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THE WORLD HUNGER CRISIS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN 

RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MAY 25, 2006

Serial No. 109–191

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman 

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Vice Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

PETER T. KING, New York 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

RON PAUL, Texas 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

JERRY WELLER, Illinois 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

THADDEUS G. MCCOTTER, Michigan 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

TOM LANTOS, California 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel 

ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL

OPERATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, 

Vice Chairman 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

MARY M. NOONAN, Subcommittee Staff Director 

GREG SIMPKINS, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member 

NOELLE LUSANE, Democratic Professional Staff Member 

SHERI A. RICKERT, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member and Counsel 

LINDSEY M. PLUMLEY, Staff Associate 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. James T. Morris, Executive Director, United Nations World Food Program ...................................................................................................................... 9

The Honorable Michael E. Hess, Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International 

Development ......................................................................................................... 24

The Honorable Tony P. Hall, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations 

Agencies for Food and Agriculture ..................................................................... 44

Mr. Sean Callahan, Vice President, Overseas Operations, Catholic Relief 

Services ................................................................................................................. 53

Mr. Gabriel Laizer, Beneficiary of School Feeding Program, Tanzania .............. 58

Mr. Gawain Kripke, Senior Policy Advisor, Oxfam America ............................... 63

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Human Rights and International Operations: Prepared statement ................ 4

Mr. James T. Morris: Prepared statement ............................................................ 13

The Honorable Barbara Lee, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California: Prepared statement ...................................................................... 21

The Honorable Michael E. Hess: Prepared statement .......................................... 30

The Honorable Tony P. Hall: Prepared statement ................................................ 47

Mr. Sean Callahan: Prepared statement ............................................................... 55

Mr. Gabriel Laizer: Prepared statement ............................................................... 61

Mr. Gawain Kripke: Prepared statement .............................................................. 67

APPENDIX 

Responses from the Honorable Tony P. Hall to questions submitted for the 

record by the Honorable Barbara Lee ................................................................ 75

Responses from Mr. Gawain Kripke to questions submitted for the record 

by the Honorable Barbara Lee ............................................................................ 75

(1)

THE WORLD HUNGER CRISIS 

THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS

AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:03 a.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building. Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The Subcommittee will convene, and we are actually 

doing this in two parts. We will begin first with a briefing, and we 

are delighted to have a distinguished representative of the United 

Nations here to speak to us, and we will then convene a hearing 

of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations. 

Today our Subcommittee is examining the enormous need for 

food around the world, particularly in Subsaharan Africa, which 

has the greatest need. As an essential element for life the assurance of food availability must necessarily be a focal point of our humanitarian assistance, and at the forefront of our interventions on 

behalf of those in the greatest need. 

While the extent of that need can at times be overwhelming, we 

must keep in mind the verses of Matthew 25, when our Lord said, 

‘‘As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did likewise to me.’’ And he also said in that same passage that whatever 

you didn’t do to the least of my brethren, you likewise did to me. 

Sean Callahan, the Vice President of Overseas Operations for 

Catholic Relief Services, will say in his testimony later on in this 

hearing that we face a severe challenge in responding to the grim 

requirements posed by global hunger. 

The United Nations, as he points out, estimates that 852 million 

people are undernourished worldwide. According to the USDA, 83 

million people live on less than eleven hundred calories a day. Six 

million people will die of hunger-related causes this year alone. 

According to the United Nations, 25,000 people a day die of hunger-related causes. They are too weak to fight off flu, or the effects 

of diarrhea. There are underweight infants and overwhelmed mothers. They die quietly off camera, unnoticed by the rest of the world. 

Last year, I, along with Greg Simpkins, of our Africa Subcommittee staff, visited Kalma and Mukjar refugee camps in South 

and West Darfur. We saw firsthand how food aid was making a 

profound difference between life and death for the thousands of 

people in those camps. 

2

We spoke with many people whose lives have been utterly devastated by the ravages of war, but who are keeping hope alive 

thanks to the gifts of the international humanitarian aid and food 

aid. 

However, our visits to these camps raise a question that I hope 

will be answered in today’s hearing. What is the Government of 

Sudan, as well as other developing country governments, going to 

do about contributing to the elimination of hunger by opening their 

own stocks of food, or by facilitating rather than hampering, the 

delivery of food to hungry people in their countries? 

We all remember how Mengistu used to put a level on food and 

grains coming into his country during the crisis in Ethiopia previously. In the Sudan, the government has not only failed to contribute to the feeding of its own people, but has actually interfered 

with the supply of food to those in need in the Darfur camps like 

the ones we visited. Moreover, the government of Sudan placed a 

commercial embargo on Kalma camp while we were there that prevented the sale of food and other items, necessary items, to those 

to be able to buy them in the camps themselves. 

We in the developed world should help feed those in need, but 

it is also the responsibility of the governments in question to respond to the needs of their own people, and more pressure needs 

to be brought to bear there. 

The United Nations World Food Program has announced that almost 731,000 metric tons of food will be needed this year to feed 

the 6.1 million people caught in the conflict in Southern Sudan and 

Darfur. 

Over 89,000 metric tons is needed in Eastern Chad for Sudanese 

refugees. Chadian nationals adversely affected by the influx of refugees, and a contingency reserve of 6 months for the refugees. 

An estimated 6.25 million people in the Horn of Africa face a severe humanitarian crisis this year, resulting primarily from successive seasons of failed rains in that region. 

The World Food Program has sent out appeals for approximately 

1.6 million metric tons of food for the Horn of Africa and the rest 

of Subsahara. This does not include, of course, the emergency food 

aid needs of people in other parts of the world, including Haiti, 

North Korea, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, to name a 

few. 

It is important to keep in mind that behind these mindboggling 

numbers are real men, women, and children, people like you and 

me, individuals who are suffering not only from the present pangs 

of hunger, but who will have to live with the long term effects of 

mal- and under-nutrition. 

There are also those for whom the lack of food exacerbates the 

cruel effects of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, thereby increasing the likelihood of death. This is the reason why it is so important for us to examine the crisis of world hunger, and to continue to direct and expand our efforts to address it. 

I am proud to say that we as Americans continue our long tradition of compassion and generosity in responding to these needs. 

But obviously we need to do more as well. The United States is the 

primary donor of food aid in the world, and the leading donor of 

food aid in Sudan and Chad. 

3

The United States Government has contributed a total of $282 

million worth of food aid thus far in 2006 to Darfur, and the Sudanese refugees in Chad through the World Food Program and the 

International Committee of the Red Cross. 

This follows contributions totaling $324 million to the same two 

organizations in 2005 for Sudan and Chad, in addition to 200,000 

tons of wheat from the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust for 

Darfur. 

The United States is also addressing the nutritional needs of particularly vulnerable populations. The President’s Emergency Plan 

for AIDS Relief maximizes leverage with other donors, including 

USAID and USDA, and the World Food Program, with United 

States financial support, to address the needs of HIV-affected communities, both in terms of providing direct food assistance, and in 

addressing the underlying causes of food and security. 

We look forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses 

today about the hunger crisis in our world, and what is being done 

to respond, and recommendations as to how we can respond better. 

But we will also consider the contribution that the United States 

food aid makes to longer term non-emergency development goals, 

and the corresponding impact that this food aid has on individual 

lives. 

The most recent data indicates that over 4 million children in 26 

countries participated in the McGovern-Dole international food for 

education, and child nutrition programs in fiscal years 2003 and 

2004. 

This program has resulted in higher school enrollment, and improved access to education, especially for girls. It is also reported 

by teachers and program administrators that the FFE program has 

increased local communities concern for and participation in their 

children’s education. 

There is a general improvement in academic performance as children are better able to concentrate after receiving a nutritious 

school lunch. Both families and the school community benefit from 

training on food preparation, health, and hygiene. 

In this regard, we will have the benefit of hearing today from Mr. 

Gabriel Laizer, who now works on international development 

issues for the Alliance to End Hunger, and who started his career 

as a beneficiary of a feeding program in the primary school in Tanzania. 

Finally, my good friend and colleague for many, many years, 

Tony Hall, former Member of the House, and a distinguished Member from Ohio, who just recently left his position as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, 

will also be testifying. 

He has published a book recently, entitled, Changing the Face of 

Hunger, which I highly recommend and which recounts many stories from Ambassador Hall’s years of confronting hunger, poverty, 

and oppression, throughout the world. 

In his conclusion, he writes:

‘‘When you show Americans the poor and the hungry, when 

you connect with them and educate them, and they see the 

problems themselves, they don’t turn their backs. They want 

to help. They respond.’’

4

‘‘We are a compassionate people,’’ he goes on to say, ‘‘a giving 

people. We care.’’

In that spirit of compassion, I would ask my colleagues of Congress to continue to support the 2003 emergency supplemental appropriations of $350 million for food aid, while encouraging other 

international donors to respond in a likewise generous manner. 

We must continue to help, to respond, and in the words of Tony 

Hall, show that we care. It is my hope and expectation that in this 

hearing today that we may further educate ourselves, our colleagues in the Congress, and the American public, about the poor 

and the hungry, that we may respond with compassion that is so 

desperately needed. 

At this time, I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague, Mr. Payne, for any opening comments that he might have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A REPRESENTA- TIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY AND CHAIRMAN, SUB- COMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS

I am pleased to convene this hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Human Rights and International Operations. The Subcommittee today is examining 

the enormous need for food aid around the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa 

which has the greatest need. As an essential element for life, the assurance of food 

availability must necessarily be a focal point of our humanitarian assistance programs and at the forefront of our interventions on behalf of those in the greatest 

need. While the extent of that need can at times be overwhelming, we must keep 

in mind the verses of Matthew 25, ‘‘as you did it to one of the least of these my 

brothers, you did it to me,’’ and ‘‘as you did not do it to one of the least of these, 

you did not do it to me.’’

Last August, I, along with Greg Simpkins of the Africa Subcommittee staff, visited Kalma and Mukjar refugee camps in South and West Darfur. We saw first 

hand how food aid was making the difference between life and death for the thousands of people in the camps. We spoke with many people whose lives had been utterly devastated by the ravages of war, but who were keeping hope alive thanks to 

the gifts of international humanitarian aid and food aid. 

However, our visit to these camps raised a question that I hope will be answered 

in today’s hearing. What is the Government of Sudan, as well as other developing 

country governments, going to do about contributing to the elimination of hunger 

by opening their own stocks of food or by facilitating, rather than hampering, the 

delivery of food to hungry people in their countries? In Sudan, the government has 

not only failed to contribute to the feeding of its own people, but has actually interfered with the supply of food to those in need in the Darfur camps like the ones 

we visited. Moreover, the Government of Sudan placed a commercial embargo on 

Kalma camp while we were there that prevented the sale of food and other necessary items to those able to buy them in the camps. We in the developed world 

should help feed those in need, but it also the responsibility of the governments in 

question to respond to the needs of their own people. 

The UN World Food Program has announced that almost 731,000 metric tons of 

food will be needed this year to feed the 6.1 million people caught in the conflict 

in Southern Sudan and Darfur. Over 89,000 metric tons is needed Eastern Chad 

for Sudanese refugees, Chadian nationals adversely affected by the influx of refugees, and a contingency reserve of six months for the refugees. An estimated 6.25 

million people in the Horn of Africa face a severe humanitarian crisis this year resulting primarily from successive seasons of failed rains in that region. The World 

Food Program has sent out appeals for approximately 1.6 million metric tons of food 

aid for the Horn of Africa and the rest of the sub-Sahara. 

This does not include, of course, the emergency food needs of peoples in other 

parts of the world, including Haiti, North Korea, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia. 

It is important to keep in mind that behind these mind-boggling numbers are real 

men, women and children, people like you and me, individuals who are suffering 

not only the present pangs of hunger but who will have to live with the long-term 

effects of mal- and under-nutrition. There are also those for whom the lack of food 

5

exacerbates the cruel effects of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, thereby increasing the likelihood of death. This is the reason why it is so important for us 

to examine the crisis of world hunger, and to continue to direct our efforts to address it. 

I am proud to say that we Americans continue our long tradition of compassion 

and generosity in responding to these needs. The United States is the primary donor 

of food aid in the world and the leading donor of food aid to Sudan and Chad. The 

US Government has contributed a total of $282.2 million worth of food aid thus far 

in FY2006 to Darfur and the Sudanese refugees in Chad through the World Food 

Program and the International Committee of the Red Cross. This follows contributions totaling $324.5 million to the same two organizations in FY2005 for Sudan and 

Chad, in addition to 200,000 tons of wheat from the Bill Emerson Humanitarian 

Trust for Darfur. 

The United States is also addressing the nutritional needs of particularly vulnerable populations. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief maximizes leverage with other donors including the USAID, the USDA and the World Food Program 

(with US financial support) to address the needs of HIV-affected communities, both 

in terms of providing direct food assistance and in addressing the underlying causes 

of food insecurity. 

We look forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses today about the hunger crises in our world, what is being done to respond, and recommendations as to 

how we can respond better. But we will also consider the contribution that U.S. food 

aid makes to longer-term, non-emergency development goals and the corresponding 

impact that this food aid has on individual lives. The most recent data available indicates that over 4 million children in 26 countries participated in the McGovernDole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition program in fiscal years 

2003 and 2004. This program has resulted in higher school enrollment and improved access to education, especially for girls. 

It is also reported by teachers and program administrators that the FFE program 

has increased local communities’ concern for and participation in their children’s 

education. There is a general improvement in academic performance as children are 

better able to concentrate after receiving a nutritious school lunch. Both families 

and the school community benefit from training on food preparation, health and hygiene. In this regard, we will have the benefit of hearing today from Mr. Gabriel 

Laizer, who now works on international development issues for the Alliance to End 

Hunger and who started his career as a beneficiary of a feeding program in his primary school in Arusha, Tanzania. 

My good friend Tony Hall, a former Member of Congress who just recently left 

his position as the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture, 

will also be testifying. He has published a book recently entitled, ‘‘Changing the 

Face of Hunger,’’ which I highly recommend, and which recounts many stories from 

Ambassador Hall’s years of confronting hunger, poverty and oppression throughout 

the world. In his conclusion, he writes, ‘‘when you show Americans the poor and the 

hungry—when you connect with them and educate them and they see the problems 

themselves—they don’t turn their backs. They want to help. They respond. We are 

a compassionate people, a giving people. We care.’’

In that spirit of compassion, I would ask my colleagues in Congress to continue to support the FY2006 emergency supplemental appropriation of $350 million for 

food aid. While encouraging other international donors to respond in a likewise generous manner, we must continue to help, to respond, to show that we care. 

It is my hope and expectation that with this hearing today, we may further educate ourselves, our colleagues in Congress and the American people about the poor 

and the hungry, and we may respond with the compassion that they so desperately 

need.

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for 

calling this very important hearing on food security, and I welcome 

all of the panelists also; to Mr. Morris, from the United Nations 

World Food Program, who is doing an outstanding job on the world 

hunger crisis, and of course, as the Chairman indicated; to Tony 

Hall, one of our former colleagues, who has long been a champion 

for fighting against hunger while he was here in the Congress, and 

then as the Ambassador to the World Food Program. 

