different kind of empire to Genghis Khan’s – one with nutrition and food security at its core.