Spring cleaning is a bit like time's second-pass at New Years resolutions: sweep out the old, replace with the new. Slim down (in spring this often means our closets). It's a time for us to take stock of what is a necessity and what is not. Organization gurus offer this handy rule for de-cluttering: "if you haven't used it in 6-12 months, get rid of it." When applied more broadly, if something isn't useful or is inefficient, why keep it around?
Something that immediately comes to mind for me has been America's food aid policy. As I discussed in an earlier post on food security, the U.S. spends more money on food aid ($2 billion) than any other country, accounting for over half of all aid provided. Yet, according to CARE Senior Policy Analyst David Kauck at the recent Food for Thought conference, nearly $0.65 of every dollar spent on food aid goes towards shipping and delivery. And as shipping costs and food prices have risen, the number of aid recipients therefore declines (according to a GAO report on foreign aid, 70 million people received emergency aid in 2007, compared with 105 million in 2002).
At the heart of this debate is the U.S. practice of monetizing food aid--that is, we take surplus grain or other food supplies, ship the supplies to charities operating in the target country who then sells the grain on the local market and uses the proceeds to support its own programs. At Food for Thought, Kauck shared an analogy devised by his next-door neighbor: Minute Maid takes a bulk product, condenses it and then sells it. The U.S. takes money, turns it into a bulk products [buys surpluses from agribusiness] then ships the whole thing overseas.
Critics argue that the continued adherence to this practice is wasteful, inefficient and has the potential to harm the very same people we aim to help by damaging local economies. In 2007, CARE, one of the world's largest international charities, announced that it was turning down $45 million in U.S. aid because of their belief that the flawed U.S. system was doing nothing in the long-term to alleviate poverty, causing commercial displacement and a dependency on foreign aid. Proponents, such as the Alliance for Food Aid, believe that current programs allows charities to fund their work while keeping hard currency in the poor countries, which prevents food spikes.
If the Obama administration is pledging to double food aid to vulnerable populations, then it's also time to pledge to review the inefficiencies in the system--not only in how this aid is being transferred (for instance, it would be difficult for Somali pirates to seize financial aid), but also in to whom the aid is being transferred and ensuring that it's getting into the right hands.
[photo by Evelyn Hockstein for the New York Times]
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