He has done an outstanding job and I had the opportunity to 

meet with him in Rome several months ago, where he was still 

pushing for more assistance from around the world. And to the 

6

other panelists, we appreciate the world that you and your organizations do. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this very important hearing on the world hunger crisis, and the effectiveness of food programs and food aid. And each day in the developing world nearly 

30,000 children under the age of five die from preventable causes, 

half of them due to hunger. 

There is no reason that in this new millennium that people 

should still be dying of hunger. There is ample food in the world, 

but we have a world that is shattered by unshared bread. There 

is enough food if it is distributed properly so that no one should 

go to bed hungry, especially to die from hunger. 

Hunger worldwide has grown in more than half of the developing 

countries since 1990, and so rather than getting better as we all 

thought time would take care of it, we are getting worse. It is absolutely abominable that in a world of high technology, new manners 

of producing food, new technologies, that half of the developing 

countries are still in worse shape than they were before. 

In fact, the number of hungry people in Subsaharan Africa has 

jumped 20 percent since 1990. According to the Food and Agricultural Association, the FAAO, 800 million people, including 200 million children in the developing world, go to bed hungry every night. 

Half of the people on our planet still live on less than $2.00 a 

day, and as we talk about how great the United States of America 

does, and I am very proud to be an American, and what we do. We 

are not doing nearly enough. 

We can do much more, and I think we have to fail from falling 

into the trap of patting ourselves on the back about what we do. 

Yes, the rest of the world should do more, but there is no question 

about the fact that we can do much more. 

In Subsaharan African alone, one in three people are malnourished. These numbers are staggering, but they aren’t just numbers 

as the Chairman mentioned also. These are people. These are 

mothers. These are fathers. These are children. These are grandparents. These are human beings. 

There have been many international meetings around the world 

dealing with hunger in recent years. These culminated in 1990 in 

a global commitment to what is literally a half measure. It is a half 

measure because the goal was to half hunger by 2015. 

We really didn’t want to take the boast of eliminating hunger by 

2015, but let us take half a step and it would be a great goal to 

half hunger by 2015. So you are almost 50 percent losing even if 

you reach your goal. We really need to take another look at how 

this world is run. 

As reports coming in suggest, at current rates of progress, we 

shall fail by a long way. If we stay on the targets that we are on, 

we won’t even half the hunger by 2015. We are off the track already, and if we go at this current rate, it would be about 2025 before we can even half hunger in the world. 

And even though 186 countries agreed to the Millennium Development goals which reiterated the call to eradicate extreme hunger 

by poverty and poverty by 2015, enough simply isn’t being done by 

wealthy nations, and there are many wealthy nations, oil rich 

7

countries, that do not do their share at all, in the Middle East and 

in other parts of the world. 

A recent World Bank report stated that the number of major disasters around the world increased from 100 in 1975 to over 400 in 

2005. So the world is becoming more fragile. Climate change, 

deossification, and natural disasters, are factors that contribute to 

food and security, but human actions, such as conflicts, crippling 

subsidies to Western farmers, therefore making it impossible for 

African farmers to compete, and Caribbean farmers to compete, 

and small farmers in Latin America to compete. 

And the neglect of our agriculture are also critical factors in the 

declining ability to have sufficient food. The question is what do we 

do to effectively reduce and ultimately eliminate global hunger. 

The United States is the world’s largest provider of food aid to 

the poor nations, and that is to be commended as I mentioned before. Most of this aid goes through the World Food Program, which 

does an excellent job of addressing food needs in poor nations. 

But we have to look more critically at our food assistance programs to figure out how best to deal with emergencies and also 

build in capacities so that countries can feed themselves and better 

deal with droughts and other national obstacles. 

As a matter of fact, USAID got out of the whole business of agricultural assistance in their programs about 20 years ago, and we 

see the results because the assistance that was needed to the farming agriculture, which most developing countries are more agriculture than rural, we have failed in that policy change. 

There is a well documented dilemma of food aid, that food meant 

to help hungry people in a certain country or in a region, actually 

contributes sometimes to problems, which cause the food and security to begin with and end up actually sometimes being a 

destablizing factor, and hurting people it seems to help in the long 

run. 

When food is brought in, sometimes it then pushes the commodity prices down, and have an over supply. So we have to really 

be more careful when we do food aid so that it is calculated properly so it does not have the negative effects, and sometimes without 

it being well planned, it does. 

Africa represents 13 percent of the world’s population. Yet, it has 

30 percent of the world’s poverty. African countries spend $1.51 for 

every dollar they currently receive in aid. So they are really going 

out of the world backwards almost. 

The West extracts 30 billion from Africa every year. United 

States subsidies depress the world’s commodity prices, and cost African countries $250 million a year in lost export earnings. 

What the United States provides in subsidies to the cotton sector 

alone is twice what it gives in foreign assistance to Subsaharan Africa. So we have to take a look at our policies here, because we are 

really devastating the world, and until we step up to the plate and 

look at our agricultural policies—and not only the United States, 

but western Europe also—then we are going to continue to see 

these problems of food and security. 

Three hundred million Africans do not have access to safe water. 

Yet in the United States, water for poor initiatives, a wonderful 

program, with a wonderful title, and with tremendous goals, an 

8

$800 million program, only 6.5 percent of the money that we give 

toward clean portable water around the world goes to Africa, where 

there is the greatest need. 

And 93.5 percent of the United States water for the poor initiative go to Afghanistan, the West Bank, Gaza, and Jordan. And I 

believe that those areas need money, but if we have got a program 

that is supposed to take the poorest countries in the world where 

the water is the worst, that get very little other assistance, the 

countries that are mentioned here get hundreds of millions of dollars in other aid. 

And that money from those programs should be used to try to 

have portable clean water, but don’t take money from a program 

that is supposed to go to the neediest in the world, and have it go 

95 or 94 percent to the countries where politically it is important 

that we see progress. 

And I think that we need to see continued progress in Afghanistan, and in the West Bank, and in the Gaza Strip, and in Jordan. 

But we also need to see people in Subsaharan Africa who are getting very little assistance to have the program focused where it 

should be. 

The moral arguments are compelling. But so too are the economic arguments. If the GDP of the African continent was to increase by just 1 percent, the resulting $70 billion in additional revenues could be used to foster sustainable self-development, and 

that is what we need to see more of. 

Africa is a resource rich continent, with a young work force. 

There is no reason why it should not be a prosperous region that 

produces enough food to feed itself and the rest of the world for 

that matter. 

If we are earnestly seeking a solution to cutting hunger in a 

major way, and such a solution needs to be a comprehensive and 

integrated approach. We need to increase food aid to address critical needs around the world, particularly in Africa, while also stepping up agricultural assistance significantly to allow for self-sustainability. 

Nobody really wants to rely on food aid all their lives. It is a 

basic human right to have access to food and water, and we who 

have food, water, and more in abundance have a responsibility to 

our fellow global citizens to ensure these basic rights are upheld. 

So I thank the Chairman for having this very important hearing. 

I certainly look forward to hearing the witness’ testimonies and 

their recommendations. 

Mr. SMITH. Would any other Members of the Subcommittee like 

to be heard? If not, thank you, Mr. Payne. Let me now introduce 

for this part of the hearing, which is the briefing part, James T. 

Morris, who is the Executive Director of the United Nations World 

Food Program, who became that at the beginning of April 2002. 

In July 2002, Mr. Morris was appointed U.N. Secretary-General 

Kofi Annan’s special envoy for humanitarian needs in Southern Africa. In 2003, he successfully guided the World Food Program in 

the largest humanitarian operation in history, feeding some 26 million Iraqis. 

He has a long and distinguished career, and is absolutely committed to alleviating the blight of hunger, and we are privileged to 

9

have you here at this briefing today. Mr. Morris, please proceed as 

you would like. 

STATEMENT OF MR. JAMES T. MORRIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

UNITED NATIONS WORLD FOOD PROGRAM 

Mr. MORRIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Payne, distinguished Members, ladies and gentlemen. First, may I say thank 

you for both of your extraordinary statements on the issue of world 

hunger. 

This Committee has long been in a very strong and highly effective leadership role in helping to address the toughest humanitarian issues around the world, obviously with the special focus on 

Africa, and you will never know the number of lives that you have 

touched for the better. 

So little means so much, and what you care about, and what we 

try to do truly is not rocket science. We know how to do what needs 

to be done and you have given us the tools. But you have given us 

the tools with the right spirit and we appreciate that. 

If I may also just pay tribute to your colleague, Tony Hall. Tony 

Hall was the United States Ambassador to the World Food Program for more than 3 years. He and his wife, Janet, were brilliant, 

and incredibly hard working, around the clock going anywhere and 

everywhere, to make things better for people so seriously at risk. 

But you would have been proud of the remarkably wonderful face 

that he put on the United States of America as your representative. He was the face of America in hundreds of the toughest situations in the world, and I am grateful to him, and would that the 

world had a good many more like him. You really in many respects 

have put the issues in context. The World Food Program, the largest humanitarian agency in the world, the largest program of the 

United Nations, in 2004, we provided food for 113 million people 

in more than 80 countries, and last year, probably 94 million people. 

Half of our work is in Africa, and half of our work deals with 

children, and half of our work interestingly enough is in countries 

that belong to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. 

Our issues today in Africa are overwhelmingly. We will be a billion dollars short of what we need to do our job in Africa. Remarkable, truly remarkable, and almost incomprehensible challenges for 

people who live like most of us live, and incomprehensible to see 

how so many hundreds of millions of people suffer and are vulnerable every day. 

Congressman Payne referenced the report from the World Bank. 

This is a powerfully important document. It said that the number 

of natural disasters in the world increased four-fold in 1975 to 

2005, and to a number of 400. The number of people affected in the 

decade precedent to 2005, 2.6 billion people, compared to 1.6 billion 

people in the preceding decade. 

You put on top of this all of the sad, unnecessary, mean-spirited 

conflict and violence in the world that is overwhelming, and then 

you add to it the tough issues of health, especially HIV, and heaven 

forbid if the Avian Flu issue realized the worst situations. 

10

And the tragedy of this is overwhelming, but like most tough 

problems in the world, they fall disproportionately on the backs of 

those least able, most vulnerable, usually women and children. 

The burden on women in Africa is absolutely unacceptable. 

Women provide 80 percent of the agriculture, all of the home care, 

all of the food preparation, and now have a highly disproportionate 

percentage of the HIV infection. 

At least 100 million kids in Africa are severely malnourished, not 

able to go to school, disproportionately affecting girls once again. 

My overwhelming thought—and let me just go back for a second. 

The World Food Program is very focused on how we are prepared 

to respond to a huge number of natural disasters on any one day, 

but secondly, how do we go about advancing the Millennium Development goals of cutting hunger and poverty in half, infant mortality, maternal health, gender equity, universal primary education, HIV. 

And it is my strong view that we need a huge focus on eliminating child hunger in the world, and being sure that the mothers 

that nurse them and to which they are born are well nourished so 

that a healthy mother gives birth to a healthy child. And we know 

that the first 24 months of a child’s life are critical in terms of 

making and developing that child’s potential for a lifetime. 

So I am very focused on how we as a world community, just like 

we have addressed issues on the environment or civil rights, how 

do we come to a world commitment that is engaging the private 

sector, the faith community, the civic community, youth groups, 

governments, and to say that it is no longer acceptable for 300 million children to be hungry, for 18,000 children to die every day, one 

every 5 seconds all day long. 

If the headline in the Washington Post tomorrow morning said 

that 45 747s crashed today, and everybody on board was killed, 

and oh, by the way, all of them were children, and also by the way, 

that is going to happen every day for the foreseeable future, the 

world would be outraged. 

And this is a solvable problem. And the economics are not overwhelming, and we can feed a child in Africa for $35 for a full school 

year, and a few pennies more to get rid of the worms. 

You feed that little girl in Malawi and enable her to go to school 

for just a few years, everything about her life changes for the better. Fifty percent less likely to be HIV positive. Fifty percent less 

likely to give birth to a low birth weight baby. 

She will have children when she is 20 and not when she is 12. 

She will have 2 or 3, and not 8 or 10. And whole different aspirations for her life, her family’s life, and her children’s life. 

And since so much of the burden of life in Africa is on the back 

of a woman, if she is fed and educated, her contribution will increase in a geometric way. So I would be happy over time to have 

extended discussions. 

The McGovern-Dole program is overwhelmingly important, and it 

has inspired people all around the world to do more. But the fact 

of the matter is that we have to have a strategy that over the next 

10 years doesn’t find it acceptable to still have half the children 

who are hungry now still hungry. We have to solve this problem. 

11

And the United States has provided extraordinary leadership. 

About 45 percent of what we receive today comes from the United 

States, and beyond that, the United States, through USAID, and 

USDA, and the State Department, truly works very hard and very 

thoughtful at trying to solve problems. 

We have been through the most difficult situation that you can 

imagine in the Darfur region of the Sudan. The United States has 

provided overwhelming percentages of what we have to work with, 

but suddenly—and we had given people steady warnings. 

But on the first of May, we had to make a decision to cut rations 

in half, to go from a daily calorie allocation of 2,100 calories to 

1,050 calories. And in order to have food available for the next 5 

months so that we didn’t find ourselves in a predicament where 

there was no food available. 

But USAID, really in a very focused, and heart-felt way, found 

a way to provide an additional 47,000 tons of food. The Government of Sudan provided an additional 20,000 tons of food. 

Additional help from Canada, Germany, and Denmark, and I am 

pleased to tell you now that by the first of June that we will have 

elevated that daily calorie allocation from 1,050 to 1,770. And then 

by the first of October, we will be back at a full allocation. 

But the issues in Darfur you know well, and these are people living in camps under the worst possible conditions. Once again, always disproportionately falling on the backs of women and children. 

The issues in Southern Africa, where I have been the SecretaryGeneral’s special envoy for 4 years, thank God there has been better weather this year, but we have been feeding more than 10 million people in that part of the world, and the convergence of the 

issues of food security, the HIV AIDS issue, and then tough issues 

of capacity and governance coming together with what we call a triple threat crisis. 

And the impact overwhelming in places where life expectancy 

has gone from the high 60s to the low 30s. Life expectancy in the 

United States is 78, and we expect it to go up a few days every 

year. But life expectancy in this part of the world has been plummeting, the impact once again on children. 

A country like Zimbabwe, 12 million population, and 1.3 million 

children are orphaned because mom and/or dad have died of HIV. 

You end up with 15 million kids in Southern Africa who are orphans. These kids have every need that the kids in New Jersey or 

Indianapolis have. You know, food, water, shelter, health, education, to say nothing of an adult to put their arm around them 

and say I love you and I care about you. 

The issues confronting children are overwhelming. The HIV 

AIDS crisis is so serious in parts of the world that there are a good 

many countries whose future is absolutely at risk. It overwhelms 

every facet of life in so many places. 

The United States, through PEPFAR, has done an extraordinary 

piece of work in prevention, in treatment, in getting anti-retroviral 

treatment to a growing number of people, and it has been very 

thoughtful. 

But the fact of the matter is that it is just like health care in 

the United States. Medicine administered on an empty stomach to 

12

a poorly nourished body has no chance to work. It often takes a 

very difficult toll on that body. 

The relationship—if you would talk to Peter Piat, the head of 

U.N. AIDS, he would tell you that hunger and nutrition are the 

single biggest issues in the fight against HIV. And we have got to 

focus on how we address the nutritional issues, the hunger issues, 

of the 40 million people affected by HIV. 

It is a factor in the prevention of mother to child transmission. 

It is a factor in the usefulness of the anti-retroviral treatment. It 

is the key factor in terms of how we educate children about HIV 

in school. They have to be fed to be successful in school. 

So I would implore you to be seriously thoughtful about the connection between nutrition and the fight against HIV, and especially 

as the African Subcommittee, where half-a-dozen or more countries, truly their future is at risk because of the HIV crisis, places 

where more than 40 percent of the adult population are HIV positive, and the cost overwhelming. 

Consider the issues that the World Bank points out, the issues 

of ending child hunger, and the impact as it relates to HIV AIDS. 

And I agree with you, we are talking about real men, real women, 

real children. 

The issues demand attention however you look at it, from a humanitarian, moral, spiritual perspective, an economic perspective, 

or a political security perspective. President Olusegun Obasajo of 

Nigeria says a hungry man is an angry man, and we know the 

ramifications of that. 

I am profoundly grateful to the United States of America. When 

I came, you were providing 60 percent of our support. Five years 

later, you are providing 44 percent of our support, but you have 

continued in absolute numbers to increase, and we have gone from 

56 to 81 donors, and we will have a hundred donors by the end of 

this year. 

But my dream is that somehow the United States and its strong 

partners around the world as governments, but will partner with 

Rotary, and Kwanis, and the faith-based groups, the Boy Scouts, 

and the Future Farmers of America, to say that we are all—you 

know, I gave a commencement speech in Kentucky a few days ago, 

and little Georgetown College gave me money to feed 1,400 children in Guatemala. 

Everybody needs to do a little bit more, and we can solve this 

problem, and for just so little, so powerfully change the lives of 

children. I don’t know how you solve big problems other than one 

drop at a time. And you begin to change a child’s life by feeding, 

and going to school. You change a family and you change your community. 

And President Eisenhower, when he set up the Food for Peace 

program, which is one of the United States’ great foreign policy 

successes, said the world will be changed with wheat, not weapons. 

And the United States has fed somewhere between 4 and 6 billion people the last 50 years in 135 countries, and many of those 

countries are now our best allies. So an investment in this issue 

of hunger and nutrition, with a special focus on women and children, looking at the tough issues that go along with it, the HIV 

13

AIDS issue, the natural disasters, and heaven forbid, so much conflict. 

It is a winning formula, and as I say, my wife says that I give 

you the thesis sentence and that is enough and I always finish the 

volume. But I feel so passionately about this, and every day I go 

somewhere, anywhere in the world, I feel proud to be an American 

because of your generosity, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Morris follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. JAMES T. MORRIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNITED

NATIONS WORLD FOOD PROGRAM

Mr. Chairman, 

Distinguished Representatives, 

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

I was in Africa a few weeks ago together with Ann Veneman, the Executive Director of UNICEF and Antonio Guterres, the Executive Director of UNHCR. We visited 

the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. Right after, I headed to 

Kenya, where prolonged drought is menacing the lives of the poor. It has already 

devastated farms and killed thousands of cattle. The question is: Will it claim the 

lives of children next? 

Few experiences have changed my life more than holding an acutely malnourished 

child in my arms, as I did in Kenya. To hold in my arms a one year old girl who 

weighs little more than an average newborn in the United States unleashes a tide 

of emotions. One can’t help but feel grief for this child’s pain; shame that this 

should be allowed to happen in the 21st century; anger that this child will not be 

the last to suffer this fate. 

In fact, 18,000 children will not make it through today. Their tiny bodies will succumb to months and years of not getting the nutrition they needed to survive. Millions more will have their growth stunted forever, their minds dulled by malnutrition and their futures limited to a life of poverty and ignorance. 

When we talk of deaths from hunger, scenes from drought in East Africa and conflict in Darfur come quickly to mind. 

In these places, we face decisions that would make even King Solomon pause. Two 

weeks ago, we simply did not enough food or money soon enough for Darfur. We 

were forced to make one of the hardest decisions ever: do we halve the number of 

people we help, or do we try to give all of the people half the food they need? 

Thankfully, the US has come to our rescue. In addition to announcing the emergency dispatch of five vessels and expediting procurement of 40,000 MT sorghum 

for Darfur, President Bush has asked Congress for $225m in emergency supplemental funding for Sudan. This assistance would be very welcome and would help 

us start increasing rations again next month for millions of people in Darfur. However, it takes on average 4–6 months for a confirmed donor pledge to arrive and be 

distributed in Darfur, so we really hope that funds will be approved quickly, before 

it is too late for the smallest and weakest people in Darfur. 

Other donors, including the European Commission, Canada and the Sudanese 

Government have also pledged to help. Next week I will be in Sudan to discuss with 

all of the players how to fund the huge needs there. 

WFP—and the people caught in these terrible crises—have much to thank the 

United States for. In Darfur and East Africa, food aid worth US$552 million from 

the United States is keeping 12 million people alive. Truly, your support is miraculous. 

The OECD reckons that international aid was higher in 2005 than in any year 

in history. Industrialized countries gave US $107 billion in foreign aid. 

Last year, WFP provided food assistance to 97 million people in 83 countries. The 

United States was yet again our biggest supporter. All told, we raised US$2.8 billion—and more than US $1.2 billion of that came from the US—from our friends 

at USAID, at USDA and State Department. It’s a record amount. And we really appreciate it. Almost one in every two people that WFP helps is fed thanks to the 

United States. At the same time as the US gave us more money than any other 

year in our history, it was the smallest share of our income from the US in 5 

years—44 percent. Other countries are picking up more of the burden. And the 

number of countries donating to our work has grown from 56 in 2001 to 80 last 

year. 

But the need for food aid still outstrips the resources available and donors have 

not given it the priority it deserves as they increase foreign aid. We need a ‘‘food 

14

first’’ policy. What is the point of investing in long-term economic aid when people 

are starving? 

Last year we hit another record—but this time a record low. Just 57 percent of 

our needs for emergency operations—like Darfur and East Africa—were funded. 

And as we saw in those places, a lack of funds leads to ration cuts. 

We started the 2006–2007 biennium with a program of work valued at US$6.4 

billion—this is how much we needed to raise to meet the assessed needs of the beneficiaries of the programs and operations approved by our Executive Board. In just 

the first 3 months of this year, that amount had increased by more than $320 million, mainly because of the drought crisis in the Horn of Africa. 

Last year we reached 41 million people in Africa, including 19 million young people—and this year our target already exceeds 50 million. If I count just our most 

urgent needs on the continent—those where rations have been or are about to be 

cut—we are looking at a shortfall of more than $1.4 billion. Tens of millions of very 

poor, very hungry people are counting on us to find that money before it is too late. 

With generosity at historically high levels, it is hard to understand why 15 million 

children who need WFP’s help to survive, to grow, to go to school are going to be 

left wanting this year. Roughly one in four children under the age of five in Africa 

is undernourished—but currently WFP is reaching just one in 20. 

Worldwide, there are roughly 100 million hungry children who get next to no assistance at all from anyone. To give them and their mothers a very basic package 

of food, nutrition and basic health care, we’ve calculated would cost something in 

the vicinity of US $5 billion a year. That’s almost the same amount as Congress 

has appropriated to assist 7 million American women and infants through the WIC 

program in FY 2005. WIC is one of the most effective programs in history and has 

the strongest bipartisan support. If that investment in America’s poor mothers and 

children was worth making, why not reach out to all who need our help? 

I have to believe it comes down to a question of priorities. Who should we put 

first when deciding the aid budget? From all that I have seen and learned, it simply 

must be mothers and children—and their most urgent need for food, water, education and health care must come before anything else. Priority has to go to the 

hungriest people in the poorest places before they become the victims of emergencies. As grateful as we are for the US coming to our rescue with supplemental 

bills, it would be much more effective if we were managing risks better and developing more flexible tools to respond—just as you already do at home. 

The vast majority of the children who will die today from hunger and related 

causes won’t perish in a high-profile emergency. They’ll pass, unnoticed by anyone 

other than their families and neighbors, in squalid slums or in remote dusty villages. 

If they do survive, their lives will have changed forever. Take the story of four 

year old Marie Carmel, from Haiti, as an example. Her black curly hair is tinged 

with red, a tell-tale sign of malnutrition. Her eyes are empty—four months ago a 

chronic lack of vitamin A left her completely blind. Two of her siblings died and two 

were given away, simply because her mother could not feed them. Marie Carmel 

and her mother now survive on the monthly rations of rice, beans, oil and iodized 

salt, handed out at a health centre north of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. Did 

little Marie really need to go blind from malnutrition in 2006? 

Increasingly, many of the world’s 300 million hungry children have been touched 

in some way by HIV. Perhaps they’re trying to care for sick parents. Perhaps their 

parents have died from AIDS, leaving them in the care of poor grandparents or 

abandoned to their own devices on the streets. Perhaps they themselves are HIV 

positive. One thing is almost certain—if they had trouble getting enough to eat before HIV devastated their lives, they’re going to find it much, much harder once 

AIDS grips their existence. Without a healthy diet, their fight to survive this plague 

is being fought with one hand tied behind their backs. 

I have seen this more times than I care to remember in southern Africa, where 

average life expectancy has plunged to less than 35 years of age in some of the 

worst-hit countries. Children as young as 12 are caring for sick parents and their 

siblings. They’re doing their best to grow food and earn a living, but sometimes that 

means they take risks that threaten their own health and safety. 

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has done so much to bring care 

and treatment to the 40 million people worldwide who live with HIV. It has reached 

out to more than a million orphans and vulnerable children. We must consider ways 

to ensure that the nutritional needs of people affected by HIV are taken into consideration: so that they’re well-nourished enough to benefit from antiretroviral treatment; so that their children can still go to school, instead of working to put food 

on the table; so that HIV-positive mothers can give birth to healthy babies. 

15

No American doctor in his right mind would provide antiretroviral treatment to 

someone without ensuring that they were sufficiently well nourished to withstand 

the side effects and absorb the medication. Not a single baby was born with HIV 

in the United States last year. Not one. Yet elsewhere in the world, close to 1,800 

babies inherit HIV from their mothers every single day. Less than 10 percent of the 

world’s HIV-positive mothers have access to programs that prevent them from 

transmitting the virus to their children. 

Just as HIV and AIDS impact on numerous aspects of peoples’ lives—on their food 

security, on their incomes, on social services, health and education—our response 

must be equally dynamic. A comprehensive and sound medical approach, that encompasses the food and nutrition needs of people affected by HIV, is needed. I urge 

Congress to support it. 

What I’m asking is that we apply the same standards of care for all of the world’s 

children, as you would to your own. We don’t stand by and allow children to die 

from hunger in the United States. We don’t try to give antiretroviral treatment to 

malnourished patients without meeting their nutritional needs. We don’t allow 

mothers to pass HIV to their babies. We don’t allow hunger and poverty to keep 

children out of school. We don’t cut food rations for the victims of emergencies. 

There is another emotion which overcomes me when I hold malnourished children 

who receive WFP’s help—your help. That emotion is hope. Hope that one day soon 

we will care for these children as if they were our own. That they would have 

enough to eat and an opportunity to go to school—just like my own children and 

grandchildren did. 

When that happens, surely child hunger will be a phenomenon to be studied in 

history class, not a matter for the nightly news.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Morris, thank you so much for your eloquent testimony, but more importantly, for your passion on behalf of those 

who are suffering from hunger and malnourishment. 

In your written testimony, you mentioned that 100 million hungry children will get no assistance whatsoever from anyone. You 

said earlier, and you repeated it in your oral comments, about how 

18,000 children will not make it through today, and I do hope that 

our colleagues understand that. 

In a time when people are holding down budgets, every dollar 

that goes to someone who is not getting food is a matter of life or 

death, and you have made that case very eloquently. You point out 

that it would take about $5 billion to feed those 100 million people. 

You pointed out in your testimony that we are a billion short in 

Africa. I wonder if you could just tell us—you know, one of the 

things that I have argued about with UNHCR and other agencies 

that very often the appeals are based on what you hope to get, as 

opposed to what the raw need is. 

If we were to really initiate an all-out effort to say hunger is 

first, ‘‘put hunger first’’ as you put it, what would it take? Is the 

$5 billion addition, is that the ballpark number? If you could just 

give us those kinds of numbers. 

And if you could lay out for the Committee perhaps in followup 

exactly how you got those numbers so that we can make the case 

as empirically as possible that this is what we buy when taxpayer 

funding is expended in such a humanitarian way. We save lives. 

But the more detail that we have, I think the better in making 

our case when people may not spend the kind of time that they 

should or could on this issue. Secondly, you mentioned in your testimony that the European Commission, Canada, and the Sudanese 

Governments have pledged to help, and you anticipate discussions, 

I believe, next week. 

If you can shed any light on what the expectation is on how 

much you are hoping to glean from them during those discussions. 

And in your testimony, you also referred to the need to be better 

16

able to manage risks, and to develop more flexible tools to respond 

to emergencies. 

If you might touch on some of those tools that you think are 

needed. And again your testimony is extraordinary, and I appreciate it. 

Mr. MORRIS. Thank you. We are working very hard trying to 

have as much accuracy and precision in the numbers as possible. 

Most of the places we work don’t have a census like we would in 

the United States, and the numbers are tough. 

We work in partnership with FAO, with UNICEF, with the 

World Bank, with national governments, to develop the numbers. 

We have had a special relationship with this extraordinary consulting firm, the Boston consulting firm, BCG. 

They give us about $6 million of pro bono services every year, 

and they have been specifically helpful in working through the $5 

billion number. Essentially, it is our belief that there are probably 

20 million women in Africa, mothers or pregnant, plus 100 million 

children who have virtually no help. 

If we go back to the larger number of 300 million hungry children in the world, we would assume that 80 million of them are 

in India. Forty million of them are in China. A few million more 

in Brazil. And those are all places now that have the wherewithal, 

food surpluses, and I think political will, to really focus efforts on 

the issue. 

We closed our program in China in December. We had been there 

40 years. We continue to have a modest program in India, largely 

paid for by the Indian Government. But if you take, let us say, that 

125 from the 300 million figure, you have a figure of 175 million. 

And it would be our belief that probably 75 million of the kids 

have some help, some support, from our programs, from extraordinary support from NGOs, some bilateral help. But we would say 

that setting aside the China and India numbers, 100 million kids 

hungry in Africa, 15 million, or maybe 20 million in Latin America, 

10 to 15 million in the Middle East, and the former Soviet Republics; and another 50 or 60 million in Asia—Pakistan, Bangladesh, 

North Korea. 

The $5 billion figure is what we think we could provide help for 

the 20 million mothers, and the 100 million children. We can feed 

a child for a full school year for $35 in Africa. The numbers are 

a little less in Bangladesh, a little less in North Korea. 

And you throw a few pennies in for other things, the worm treatment, et cetera. And it has been my thought that over a period of 

10 years, let us say that you would start with a new availability 

of $3 billion in Africa, and that probably the Africans could leverage another $2 billion on their own as a way of funding the $5 billion. 

And that over a 10-year period the African countries would underwrite a much larger percentage and the external support would 

decline. There are 700,000 or 800,000 children in Botswana. Today, 

the government completely funds the school feeding program in 

Botswana, and does not need us. 

But there are several issues here. One is the capacity building 

of governments to address the issue. The second issue is the local 

17

production of food, and the important role of family gardens and 

school gardens, and then the issue of external help. 

In Northeast Kenya right now, with this incredible drought in 

The Horn, there is no capacity for agricultural production in Northeast Kenya whatsoever. It depends on external help. 

The Government of Kenya has given us 60,000 tons of food this 

year for the northeast region, and we have been depending on the 

rest of the world probably for another 275,000 tons of food for that 

part of the world. 

So at least that has been the way that we have pulled these 

numbers together. We have a strong, strong partnership with the 

World Bank, and with UNICEF. The World Bank, in terms of 

metrics, is outstanding in their analysis. 

The World Bank is more focused on children from zero to two. 

The World Bank would tell you that an investment in feeding children zero to two is the single most powerful economic investment 

that a country can make in its future, be it the United States, or 

be it Rwanda. 

So that is where we look for the numbers, and once again, our 

global commitment to the Millennium Development goals, if we are 

going to cut hunger and poverty in half, the most powerful highly 

leveraged investment is focusing on children, because they have a 

lifetime for our investment to pay off. 

And these kids are born into circumstances completely beyond 

their control, and that is when the rest of the world has to step 

in. Your question about—we know that when we have resources 

available on day one of a crisis, that same amount of value can feed 

20 to 30 percent more people, compared to that same amount of 

money coming in the middle of a crisis. 

When coping mechanisms haven’t been exhausted, and when people are not in extreme condition, when food supply prices, supply 

and demand works, and prices are lower at the beginning, and they 

get higher later on. 

And we know that same amount of money just goes so much further, and we are a big advocate for unrestricted multilateral, untied, undirected cash. And we are very grateful for all that anyone 

does for us. We could not exist without the United States commitment of food commodities. 

Cash is a very precious asset for us. Cash allows us to buy locally. The cultural issues, the storage issues, the transport issues, 

are much simpler. We work very hard not to distort markets. The 

people we feed have nothing. 

We don’t fee people who have much cash in their pocket. Now on 

occasion, we might provide food for someone who has a little cash 

in their pocket, and thank goodness then that they are able to use 

that for other basic essentials that their family needs. 

But we have been working hard on an insurance scheme. Richard Wilcox, a wonderful American colleague, has been the leader 

of this effort. We are experimenting in Ethiopia. Can we transfer 

the risk from the small vulnerable farmer to the financial markets. 

We have crop insurance all across the United States. Is there a 

way for the international community to provide the premium to 

buy an insurance policy that will protect the vulnerable farmer in 

Ethiopia. 

18

And it is an experiment that we have underway. We had five big 

international insurance companies who wanted to underwrite it, 

and so we are in the middle of that experiment. The French have 

exhibited some interest in trying that same experiment in Mali. 

We have tried to bring best business practices to the World Food 

Program. We have a strong balance sheet, and a business knows 

how to use its balance sheet, its working capital, its assets, to do 

all sorts of other things before cash for the next project is in the 

bank. 

And like insurance people, we actuarially analyze the likelihood 

of a national commitment actually being realized, and then we are 

willing to go ahead and advance the capital to make the purchase 

on day one when it will go so much further. So at least those are—

I could talk forever on this subject, but maybe that is useful. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. We plan on crafting a bill that intelligently, as well as with enough resources, will seek to increase our 

commitment to putting food first. We would welcome every thought 

and idea that you have, as well as Members of the Subcommittee, 

and all of the NGOs who will be testifying, because we want to 

work on this, and try to get it introduced shortly. But feel free to 

give us all of your good ideas. 

Mr. MORRIS. Thank you. We were about a billion dollars short 

last year in what we needed to do our work in Africa, and we probably were funded at about 60 percent of what our emergency requirements needed. 

Hopefully the Southern Africa thing won’t be so serious food wise 

going forward, but the tough issues remain in Liberia and the 

Ivory Coast, and West Coastal Africa, the tough issues in Uganda. 

You know, my comment always is so little goes so far, and the 

desperate conditions of people who have nothing, and living in 

harsh weather conditions in this tough HIV environment, and in 

this violence environment, we can’t conceive of what their lives are 

like. But I know that you travel, and I know that you see it, and 

I am grateful for that. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. And I think your point about the enhanced value of early money, as compared to later on—obviously it 

is welcomed later on, but I think it is a very, very important point. 

Very well taken. 

Mr. MORRIS. We have an immediate response account that we revolve in, and last year, let us say that we had $35 million in the 

base account, and we were able to use more than $100 million to 

advance or to send people, or to send helicopters or whatever was 

needed on day one. 

Mr. SMITH. That is great. Mr. Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. I would also like to express my appreciation for your 

testimony and the passion. You certainly take your job very, very 

seriously, as it is a serious job, but you certainly are a great Ambassador for what needs to be done. 

There is no question about early intervention, and even in education we find that a thousand dollars put into education for even 

prenatal care, and pre-K education, and all, it goes six or seven 

times, 10 times further than if you took a thousand dollars and 

tried to, say, put it into a Job Corps program to get someone to get 

a GED. 

19

I mean, it wouldn’t even start to scratch the surface, and so it 

is so clear that early intervention is such a—you know, a stitch in 

time saves nine kind of concept that old folks used to say. But it 

is difficult to get that concept through sometimes that we could do 

so much on the early side. 

Let me just ask this question. As you have indicated, the United 

States has continued to increase its amount. However, overall, 

there has been a decrease from 66 percent to 44 percent of the 

world budget. 

We see that in a number of our international organizations. The 

United Nations, in general, was about 50 percent, and it went 

down to 33, and we are down to 21, and we may be below 20 if 

the new formula goes in. 

Let me ask you. Where did the shift come from? You did mention 

some countries doing more, but I would be interested to know who 

is starting to pick up the slack that didn’t do it before. 

Also, I have a curiosity about the very difficult places to get to. 

I mean, you have painted a very bleak picture, but how about areas 

where new Sudanese refugees are, and there are about 200 million 

new ones it is estimated since January to today that are in places 

that they haven’t even been before. 

In Somalia, where we have virtually no diplomatic relations with, 

how bad is it in some of those places where we have no way of 

knowing formally what is going on? As you mentioned, in Northern 

Uganda, where the Lord’s Resistance Movement is, and in Eritrea 

and Ethiopia, Ethiopia being such a large country, with 60 million 

people, but so many rural parts, and one of the poorest countries 

in the world. 

And what is your prognostication for what is happening up there, 

or do we have any way of knowing is there any place that is really 

untouched by world organizations? 

Mr. MORRIS. Let me respond to at least three points. Your first 

reference to a thousand dollars. A thousand dollars will feed 35 

children for a full year. Their lives will never be the same, all for 

the better. 

Your notion of prevention. Because of the change in the world 

with more natural disasters, more conflict, the world has been 

much more preoccupied with saving lives, protecting livelihoods, 

than making investments, and moderating and mediating, and preventing problems. 

The United States WIC program is—I don’t know what, but 

maybe $7 billion a year; women, infants, and children. The impact 

of WIC in this country is overwhelming. I mean, it is a powerful 

investment in women, infants, and children, and gives them the 

base to give life to a healthy child, or a base for a good life. 

That same investment would eliminate hunger in Africa. Now I 

know that it is apples and oranges, but the children in Africa have 

the same potential as the children anywhere in the world if given 

the opportunity if they are nourished and have a chance to go to 

school. 

And I want to tell you this quick story. Paul Tergat, he called 

me a few days ago, or a few weeks ago, and said, Jim, I want to 

come see you. Paul Tergat, from Kenya, one of 17 children, had just 

20

set the world record in the Berlin Marathon, just won the New 

York Marathon this year, and he said I want to tell you my story. 

Twenty-seven years ago, the World Food Program came to my 

village in Kenya, and through a school feeding program fed me, 

and changed the life of my village, and all of my friends, and all 

of my classmates. 

And he said, oh, by the way, that food was provided to the World 

Food Program by the United States of America Food for Peace. 

Now, not every child is going to be a champion long distance runner, but every child has great horizons and great opportunities, 

and deserves the chance. 

Your issue about how tough it is to get places. We had four truck 

drivers killed in the last quarter of last year in the Sudan. In 

Darfor, we probably fed 2.8 million people in March in the Sudan 

and Darfor, and another 400,000 that we couldn’t get to because of 

the violence. 

There would be 230,000 Sudanese refugees across the border in 

Chad, and living in 15 camps. Interestingly enough, their nutritional status improved substantially to a point where it was substantially better than the Chadian population around the camp. 

And so that leads to difficulty, and we have now been pretty aggressive to provide help for the Chadian population, who by the 

way has been very welcoming to the Sudanese refugees. But the 

issue of violence. More people have lost their lives doing humanitarian work for the United Nations than in doing peacekeeping 

work. 

And we have 135 duty stations around the world that are phase 

three or higher by United Nation’s security standards. So you have 

got thousands of people at risk every single day. 

The weather conditions in Pakistan, and the weather conditions 

as we head into the tough time in Afghanistan. Thank goodness we 

had great support from the Canadian Avalanche Team that came 

into Afghanistan and helped us clear the passes of snow so we 

could get food and preposition for people who would need it in the 

winter time. 

But we will feed between 2 and 3 million refugees this year; 

twice to two-and-a-half times that many internally displaced people. In Uganda, we would be feeding a million-and-a-half internally 

displaced people, and about that many in Colombia for that matter. 

And people—and it is another category, but people who are 

chased from their homes, and who have nothing to fall back on, are 

living in some of the worst human conditions imaginable. 

Mr. PAYNE. We certainly thank you, and I think that the points 

that you bring out about—you know, many of my colleagues from 

time to time have a field day criticizing the United Nations, and 

how bad it is, and how ineffective it is. 

Oil-for-Food probably had more time spent on the United Nations 

than any program in the history of the United Nations. However, 

to hear you talk about those humanitarian people who lose their 

lives, and those folks who are unsung heroes. This world would be 

a disaster if it wasn’t for the United Nations. I mean, it is bad 

enough as it is. Thank you. 

Mr. MORRIS. If I might just quickly respond to your reference to 

Oil-for-Food. I wish to God it would have been called Oil for WagVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:23 Sep 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\052506\27810.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
21

ons, or something, but we are the World Food Program of the 

United Nations, and we had nothing whatsoever to do with the Oilfor-Food Program. 

Mr. Volker, in his report, commended the World Food Program, 

and we have been embarrassed by the use of the word food in both 

our names. To our credit, after the first phase of the Iraqi situation, there were a huge number of contracts that the Saddam Hussein government had put in place with food companies around the 

world. 

And the Security Council asked the World Food Program to come 

in and renegotiate those contracts, and to take out the kickbacks, 

and to see what reliability the transport situation might represent. 

And we had 30 of our very bright young colleagues go off to an 

office and renegotiate a $1.4 billion worth of Oil-for-Food contracts 

so that the food could be delivered to the people of Sudan. It is an 

extraordinary story of what some very bright young people from all 

over the world did. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Ms. Lee. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask that my 

full opening statement be put into the record, and I will try to be 

very brief. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lee follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BARBARA LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Thank you Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Payne for convening this important hearing on food aid and hunger throughout the world. 

Across the developing world as a whole, an estimated 850 million people go to bed 

hungry and undernourished every night. 

And every day 24,000 people die of hunger. 

Mr. Chairman, as we all know, food production in Africa has fallen behind population growth over the past 30 years. Ironically this has left Africa, an agriculturally 

rich continent, as a net importer of food. 

Many Americans are interested in providing the necessary tools for Africans to 

be food-secure but ignore the fact that developing Africa’s agricultural sector is the 

key to eradicating Africa’s current famine crisis and stabilizing the social sectors 

that have crumbled. 

The bottom line Mr. Chairman, is that food security will help create political, social, and economic security. 

In August of 2003, I led a Congressional Delegation to Zambia and Ethiopia. The 

goal of the delegation was to better understand the connection between food security, access to clean water and HIV/AIDS. 

Mr. Chairman, what we found was the undeniable link between food and the global fight against HIV and AIDS. 

An estimated 95 percent of the 40 million people infected with HIV and AIDS 

globally live in developing countries. And 70 percent of those are in sub-Saharan 

Africa. 

In these places, hunger and HIV/AIDS are two sides of the same deadly sword. 

Without adequate nutrition and vitamins, the infected are robbed of one of the 

main defenses against early death. People with HIV become increasingly weak and 

fatigued; they do not respond to drug treatment and are prone to other illnesses 

such as malnutrition and tuberculosis. 

Mr. Chairman, that is why I am exploring legislation that could potentially provide relief to millions suffering from food insecurity and hunger-related conditions 

by investing in agriculture and African farmers, providing resources to detect famine early, and moving food quickly into famine-impacted areas. 

My legislation currently addresses three critical things. 

First it would authorize and invest appropriate funds to the World Food Programs’ weather derivatives initiative. 

22

Secondly, it would increase the resources of the Famine Early Warning System 

program in order for them to do more work throughout Africa. 

And finally, the most controversial provision—authorizing the use of local and regional purchase of emergency food aid. 

Combined, all of these provisions would create a comprehensive approach to ending hunger, investing in farmers and agriculture and warding off famine. 

Thank you Mr. Chairman, I look forward to our hearing.

Ms. LEE. But thank you very much, Mr. Morris, for your powerful testimony, and your powerful work. Certainly you, more than 

most, know what is going on there on the continent, and understand what needs to be done. We all recognize that—and many 

Americans are interested in providing the necessary tools for Africans to be food secure, but ignore the fact that developing Africa’s 

ag sector is really key to eradicating African’s current famine crisis, 

and stabilizing the social sectors that have crumbled. 

So I am exploring legislation, and Mr. Chairman, I would like to 

work with you and our Ranking Member on this, and that would 

really invest appropriate funds to the World Food Program’s weather derivatives initiative. It would increase the resources of the 

Famine Early Warning System Program. 

And also, which is very controversial, it would authorize the use 

of local and regional purchase of emergency food aid. And so as you 

think about this further, and what an appropriate United States 

response could or should be that would end hunger, and invest in 

farmers and agriculture, in an effort to ward off famines, I would 

like to get your feedback on those specific provisions. 

Secondly, I am very pleased to hear you talk about the nexus between food insecurity and HIV and AIDS. When we worked on the 

PEPFAR initiative, the global AIDS initiative, we actually under 

the leadership of our greater Ambassador, Tony Hall, former Ambassador, and Eva Clayton—and I want to thank you very much 

for helping us with this. 

We included a provision in that legislation that would integrate 

nutrition programs with HIV and AIDS initiatives. It would provide as a component anti-retroviral therapy, and program support 

for food and nutrition to individuals infected and affected by HIV 

and AIDS. 

And we would provide food and support, and nutrition for children affected by HIV and AIDS to communities. In your work have 

you seen this integration of these efforts? We wrote to Secretary of 

State Condoleezza Rice in April to ask about this, and I still have 

not received a response. 

And I will ask the USAID officials later on that, but have you 

seen a robust type of integration of these strategies as you look at 

efforts as it relates to the delivery of food throughout Africa? 

Mr. MORRIS. We certainly will be eager to be helpful to you as 

you think about legislation that speaks to prevention and the early 

capacity to address tough humanitarian issues. Early warning systems, the Fusenet system, which the United States has led and 

putting in place in Africa. 

But equally important developing capacities with governments. I 

am more and more of the opinion that FAO and the World Food 

Program, and IFAD, the Agricultural Development Bank, we need 

to model ourselves in terms of our development assistance after the 

23

U.N. AIDS concept, where we have a country theme group working 

with governments, where they have the ownership. 

But to help them develop the capacity to pursue their own strategy of food security, and Food for Work is really an important part 

of that. Our Food for Work programs help put in place simple irrigation systems, rebuild roads, all sorts of things helping families 

get on their feet. 

Eva Clayton was terrific. She was in Rome for 3 years, and her 

advocacy on behalf of hunger around the world. We miss her. She 

couldn’t wait to get back to North Carolina, I think, but she was 

a special spirit in every way. 

We have reorganized our program in 51 countries to respond to 

the HIV AIDS issue. We know that we can provide food for about 

66 cents a day for a family affected by HIV. I talked about mother 

to child transmission, and I talked about school feeding, where children are educated. 

I talked about the fact that a doctor would never prescribe a 

pharmaceutical product to someone that was poorly nourished and 

hungry. They go hand-in-glove. ARV doesn’t work without good nutrition, and I am optimistic now that Ambassador Tobias is leading 

both the Agency for International Development and his global 

AIDS coordinator experience, that he will find a way to pull together the need for nutritional support. 

He understands this issue. I had long talks with him, and had 

an extraordinary meeting this week with Dr. Farmer, from Harvard, who is working in Haiti, and who would tell you that absolutely that anti-retroviral treatment only works if nutrition and 

food is available. 

And you end up with people not taking the anti-retroviral drugs 

because of the harshness that it imposes on their bodies if there 

is no food there to balance it. And my medical vocabulary may not 

be correct, but you get a sense that this is really important. 

We have been working and trying to get the Global Fund to understand this issue. It is an issue that everybody acknowledges, but 

they expect someone else to do it. 

Ms. LEE. Mr. Morris, let me just interrupt you by saying that I 

hope, and I am pleased to hear your response, but I hope that this 

Committee—Mr. Chairman may at some point look at some oversight on this one specific issue based on the legislation that we authorized. 

Mr. MORRIS. Thank you. 

Mr. BOOZMAN [presiding]. Thank you so much for being here. We 

appreciate your testimony, and appreciate you shedding light on 

what is going on. Thank you. 

Our next witness is Mr. Hess. At this point, we will go ahead and 

convene the hearing. Again, we appreciate the briefing. So the 

meeting is convened. Our first panel is the Honorable Michael E. 

Hess, USAID. Colonel Michael Hess is the Assistant Administrator 

for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, USAID. 

Colonel Hess has more than 30 years of service in the U.S. military. In April 2003, Colonel Hess was recalled to active duty to 

serve as the Humanitarian Coordinator in the Office of ReconstrucVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:23 Sep 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\052506\27810.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
24

tion and Humanitarian Assistance during Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

He later served as the deputy chief of staff for the coalition provisional authority. Thank you very much for coming in, Colonel Hess. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL E. HESS, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, U.S. AGENCY FOR 

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Mr. HESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to be here 

today, especially with my colleague and teammate, Jim Morris. We 

have worked very closely together. It is a good teamwork effort between USAID and World Food Programme, and it is also great to 

be here with our other colleagues in the NGO community, and with 

Ambassador Hall, with whom we have worked very closely providing food aid around the world. 

I am going to make a presentation here, focusing mainly on my 

recent trip to the Horn of Africa, where we were looking at the 

needs in the pastoralist crisis. You can see the shot there on the 

screen from El Wak, and it is up in northeast Kenya that Jim Morris referred to earlier. 

It is one of the hardest hit areas in the Horn of Africa. We call 

this a pastoralist crisis, because as Fred Coney taught us a long 

time ago, drought does not cause famine. Famine is caused by a 

lack of governance. And certainly the issues in this region, and affecting the pastoralists in particular, are an example of a lack of 

governance. 

And certainly in the Somalia region—we couldn’t go into Somalia 

obviously, but we talked very closely with our partners who worked 

in Somalia about the conditions there, where we have a global 

acute malnutrition rate in the Gata region of over 23.7 percent, 

where 15 percent is considered an emergency situation. 

And you couple that with the outbreak of polio and measles in 

that same region, then you have got the makings of a good disaster. So when you see these issues of governance, we look at the 

solution to it. We do provide food aid immediately, and we have to 

stop the dying and alleviate the suffering. 

We also participate in malnutrition programs, trying to alleviate 

malnutrition at the same time through community based therapeutical feeding programs, and in some cases supplemental feeding 

centers and therapeutic feeding centers, where the concept of community feeding centers haven’t taken over. 

We also look at the governance issues, and we have to. We have 

to look at representation for the pastoralists. In Kenya, they represent less than 3 percent of the society. So how do those people 

get represented so that their needs can be met, and so that we can 

talk about funds transferred to that part of society. 

In the Somali region of Ethiopia, there are 4 million people who 

live there out of 77 million people in Ethiopia. Again, there is an 

imbalance between the representation and how those people get 

their needs met. 

So while we are looking at the immediate concern as Jim says, 

we provide a large proportion of the food that goes into the Horn 

of Africa. We also have to look at these long term issues, and we 

25

have devoted a lot of money into water sanitation, nutrition programs, but also livelihood programs, where we want to try to affect 

the livelihoods of these people who live in these regions, and suffer 

the worst consequences of the drought. 

And what I mean by the livelihoods programs, is that we have 

looked at alternative crops. Why don’t we go on to the next slide. 

For those of you who have not seen a supplemental feeding program, these are never fun to see. This is a supplemental feeding 

program in Ethiopia. 

It is actually in one of the better regions of Ethiopia. This is in 

the Southern Nations region, and near Bandera, just south of 

Addis Abbaba, and if you look at the children there, they are certainly suffering. And we didn’t expect to see that in this region, because they had a good harvest last year. They had good rains this 

year. 

They are part of the productive safety net program, and so all 

of the conditions are ripe there that they should be doing well, but 

if you look at those children in those pictures, there were 120 children waiting to be screened there in this center. 

They had 38 children already in the supplemental feeding program. They were going to admit another 55 that day, and there 

were 120 waiting to be screened. This is all part of a communitybased feeding program that we had established and funded with 

our NGO partners there. 

But as you can see, even in a good region, there are problems, 

and we have to make sure that we cover those areas, even though 

we think they are well covered, to make sure that we can reach 

those children as well. 

And on the next slide, you will see a food distribution center in 

Djibouti. This is north of the Gulf. Those are WFP bags. You can’t 

see too well there. The markings of our USAID—well, here, let me 

show you what one looks like. 

You have probably seen these bags when you go out to the field. 

It is a good testimony to the generosity of the American people. But 

that is a WFP site with some of our food that is being distributed 

there in Djibouti, but when we are talking about the distribution, 

we have got to make sure that it gets to the right people. 

And we do that through our good monitoring systems with our 

partners, the NGOs who are also in the area, to make sure that 

we get the food to the right people. On the governance side at the 

same time, we meet with the governments and the ministries to 

make sure that they are looking at these livelihood issues. 

And when we talk about livelihoods for pastoralists, and that is 

what we are talking about being affected here, is primarily pastoralists, 6.5 million of them. And we are looking at programs in 

Ethiopia and alternative livelihoods, where we could do gardening 

so that they can raise vegetables through drip irrigation systems 

so that they can have alternative sources of income. 

We also support savings programs. We were also looking at silk 

worm production, to give them another alternative income so that 

when the crisis hits, they will have some assets that they don’t 

have to sell off everything and become destitute, and fall into the 

productive safety net program. 

26

So the livelihoods program is a very important one. We were also 

able to destock and vaccinate over a million livestock this year because of these livelihoods initiatives, and hopefully head off and 

give these people some resources to get through the crisis. 

The next one that I would like to talk about a little bit on the 

next slide is the Sahel. If you all remember last late July and August, there was a huge human cry in the press about the famine 

in the Sahel. We don’t like to use the word famine lightly, because 

it has very severe connotations. 

And we were looking at the crisis, and you certainly saw pictures 

of starving children in Niger in particular, and we said, well, what 

is causing this. You look at the pure numbers. In Niger, there was 

a lot of talk about locusts, and drought, and things like that, and 

how it was affecting the people, and they were starving. 

Niger in that year, even with the locusts and the drought, produced 2.32 kilograms per person, and they need 1.83 kilograms per 

person. So if you do the math, you think, well, what is going on 

here. And the most severe cases of malnutrition were in the bread 

basket of Niger. 

So things aren’t really tabulating very well and are not calculating, and so I went there with a team. We sent DART teams to 

Niger, to Mali, to Burkina Faso, and to Mauritania, to try and alleviate some of the suffering and stop the dying. 

But what we found was fascinating. How can you produce this 

much food, but the people don’t have any food. Well, food production doesn’t necessarily lead to food security as you know. What we 

found was that a lot of the food was being bought by Nigerian traders, and shipped off to Nigeria. 

There were extraordinary debt levels among the farmers. This 

last year, right after we were there, they had very good rains. They 

had a record harvest, but in some cases, half- to three-quarters of 

the food that these farmers produced would go to pay off debts. 

Why do they have these debts? Well, what you recognize is that 

a lot of these farmers in the off-season used to go to work in the 

coca fields. They couldn’t do that anymore. So they didn’t have alternative sources of income. 

We also found some interesting things, statistics, when Jim talks 

about the most severely affected children are zero to two. This was 

certainly the case when you go to the therapeutic feeding centers 

in Niger during the crisis. 

You will notice some very odd. I mean, you go to other places in 

the world—if you looked at those women in Ethiopia, they weren’t 

doing very well, nor were the rest of the children. 

But in here, in Niger, what we noticed was that the affected population was between 10 months, 9 or 10 months, and 24 months. 

The other children were doing fine. The adults were doing fine. 

This does not compute in a normal situation. So we started to inquire into that, and part of the problem is early weaning programs. 

Women will wean their children in Niger at 8 or 9 months, and 

they put them straight on to millet. Millet is a carbohydrate. If you 

put a child at that age on a carbohydrate, they are not going to do 

very well. 

So you take these factors. We also noticed when we were in the 

Sahel, and I will go to the next slide, that every village that we 

27

went to, we asked them what their number one need was. This was 

during a supposed famine. 

The number one need in every village was clean water. Clean 

water. Fred also taught us, Fred Coney, taught us that water kills. 

This is a water well. Fifty-three percent of the villages in Niger 

have water wells, but look at that water well. 

Animals tromping around it, and I will show you a picture in the 

next slide. This is a slide that shows the water quality coming out 

of that well. What you can’t see very clearly in this slide unfortunately, but where the arrows are pointing are fecal coral forms. 

If you drink that water, you are going to die, but this is a water 

well where people and animals go to get their water supply. This 

is not a good situation. Just to give you an idea of what this should 

look like on the next slide, you will see the one on the left, which 

is from the well that I just showed you, the one in the middle 

shows another well where only humans were getting water, but 

you could still see not so good standards. And then you could see 

hotel tap water, which you can get out of Washington, DC. 

But you could see the issue here. It is not just food. We have to 

look at the whole range of issues, and we have to be able to address that. And we look at a holistic program. So while we are providing food from Food for Peace, while we are providing nutritional 

programs to make sure that those children who are malnourished 

receive the proper care. 

We also are looking at water sanitation issues to make sure that 

we can clean up this water and make sure that the people are getting clean healthy water at the same time. It is estimated that in 

2004 that WHO estimated that 80 percent of the diseases in the 

world are caused by bad water. 

We have got to do a little bit more to make sure that we integrate this, and make sure that people get clean water. When we 

worked with the government in Kenya during the pastoralist crisis 

here, we emphasized this with them, and they are going to produce 

catchment programs in northeast Kenya that will capture 5 million 

cubic liters of water in this year. 

So that when the rainy seasons come, and we will talk about the 

rainy seasons when I get to early warning, that they will be able 

to have something there when the droughts start to come. So we 

are working with the governments to look at these long term solutions. 

We have to address the short term, and we have to address the 

emergency, but at the same time, we have to address these long 

term issues as well. So what are we doing in the agency to try to 

solve some of these problems? The next slide shows what Jim Morris was referring to, the famine early warning system. 

This is important for us. It takes us about 4 or 5 months to load 

the ships with food here in the United States and get it around to 

Africa. In some cases, if you are talking about Darfur, it could be 

as many 6 months, and that means that we have to anticipate a 

lot earlier. 

So the famine early warning system, we have worked very closely with, and we have been working on it for 52 years trying to get 

a better mechanism in place. And it is not just weather anymore. 

28

As I indicated earlier when we were talking about the Sahel, we 

have to look at different factors. 

We have to look at market disruptions. We have to look at sentinel sites to see where malnutrition rates are. We have to look at 

debt levels. We have to look at the whole—all of the factors that 

affect food and security, and not just food itself, or what market 

processes are, but everything across the board. 

And FEWS is doing that, and we have expanded the FEWS program, and put more people on the ground, especially in Africa, to 

try to address those issues. The next slide shows you the drought 

sequence, and this is what happened in the Horn of Africa this 

year. 

And the arrow in the middle there, the red spot there, shows you 

the long drought season that we anticipated starting in October, 

and we started Food for Peace. Jonathan Dworken and his team 

started to redeploy assets to make sure that we could have food 

available in the Horn of Africa early on to address the issues as 

they arose in the Horn. 

This includes Somalia. There was a question earlier by Congresswoman Lee about how we address Somalia. Obviously, we can’t put 

Americans on the ground there, but we work very closely with our 

partners in the NGO community. We get reporting from them. We 

work very closely with our partners in the U.N. system. 

Not only WFP, but UNICEF, and U.N. OCHA, to make sure that 

we have good reporting out of Somalia. We know that they need 

23,000 metric tons a month to go into Somalia, and we do that 

through WFP and through CARE. 

So we are not ignoring Somalia, even though we have some 

issues there on the diplomatic side. We want to make sure that 

those people don’t suffer as well. So we are able to anticipate this. 

We started diverting food in October, but there again that is a 

long process. But this shows you the results, the next slide does, 

of what happens when you don’t have food, and when it doesn’t get 

there on time, and this is an IDP camp in northeast Kenya where 

people were coming to try and get food and water, and it is not a 

pretty sight. 

This is a map of the Sudan. I have talked about obviously the 

U.N. organizations, and WFP, whom we work very closely with, 

and I was heartened when I was in the Horn of Africa this year. 

While it is not good, it is never fun to go to a therapeutic feeding 

center, or to a supplemental feeding center, and to see those children who are suffering, because they do suffer the worst. 

That is not good, and we don’t like that, but our partners are 

there this year, and they are there early, and they are working 

very hard to try and alleviate these problems. We have not seen 

a rise in therapeutic feeding centers in the last 3 months. That is 

a good sign. 

We have, however, seen a sharp increase in the numbers of children coming into supplemental feeding programs, and these partners work with us very closely to try and alleviate those. Some of 

the other things that we are looking at. The next slide is 

prepositioning. 

This shows that if we need such a long lead time to try and address these issues, how can we try to shorten that lead time. Well, 

29

one of them is prepositioning. We have prepositioning sites in 

Dubai, and we also have them—this one happens to be in Lake 

Charles, Louisiana, where we can take commodities and get them 

ready to ship out as quickly as possible. 

We don’t have to go through the call forward system, but we also 

are looking at, and we have just issued a request for proposals to 

establish another prepositioning site on or near the Continent of 

Africa. So again we can get more food closer to where we think the 

needs are going to be. 

The next slide, there are some other options. As you know, for 

the crisis in Darfur, we have diverted five ships to make sure that 

some of those commodities get there. We also did a rapid purchase 

of 40,000 tons of sorghum. That is the 47,000 tons to which Jim 

referred are going to get there quickly. 

There are prices to pay for that. As the next slide shows, this is 

disrupting some of our development programs because that is the 

food that goes into some of those development programs, but we 

have to make a choice between the emergency and people who are 

suffering, and our development issues. 

So we are aware of that, and there are disruptions that are going 

to happen. The next slide we will talk about some other tools. We 

do need other tools. Jim referred to the insurance program. That 

premium was paid for by USAID. It is a $930,000 premium. 

We gave a million dollars for that. We think it is an important 

tool to have in our kit as well, and we are anxious to see the results of that insurance program in Ethiopia. It is going very well 

right now. It is through the first 6 months, and we are excited to 

see that happen, and actually try to disintermediate some of our 

risks in other markets, and the capital markets is certainly one 

tool to look at. 

We also look at increasing our flexibility. As you know, the President in the 2007 budget requested the authority to get up to 25 

percent of our funding in Title II in local purchase. And again as 

Jim pointed out, it is not that we don’t believe in the food program. 

Obviously, we do. 

But occasionally it is helpful if we can do local purchase and get 

the food there a little bit faster. For example, last year in Southern 

Africa, South Africa had 5 million tons surplus, and if we could 

have bought the food there, we could have gotten it a lot quicker 

to places like Zimbabwe and Malawi. 

The next slide shows other partners. We work very closely with 

not only the NGOs and our international partners, but we also 

work with the military. We are working very closely with CJTF 

Horn of Africa, Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, to alleviate some of the crisis and the problems there. So we are looking 

for help all the way around. 

And, of course, last but not least, is public diplomacy. When you 

talk about these food bags and these tins of oil with the United 

States flag on them, there are probably hundreds of thousands of 

these distributed around the world every year. 

And that certainly talks to the testimony of the hard work and 

the generosity of the American people, and the hard work of the 

people in Food for Peace and our partners who are trying to solve 

30

the problems of hunger around the world. So thank you very much, 

Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to be here today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hess follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL E. HESS, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, 

U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, it is an honor to appear before you 

today to participate in a discussion on food aid and its importance throughout the 

developing world. I appear as a witness along with respected colleagues and partners who have worked tirelessly to expand food aid programs in these critical times. 

In my testimony today, I will illustrate some important roles U.S. food aid plays 

saving lives, as well as reducing longer term food insecurity, and some of the challenges we are facing trying to reduce food insecurity. I will also cite examples of 

innovative programs that can build on food aid to address some of the chronic and 

long-term issues prevalent in countries that are food insecure. 

As an Assistant Administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, 

I oversee the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, DCHA. 

The Office of Food for Peace is one of nine offices that comprise my bureau. Just 

recently, Food for Peace celebrated its 50th anniversary. For more than half a century, the United States, through its partners and programs, has provided food aid 

to billions of people in 150 countries. We are very proud of this accomplishment, and 

the role we have been able to play in helping those less fortunate than ourselves. 

Modern U.S. food aid programming traces its beginnings to post-World War II 

when, in 1954, President Eisenhower signed the Agricultural Trade Development 

and Assistance Act, or P.L.480 to share our country’s abundant crops with those in 

need in Europe and other regions. However, food assistance provided by the United 

States can be tracked as far back as 1812 when President James Madison sent 

emergency aid to earthquake victims in Venezuela. Early in his administration, 

President John F. Kennedy underlined the importance of PL 480 to the U.S.- and 

the rest of the world- by renaming it ‘‘Food for Peace’’ and placing it in the newly 

created U.S. Agency for International Development. ‘‘Food is strength, and food is 

peace, and food is freedom, and food is a helping to people around the world whose 

good will and friendship we want,’’ Kennedy said. 

Food aid from the United States can be found in many forms and types. In addition to the PL 480 Title I and II programs, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 

administers the Food for Progress and McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition program. The newest program, the McGovern-Dole program has already provided assistance to seven million beneficiaries, primarily school 

children, in its first three years. All U.S. food aid programs provide assistance to 

a large number of countries with a wide variety of commodities. Fortified vegetable 

oil when mixed with processed corn soy blend, otherwise known as CSB, provides 

a wholesome and protein-rich meal for children. Bulk commodities such as grains 

(sorghum, maize and wheat), and pulses (lentils and beans) are also used. 

When you think of all the lives that have been touched by U.S. humanitarian assistance over the years, it is a real testimony to the generosity of the American people. The United States provides half the world’s food aid. In 2005 alone, PL 480 programs provided over 3.8 million metric tons of food abroad, including almost half 

of all contributions to the World Food Program (WFP). 

The United States responds to food emergencies by trying to bring the right food 

to the right people at the right time. This means working to anticipate hunger—

as we did this year with the pastoralist crisis in East Africa. It means knowing the 

people you are trying to help, and making sure that food you provide can and will 

be used appropriately. And it means knowing who needs the food the most—and 

recognizing that in times of hunger it is the children, the pregnant and nursing 

women, and the elderly who need to be found and helped first. 

In major emergencies, the United States may provide one third and sometimes 

up to one-half of the food required by WFP and our non-governmental partners to 

meet emergency needs. In some cases, however, needs far outstrip other donor’s 

ability or willingness to respond, and we end up providing over 80 percent of all 

contributions, as we have in Sudan, where we were forced recently to rapidly deploy 

commodities to minimize ration cuts in Darfur. 

Food aid is a valuable tool for saving lives, but food aid alone cannot reverse the 

destitution and poverty that underlies the vicious cycle of emergencies that has 

taken hold in the Horn of Africa, and that is threatening the Sahel and Southern 

Africa. We tend to equate words like ‘‘drought’’ with ‘‘famine’’—but they are not the 

31

same. The existence of famine is closely related to governance and market issues 

and that is why African leaders through the African Union’s Comprehensive African 

Agricultural Development Plan (CAADP) have laid out a plan for breaking the cycle 

of famine in Africa. This does not mean that we cannot help, and that we don’t need 

to help. We do. Preventing famine will require USAID and donor partners to bring 

all our development tools to the table, and to coordinate our assistance in the countries in which we work in order to maximize the value of every assistance dollar 

we provide. But most importantly, we must jointly hold the governments we assist 

accountable for the well being of their people. 

As you know, Ambassador Tobias is leading the process of rationalizing U.S. foreign assistance to achieve the goal of ‘‘transformational development’’. I want to 

share with you a few of the things I saw during visits to the Horn of Africa and 

Niger, which brought home—to me—the extent of the need for this to occur. 

CHRONIC NEED AND FAILED GOVERNANCE

As you know, in the Horn of Africa, over the past 3-4 months, we have been facing 

a large emergency for the third time in six years. I visited the region in April, and 

even with a robust response on the part of the United States, some needs are not 

being met. And it is not because we, here in the United States, were not ready. 

In early 1995, the USAID Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS 

NET, a network of trained professionals who use a broad range of advanced food 

security assessment data, tools, and methods, warned us that recurrent droughts 

and the lack of sustained recovery and growth investments on the part of the governments in the Horn were leading towards a collapse of the pastoral livelihood. 

In the fall of 2005, after another failure of rains heralded a new impending emergency, DCHA’s Office of Food for Peace and Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) began to mobilize resources in anticipation of increased needs. And, 

as we feared, the pastoralists of the Horn of Africa faced an almost complete failure 

of what we call their ‘‘livelihood system’’—the livestock-based economy which controls their assets and incomes. 

It is the hardest kind of hunger, and I will never get used to it—seeing food in 

a market place and starving children in a feeding center a stone’s throw away. Yes, 

drought triggered this year’s crisis, but it is the failure of livestock markets that 

is starving pastoralists. 

The $92 million in additional assistance, announced by the President in April, recognizes this. And while a portion of these resources will address emergency efforts, 

such as the provision of food, water, expanded immunizations and nutritional rehabilitation, another portion, provided through FY 2006 International Disaster and 

Famine Assistance funding for famine prevention and relief is proposed both to address some of the causes for the failure of the pastoralist economy, and to leverage 

new host-country and other donor investments in order to make that economy viable. 

I’d like to shift now from East to West, and ask that you recall the photos in the 

papers and on the news last summer describing a crisis similar to that in the Horn 

but located on the western side of Africa in the Sahel. We saw thousands of stickthin children suffering and in need of assistance. The crisis dominated the news—

hunger and starvation in Niger. How could this happen? What could we have done 

to avoid it? These and many other questions plagued me as I gathered information 

and examined what we were doing to respond to the crisis. 

But with time, and a gathering of evidence, for which USAID has played a major 

role, most of us in the humanitarian community have come to understand now that 

the crisis in Niger was not one that hinged on a simple lack of food. It was a nutritional crisis resulting from a combination of chronic factors (poor water quality, improper weaning practices, poor health care, and inadequate sanitation) and market 

factors which pushed the price of food out of reach of poor households. It was the 

very young—infants, and children under five—who were hardest hit, because they 

just don’t have the reserves to fall back on. 

What do the next few months hold in store for my bureau? FEWS NET has recently reported some good news for both Niger and the Horn of Africa. Niger and 

all of West Africa and the Sahel had good harvests last October, and food prices 

have stabilized in normal ranges. In the Horn, rains have been fairly good in most 

places, and the immediate suffering has lessened as water and pastures are now 

adequate in most places. Our food is being distributed to bridge gaps that may appear. We will also continue to support emergency nutrition activities, and stabilize 

activities in animal health, food security, and livelihoods. FEWS NET and its operational partners have also increased their monitoring resources in both regions to 

32

better catch the signals in weather, the markets, and in peoples’ behavior that will 

help us detect an approaching increase in food insecurity before it occurs. 

But the fact remains that the margin between acceptable food security and an 

emergency crisis is exceptionally thin. For the United States, as with other donors, 

Niger’s slide into an emergency situation last year was not expected, and in the 

time it took for international assistance to ‘‘catch up,’’ people suffered. It is a hard 

way to learn a lesson, but I’m going to make sure we’ve learned from it. And what 

I’ve learned is that in a country like Niger, or Ethiopia, where chronic poverty is 

so deep, where the nutritional status of children is so fragile, a ‘‘humanitarian emergency’’ is always right there—right underneath day-to-day survival. We won’t get to 

it with emergency assistance. We’ve got to work with Niger’s government and other 

donors to make sure we get to it with the right long-term investments. 

IMPROVING OUR CAPABILITIES

For USAID and Title II, we are continuing to better integrate our humanitarian 

and development resources, and this we are working on not only with our colleagues 

in USAID’s Africa Bureau, but also with our counterparts in international donor 

community, the African Union, and regional African organizations. It should also be 

noted that there are other entities throughout the U.S. government, including the 

Millenium Challenge Corporation and USDA, which are part of the our development 

assistance effort. We are combining Title II resources with those provided through 

the President’s Initiative to End Hunger in Africa to support an African-led process 

of rationalizing investments in agriculture and growth—a process that specifically 

targets ‘‘hot spot’’ countries. 

Within my Bureau, DCHA, Food for Peace and OFDA are taking a number of 

steps to improve how we respond to emergencies that have major food insecurity 

components. 

First, Food for Peace is implementing a new Strategic Plan, approved in 2005 

after being developed in close cooperation with PVOs, which seeks to make the best 

use of food aid resources. The plan refocuses attention and resources on the most 

vulnerable groups to help build resiliency so, for example, they will be able to better 

cope with the next drought or flood in a region, and therefore it should require less 

emergency food aid than would otherwise be needed. In implementing the plan, we 

are working to focus resources available for development-oriented multi-year assistance programs on the most vulnerable people in the most food insecure countries 

so we can have the greatest possible impact and help the neediest people. 

To provide us with as much warning of impending crises as possible, we are expanding our early warning system, FEWS NET. We are placing more staff in more 

countries, personally monitoring and assessing situations, talking to farmers and 

herders, and visiting markets to determine first hand what the situation is on the 

ground. 

Once we have warning of an impending crisis, to get food quickly to those in need, 

we are expanding our prepositioning of food aid abroad. In addition to our current 

prepositioning site in Dubai, which was instrumental in providing food quickly for 

Darfur, just this month we issued a request for proposals to provide warehouse, 

cargo handling, and logistics services for commodities at a site on or near the African continent. 

But sometimes, despite our best efforts, our food aid cannot make it to those who 

need it in time to save lives. Whether it is due to a natural disaster or unanticipated 

conflict or pipeline break, sometimes there is not enough food in our prepositioning 

sites and no ships nearby to divert. Even with our new efforts, these situations will 

occur. This is an important reason why, as part of the President’s FY 2007 Budget, 

the Administration requested that the Administrator of USAID be granted authority 

to use up to 25% of appropriated Title II funds for the local or regional purchase 

and distribution of food to assist people threatened by a food security crisis. 

Food purchased in the U.S. normally takes up to four months to arrive at its destination, and there may be no U.S. commodities available in the area where they 

are needed. Food purchased locally or regionally, however, can reach beneficiaries 

within weeks, or less. The ability to use a portion of Title II for local and regional 

purchase will allow us to move with greater speed and flexibility to save lives and 

prevent famine. 

U.S.-grown food has always played, and will continue to play, the primary role 

and will be the first choice in meeting global needs. And we plan to use local and 

regional purchases judiciously where the speed of the arrival of food aid is essential. 

When lives are at stake, though, we need to have the capability to act. That is why 

we are asking for your support on this initiative. 

33

Beyond food aid, my bureau is undertaking other innovative steps to deal with 

food insecurity crises. The Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, OFDA along with 

its partners is implementing community-based feeding centers (CTC) instead of traditional therapeutic and supplementary feeding centers. This concept allows health 

care professionals to travel to homes instead of making mothers bring sick children 

to a center. It also educates community members how to identify malnutrition indicators early and begin to treat illnesses such as diarrhea with locally available foods 

thus sustaining the effectiveness of the treatment. More people are reached and 

children respond better when they are in their homes. Additionally, the CTC model 

is a more cost effective operation and also helps stop the spread of disease by not 

grouping sick children together in one place. 

The lack of potable water and basic sanitation is problematic not only in the Horn 

and the Sahel, but also in many food insecure countries in the world. OFDA helps 

to implement emergency programs to address these two sectors. One example I saw 

while visiting the town of Koasuui in Kenya was a water tank that can supply the 

local primary and secondary school with clean water for six months. Other types of 

programs have helped to repair and build animal troughs and tap stands. Program 

staffs have also worked to enhance community participation and project sustainability by training water committees, and borehole and pump attendants. 

CONCLUSIONS

Food aid provides not just food and hope. Yes, bags of food and tins of edible oil 

can be found in many developing countries. But this food is also a testament of the 

generosity of the American people and their goodwill to those in need. Food aid will 

continue to be one of the most visible signs of humanitarian assistance and with 

it, a beacon to a world of our abundance and generosity to share our good fortune 

with those less fortunate. 

As I have tried to convey, traditional food alone will not solve the problem. We 

need to make food aid more effective, and integrate it with a wide range of activities 

to help address the unacceptably high levels of hunger that still ravage the world. 

With these last thoughts, I close my remarks and am happy to accept any questions that the Chairman or Committee Members may have for me.

Mr. SMITH [presiding]. Thank you so very much, and I think as 

you heard from Mr. Morris, he expressed I think a very deep appreciation to the United States Government, but especially the 

USAID for the work that you have done, and I want to add my 

hearty congratulations, always knowing that all of us can do more. 

You have to live within the parameters that are set by Congress, 

in terms of appropriated dollars, and other authorities, but I do 

want to thank you. Everywhere that I have traveled, whether it be 

tsumani lands, or Africa, or anywhere else, I have always been impressed by the esprit de corps of USAID on the ground, providing 

much needed and unheralded. 

I mean, you point out that the flag is on this wheat. Very often 

we don’t beat a brass band, and the good deeds that are being done 

by Americans and by United States taxpayer dollars are not announced. We just do it because it is the right thing to do. So I congratulate you on that. 

And you heard earlier when the point was made by Mr. Morris 

that something on the order of a billion dollars is short in Africa, 

and I know that there are more donor countries that are now providing additional funds. But there always seems to be a shortfall, 

despite every best intention. 

I am wondering if you could give us any indication as to whether 

or not looking at 2007 that we will close that gap. Let me also ask, 

the Emerson Trust was last used in 2005 to provide 200,000 metric 

tons of wheat to Sudan in food emergency. 

USDA tells us that there are now some 900,000 metric tons of 

wheat and $107 million in cash. What is the Administration’s 

thinking about the role of the Emerson Trust in the future. Are we 

34

drawing down as much as we should? Do we need to build it up? 

It is almost like the strategic petroleum reserves, so that we can 

really provide some difference as these emergencies arise. 

And what tools and authorities—and without thinking OMB, if 

you could ask for additional resources—and I am asking you personally as well as professionally, what would that be to meet these 

crises around the world, especially in Africa? 

Mr. HESS. Thank you, sir. Our point on the good deeds, and I appreciate your thanks for the people who work very hard at USAID 

to get this out, because one of the things that I first recognized 

when I came to this job is that most of the people who do this great 

work in OFDA, Food for Peace, Office of Transition Initiatives, they 

get very little credit for it, and they think that their good work 

speaks for themselves. 

And one of the things that I have committed to do is to make 

sure that the public knows about how these people work hard every 

day to make sure that these good deeds get done, and we will certainly continue that effort, and continue to do it up here on the Hill 

as well. 

When we talk about the shortfall, the difficulty in this whole program is that even with the early warning system, we don’t know 

where the crisis are going to be. It starts in the early part of the 

year in floods and cyclones in Madagascar, and floods in 

Mozamibuque, which then can result in droughts in Southern Africa, and then it spreads to Western Sahel, a generally speaking 

timeline. 

And then it ends up on the Horn of Africa as it did last year, 

in late 2005, where the rains did not come in October, November, 

and December. While we know that this probably going to happen 

at some point, we can’t anticipate which year. This year has been 

very good in Southern Africa, and we are very thankful for that. 

There is generally a slight correlation between Southern Africa and 

the Horn of Africa because of weather patterns out in the Indian 

Ocean. 

But this year that certainly happened in the Horn, and we 

couldn’t anticipate that. We certainly could not in the Sahel either. 

So while we look at the budget, and we say have we got enough, 

in the last 2 years it has not been, and we have had to come in 

to request the supplemental and you all have been very generous 

in the emergency supplemental to get us the money that we need 

to meet the emergency needs. 

So that is important, but it is very difficult to anticipate all of 

those emergencies. But we work very hard, and we are trying to 

work very hard on improving FEWS NET so that we can look out 

a little further into the future and we can work with you on that. 

On the Emerson Trust, the Emerson Trust is very important to 

us. We came in and asked for $200 million as you indicated for the 

Sudan in 2005, and that was very important. It helped us meet the 

other crises. We did 87 percent of the food distribution in the 

Sudan that year. 

We did 95 percent of the food distribution in Eritrea, and 96 percent of the food distribution in Ethiopia because we were able to 

use the Emerson Trust, and divert other resources to those countries. 

35

At the same time, we worked with our partners, other donors, to 

make sure that they tried to cover the crisis that was emerging in 

Southern Africa. So it is kind of complicated when you put all of 

those together, but the Emerson Trust Fund does give us flexibility, and we work very closely with you all to use that when we 

need it. 

And it is good to have up there in the tool kit, and I should have 

mentioned it when I talked about it in my speech. On the tools and 

the authorities, we are looking at these other methodologies as I 

said. 

The insurance program is a good one to look at. It gives us the 

ability to diversify our risk a little bit. Richard talks about that 

very well, and he did a briefing on that yesterday. Those are important tools to use, and we need those. 

But we also need this authority on the local purchase, because 

from a funding point of view, think about how much it costs. It 

costs us about $1,000 per metric ton to ship food from the United 

States to Darfur roughly. 

If we were to do it on a local purchase basis, we could reduce 

that cost substantially, and therefore be able to probably deliver 

more food aid in other parts of the world. So those kinds of flexibilities are important to us, and we appreciate working with you 

on those. 

Mr. SMITH. In follow up, could you provide us with how much 

less it would cost so we get the comparative benefits of buying locally? And as I indicated earlier, we do plan on putting together 

some legislation on this, and any insights, thoughts, obviously 

being an expert in the field, you could provide would be helpful. 

And if you could provide those to us, we would very much appreciate it. Mr. Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. All right. Thank you very much. And I think that 

this whole issue of commodities and the ability to buy locally is 

something that all of us have a lot of interest in. I think over the 

last 2 years the Administration has saw greater flexibility in food 

aid programs, and specifically the provision of cash resources for 

local and regional food aid purchases for emergency distribution. 

These requests have not gotten far in Congress because of the 

agriculture lobby to be truthful. What is the reasoning behind 

these requests, and what advantages would be realized with this 

flexibility if you were able to get that local commodity. 

And I did see where you mentioned it was some disruption in an 

area, and would it be possible to—I guess you would have to get 

the permission, but to purchase those products that you had to go 

in to give this food aid to, but as that crop matures, to be able to 

actually purchase that crop. 

So therefore it would not be a disruption, and it could even be 

used for storage, or to be utilized in the next year. It just seems 

like there is something that could be worked out, and I just wanted 

to hear your comments on that. 

Mr. HESS. Sir, for us the issue is flexibility, and timeliness, because when it takes 4 or 5 months to get the food there, we have 

to anticipate a lot further in advance, and that sometimes is very 

difficult. 

36

We were able to this year in the pastoral crisis in the Horn of 

African, but we don’t always have that luxury. For example, last 

year in Southern Africa, it was a lot harder to anticipate that need 

in the Sahel because of the differences in the crisis. 

It wasn’t weather related necessarily or locust related. It was related to things that we couldn’t anticipate, and therefore having 

that flexibility cuts down the time considerably with which we can 

respond, and with which our partners can respond. 

Jim Morris talked about the working capital part of how WFP 

works. If we make a commitment on funding, they can advance the 

funds on that, and go out and do the purchase right away. That 

helps in the timeliness, and it helps us in timeliness, while we can 

still provide the commodities at a later date. 

So timeliness to us is very important. The disruptions to which 

I referred to earlier, when you look at the markets in Southern Africa last year, where South Africa had 5 million tons excess capacity in cereal production. If we could have purchased locally there, 

and shipped it up to Zimbabwe and Malawi, and other places, and 

in Southern Africa, in Swaziland, it would have helped us out a 

great deal. 

And that is really what we are looking at, is that flexibility, because we recognize that we can’t replace it all. We would not want 

to. That gap that we are talking about, if we can cover those first 

couple of months with a local purchase until the food arrives, that 

will give us a lot more flexibility and be able to respond faster. 

Mr. PAYNE. And that flexibility really comes from us more or 

less. So we have got to look in the mirror, right? 

Mr. HESS. I would not want to be so presumptuous, sir. 

Mr. PAYNE. It is not us here. If it was up to us, it would simply 

make sense, and it is more effective for American taxpayers, and 

it helps the local economy in those areas. But they tell me that 

there is some farmbelt people that really are not in favor of this. 

Before I mentioned that USAID years ago used to be more engaged in agriculture, and I know that the most recent USAID Administrator——

Mr. HESS. Andrew Natsios. 

Mr. PAYNE. Yes, right. I wonder when I am gone for a year if 

they will say what was his name, and nobody will know. but I 

know that he had an interest in trying to get back to agriculture 

and so forth. 

How difficult is the farm subsidy program as relates to developing countries to really even start to become or get in the same 

ball park as not only the United States, but Europe? And secondly 

whether USAID is going to start to move back into some of the agricultural programs. 

And thirdly there was Millennium village program that was 

started. Do you have any knowledge about where that is. Some private philanthropic folks were doing some programs called the Millennium Village Program, where it dealt with agriculture. So I 

don’t know whether it is off the ground or whether you know anything about that. 

Mr. HESS. To just answer that one first. I am sorry, but I don’t 

know much about the Millennium Village, but I can get back to you 

on that if you would like me to. 

37

Mr. PAYNE. Okay. 

Mr. HESS. Within USAID, you are absolutely right. Administrator Natsios—I am having a mature moment here—was keenly 

aware of the effects of agriculture on societies, especially in Africa. 

And he instituted a bid program, and in one of our sister bureaus, 

the Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade, he made a big effort 

to make sure that they hired agricultural specialists. 

And as you all pointed out earlier, they had gone from our programs for a long time. So he did a lot of work to make sure that 

they got back in and we began again through EGAT to do more 

work with agricultural development around the world. 

And we work very closely with them, because as I indicated, 

while we focus on the emergency and stop the dying, and alleviate 

the suffering, we also work on alleviating or restoring those economic conditions so that these people can improve their livelihoods. 

So we work very closely with our regional geographic bureaus, 

the Africa bureau in particular in this case, with EGAT, and with 

our bureau, to make sure that our programs are integrated from 

the emergency all the way through to the development phase. 

So we are aware of that, because we can’t solve this problem unless we solve these long term issues. Pastorals in the Horn of Africa have to have access to markets. They have to have better roads. 

They have to have better water catchment programs so that they 

can survive these shocks that are going on currently in the Horn 

of Africa. 

If we don’t address those issues, we are going to have to be providing food for all of them, and we don’t need to do that. We need 

to improve their livelihood so that they can survive these shots like 

farmers do here in this country. And that is important, and that 

is why we have worked very closely with those other parts, our 

partners, within the agency to make sure that happens. 

We also work very closely with our NGO partners to make sure 

that those programs happen as well, and we funded a lot of those. 

But I will have to get back to you on the Millennium Village. I 

don’t work with them. 

Mr. PAYNE. Okay. This fellow named Ray Chambers from New 

Jersey, who had dealt with another program, a domestic program 

that started about 7 or 8 years ago, but I could try to give you some 

more information about how to maybe run them down. Well, thank 

you very much. I will yield back the balance of my time. Thank 

you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Boozman. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was curious. A lot of 

your slide presentation was devoted to the water issues, and we 

talk a lot about food stuffs and things. And it seems like there are 

several different problems. I guess I would really like to know 

about—you mentioned the problem of actually having the well and 

it was foul. 

In some areas, I know that—and in fact I was visiting with a 

group from Springfield, Missouri, a week or so ago, and they do 

well drilling, and were talking about the drought in different areas, 

and that they had never seen so many animals dead and things 

like that. 

38

So you have got the well that is drilled, or a natural well that 

is foul, and then drilling the wells itself, is it difficult to get equipment over there? Is that a problem? Is it difficult to get the equipment there, and then without roads, to get it to the area where you 

need to be drilling the wells? I guess what I would like to know 

from you is kind of the road blocks that are running into that? 

Mr. HESS. That is a very good question. Obviously, I believe in 

the holistic approach to this, and I have hit on water, and nutrition, as well as food and security. There are many other things that 

we work on, including conflict mitigation and governance issues at 

the same time. 

But the well drilling is an interesting issue, especially in the 

Horn of Africa. Drilling bore holes is not the answer. We need to 

look at other technologies, because just putting another well in the 

ground, if you don’t train the people on how to properly use it and 

maintain it, doesn’t solve the problem. 

And in some cases, you are going to go down too far and you are 

going to destroy the aquifer as well. So we have to balance all of 

that out, and we do that very closely. When I talked about working 

with combined joint task force HOA, Admiral Rick Hunt, before he 

deployed to become the commander, he came to me and said, look, 

I can drill six wells a year in the Horn of Africa. I don’t know 

where to drill those wells. 

And he has put in place a program that he will not drill a well 

in the Horn of Africa without consulting us first, because what you 

can do then, if you drill it in the wrong place, is that you can actually increase the conflict, or ruin the water table. 

And we don’t want to do that. We don’t want to do that. We are 

very smart about how we do that, and we work with our experts 

in the NGO community as well to figure this out. The other thing 

is that when you do decide, how to decide where to put a well in, 

and our NGOs, I visited three bore holes in Kenya, or four bore 

holes in Kenya, and one in Ethiopia. 

And what you have to do is work with the community on where 

that ought to be so that you don’t create conflict, and so that they 

have a commitment to maintain it. Because if you put a hole in the 

ground, that is fine, but who is going to maintain that. Who is 

going to pump the water. Do they charge for it. 

Do they limit the access to animals to it. Do they maintain 

things around it. And if the community is not involved in the process, you will fail. We will be right back there 2 years later drilling 

another well, and that does not solve the problem. 

And the programs that we have instituted with our partners look 

at those issues. It is not just drilling the well. Picking the right 

place to drill it, and make sure that you prevent the conflict, and 

make sure that it is maintained properly. 

We saw some good programs there where they are going to be 

maintained for a long time. They are very happy and they are very 

proud, and when you empower the people themselves, it does a lot 

of things to address those governance issues that I was talking 

about, because you are building grass roots organizations at the 

same time, which is pretty powerful. 

So drilling bore holes isn’t always the answer, and we have 

looked at some others. We have also done some water catchment 

39

programs off of schools. The water catchment program that I referred to in my testimony in Kenya will provide water to that 

school for up to 6 months. 

And this is a school that is provided food by WFP for their school 

feeding program. So you see how we work together as a team to 

make sure that we addressed the issues at a larger scale. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. You mentioned the different areas; the nutrition, 

the food, the water, conflict management, and whatever. Is there 

an area—of that group, there is a balance, I suppose. Is there an 

area that you need more help in? I know that you need more help 

in all of those areas, okay? But in one of those is there—are we 

perhaps under-performing in one of those compared to the other 

that we need to jack things up a little bit? 

Mr. HESS. In the balance from my perspective, I need to do more 

work with my teams on integrating it all from the very beginning. 

It is a planning issue. When we respond to emergencies now in the 

agency, it used to be in the old days when I first started working 

in this that it was the DART team that came out from the Office 

of Foreign Disaster Assistance, and then maybe Food for Peace 

came along, and then maybe OTI, and then maybe the governance, 

and then maybe the regional mission got involved. 

But we can’t do that anymore, because we have to integrate 

these things from the very beginning. Now what we need help on 

is, one, making sure that other donors are actively involved, and 

here I am talking about other nations in particular, and that they 

work with us more closely in trying to integrate these processes 

from the very beginning. 

So that is very important for us. To help educate these governments on the issues of governance, so that they make sure that 

they have adequate representation with the pastoralists, especially 

in the Horn of Africa, or that we build the capacity of the governance. 

When we go in, FEWS NET works very closely—for example, in 

Niger, and I pointed out the problems in Niger. We are working 

very closely with the Government of Niger to build the capacity of 

their own government to identify these problems early on, and find 

the solutions themselves, because that to me is the end state and 

how we succeed, when they can solve these problems themselves. 

So that is kind of where we need to help, encouraging other governments to help us in that prospect. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. Again, I want to compliment you. I have traveled extensively, and I think you all as an agency do a very, very good job, 

and certainly are doing the best with the resources that we provide 

you with. So, thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Let me just ask a few final questions, 

Colonel Hess. Two of our panelists later on, and a third being Ambassador Hall, point out that global food aid donations are shrinking, not growing. 

Catholic Relief Services points out that they worry, and they 

worry I think with good reason, that to meet increasing emergency 

food commitments that USAID is reducing from 32 to 15 the number of countries in which it supports developing food aid. 

40

They point out that the Title II amount, which they argue should be around the $2 billion range—and I would note that the number 

for 2007, the recommendation is for $1.23 billion. So far short, almost half of what they argue is needed. And then Oxfam, in like 

manner, makes a compelling case about shortages, and the need for 

cash, as opposed to what my good friend, Mr. Payne, mentioned a 

moment ago, the agriculture lobby certainly has a lot to do with 

some of this at least. 

But if we really want to meet our Millennium Development 

goals, and cut in half the number of hungry people and starving 

people, we need a more dramatic response. And I mentioned earlier 

in my questions about what your private or professional view is 

without the hinderance of what OMB would say you should say in 

order to meet these needs. 

And I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything of that kind, 

but as all of our friends have said, with 25,000 people dying a day, 

a sizeable number of those being children, I think we need to throw 

away the shackles and just speak plainly, and you do speak plainly. 

If you could tell us what your response is to those. I mean, we 

are not doing enough, and we are doing better than anyone else in 

the world, and I think we deserve high praise for that. But people 

are nevertheless dying in huge numbers, and these are preventable 

deaths. 

Let me also ask you with the U.S. Trade Representative, what 

kind of coordination does your office have with the USTR, particularly as it relates to food issues, and where food issues have become 

a serious issue? 

And my concern is that at the end of the day, if we are not careful, we will be set back even further in our ability to facilitate mitigation of world hunger. So if you could speak to those issues, 

please. 

Mr. HESS. There is a lot there, sir, but we will get at all of them. 

First of all, on the development of the food aid issue, and when we 

went from 32 to 15 countries. One of the issues that we have in 

the agency, and certainly one of the things that I noticed when I 

first came to USAID, I asked the Bureau about how many countries are we in around the world. 

Our bureau alone was in 104 countries, 104 countries around the 

world. And I said, well, what is the priority. Everything is a priority. Well, as you know, when everything is a priority, nothing is. 

So we decided to focus our efforts, and you have to focus on that, 

and it is difficult. Those are difficult decisions. If it were an unlimited number of resources, we could give everything to everybody, 

and we would all be very happy about that. 

But we can’t, because there are limited resources, and certainly 

on the development side. So you have to then ask the question how 

do we focus those resources, especially on the development side, to 

those countries that have the greatest—what we think, and Jonathan and his team came up with five categories that analyzed the 

needs of those countries; from wealth, from poverty indexes, food, 

malnourishment, all of those things. 

They put them together in a matrix and developed a list of the 

15, because our hope is, and our focus is, and I think it bears 

41

weight, that if you can focus the needs on those neediest countries, 

then on the development side, as opposed to spreading it out across 

a number of countries, then you could target those countries as we 

do in our supplemental feeding programs. 

And when you are targeting your assistance, if you could do that 

in a better manner, then hopefully we can eliminate some of those 

countries as needing emergencies. That is hard, and those are hard 

decisions. 

But I think that you get a lot more out of targeting your effort 

and focusing your effort than you do if you spread it across a lot 

of places. And we can talk about that. 

Mr. SMITH. But if I could on that case, if President Bush asks 

for additional resources, he will get it, and if the request—and I 

know that it goes through the shredder of finances called OMB. 

But a person who is starving in one country is now off the list 

of focus, or prioritization, and is no less valuable than somebody in 

one of those countries. My point being that it is harder for us to 

plus up than when we get something from the Administration that 

says that this is what we really think needs to be done to make 

the difference. 

I mean, it is shocking; a billion dollars short for Africa according 

to the World Food Program. That is a lot of loss of life, or less quality of life for those who do survive, and it just seems to me that 

if we had the request from the President that we would honor it. 

There would be a fight, but so what. That is what we live for 

here. I think we could sustain higher numbers if we got that request. 

Mr. HESS. Yes, sir. We could talk about those countries with developmental food aid, and some of those, I don’t want to go—well, 

we could. Some of those countries are donor nations. Now should 

we be giving developmental food aid to countries that are food donors? 

I don’t think that is a wise—yes, we could ask for all the money 

in the world, and we could give developmental food aid to a lot of 

countries that really don’t need it. And those countries need to 

focus on—I don’t want to say to clean up their act, but they need 

to get their act together. 

And in some cases, we were not judiciously—we didn’t think—

spending our developmental food aid money, and we need to do a 

better job of that. And that is what Jonathan and his team are 

doing, is focusing, because we do have limited resources. 

And we do need to focus our efforts to make sure that we do it 

right, and he and his team have work pretty hard on that. Would 

we like to see more money? Absolutely. These people work hard 

every day, but we also understand that we can’t predict where all 

these crises are going to be around the world. 

And so I think that the effort that the team has put into identifying where the crises are going to be, and anticipating that in the 

budgetary process is hard. It is very, very hard, and I think the 

science has not caught up with probably where we should be on 

that, and we need to sharpen our pencils a little bit more on that, 

and we will. 

42

To get back to your other questions, OXFAM need for cash, I 

think I have articulated in here that we need the flexibility of cash 

for local purchase. It certainly gives us additional flexibility. 

On the USTR relationship, one of our senior staffers in Food for 

Peace has been involved in these negotiations for the last year, at 

least a year, if not a year-and-a-half. Dale Scoric has done a great 

job. He has been involved with USTR in Geneva. He went to Hong 

Kong, and he has been intimately involved in making sure that 

they are informed on the issues on food aid, and that our issues 

are adequately represented there, too, and he has done a great job 

on that. 

Mr. SMITH. If you could as we move forward provide us with information as to what the best case scenario would be if you had the 

resources, what could be used, and used wisely to try again to alleviate all of the suffering? 

Because then it is our job to fight for it, but obviously if we both 

fight for it, it seems to me that we are going to get more of it. Mr. 

Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. Ms. Lee had a question, and she asked me would I 

ask it for her, but I agree, too, that we certainly should not be providing food aid to a country that has surplus food, or is sufficient. 

However, I think that they may be the exception to the rule if 

something is happening that way when we hear of 2,100 calories 

in the Sudan being cut to 1,050. Evidently, there are places where 

the do need additional food assistance. 

So to eliminate the reference that you made to a place that had 

a surplus, I couldn’t agree with you more, but I don’t think that 

we want to put apples with oranges. We still have a great need as 

you have indicated, and that is where we would like to concentrate 

on. 

Ms. Lee had a question about the impact on U.S. farmers, and 

wanted me to ask this question. As United States farmers argue 

that local purchase may impact their commodities; however, the 

top five food grains ranked by quantity produced in Africa in Fiscal 

Year 2004 were maize, sorghum, millet, barley, and cereals. 

While the top five commodities provided in food aid to Africa 

under PL 480 Title II Program were wheat, sorghum, corn, corn 

and soy blend, and a combination of peas, beans, and lentils. 

So the question basically there is, is it a myth that purchasing 

food in the surrounding non-impacted areas will hurt U.S. farmers 

since there is only one product where we find them in both PL 480 

and what is produced here in the United States, and that one item 

is sorghum. But all the rest, there is a separation. 

So I guess the question is how could that impact so much on U.S. 

farmers if these are not the products that the U.S. farmers are 

growing. 

Mr. HESS. Actually, if I may correct you there a little bit, maize 

is actually corn. So there are a couple of them on there, and the 

corn-soy blend is very important in supplemental feeding programs. 

So there are a couple there, but you are absolutely right. The impact on the farmer in this country would not be that large because 

when you look at the overall production of this country, and you 

look at how much tonnage wise is given to food aid, it is not a big 

number. 

43

We don’t purchase the food. USDA does it for us. When they go 

out and do the purchases, it doesn’t even move the market price, 

and we are talking about a small amount here, 25 percent of the 

Title II. 

And we are not talking about using all of that. We just need the 

flexibility, and we wouldn’t use all of that unless we needed to, and 

I can’t imagine a situation where we would probably need all of 

that. 

But if you have the flexibility to do that, then you are a lot better 

off, but to get back to her question specifically, I don’t think it 

would impact the American farmer all that much. And I used to 

be a farmer. I was raised in Oklahoma and Illinois, and so I have 

feelings for those people, too. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. I would like to just say finally that one of the concerns that I have, and we have, as I am sure that it is shared by 

others, we have held a significant hearing on India, and the mistreatment of the Dalits, an issue that we have raised before, and 

I have raised before. 

But we heard some very good expert testimony. Mr. Morris said 

earlier that there is a need for some 80 million children in India, 

and yet they are a donor country. Good governance obviously becomes a major factor here as well when these so-called untouchables are treated as subhuman by their own government. 

It is not really a question, but more of a comment, but they are 

a donor country, but they are also a country where there is 80 million kids and people, young people, women and children, in need 

of food. So you might want to comment, but if not, please get back 

to us as we work on some additional legislation, and any other answers that you would like to elaborate on. 

Mr. HESS. We will. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Colonel. 

Mr. HESS. I appreciate it. 

Mr. SMITH. I would like to now welcome our second panel, the 

Honorable Tony P. Hall, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture. Ambassador Hall is clearly one of the leading advocates for hunger relief programs. 

In April 2006, he retired from government service after several 

years as a U.S. Ambassador, and also before that as a Member of 

Congress, who was a leader in the House as Chairman of the Hunger Committee, on behalf of making food and world hunger alleviation a central core issue of the Congress, and of all people of good 

will. 

Tony is a very, very good friend of mine and many other Members of the House. We are from different parties, but there has 

never, ever been any gap between us when it comes to these kinds 

of issues. He has truly been a leader. 

Our first trip was he and I together, and Frank Wolf, and Bob 

McEwen, and it was back in the early 1980s when we went down 

to El Salvador to promote humanitarian issues and hunger alleviation there, and the provision of medicines, and he has been doing 

it with incredible faithfulness his entire career. It is a privilege to 

welcome Ambassador Tony Hall. 

44

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TONY P. HALL, FORMER U.S. 

AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS AGENCIES FOR 

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE 

Ambassador HALL. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it is a 

privilege and an honor for me to be here, and I certainly want to 

thank you and not only for your chairmanship, but also your great 

passion, and your commitment to so many concerns, especially 

human rights, and hunger, and poverty all over the world and in 

your own country. 

And thank you so much for what you have done, and thank you 

for this Committee, and it is certainly a pleasure to be with you. 

I have a statement, and if it can be, I would like for it to be part 

of the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, it is part of the record. 

Ambassador HALL. And then I will just summarize so many of 

the things that have been said over the past couple of witnesses, 

but I don’t want to necessarily repeat. I might want to emphasize 

something, though. 

And I do want to say that I want to commend the USDA and certainly AID for the job that they do. They were part of my Embassy 

in Rome, and they really, really do well, and the NGOs that actually do the work and so many of them are in the room today that 

get very little recognition. 

I mean, they really, really, along with AID, really do the work, 

and I think the world of them, and if it were not for them, so many 

people wouldn’t be fed and helped. I also want to say, Mr. Chairman, that Jim Morris is doing a great job on the World Food Program. 

I think that the World Food Program is the best run U.N. organization in the world today. In my opinion, they are efficient, they 

are effective, and they do a great job. As you know, we have traveled together. We have been to Honduras, and Nicaragua, and Romania, and so many places. 

And I probably got as much training in the Peace Corps as anyplace before I joined this body, but I got really stung by this issue 

in Ethiopia in 1984, when I saw so many people die one day, and 

I never got over that. 

And I will never forget going up country to Mother Theresa’s 

place, and the doctor said as soon as I got there, come outside with 

me because we have got to select five or six people, or five or six 

babies, and the rest are going to have to die. There was about 

3,000 people outside with their children. 

And as I went outside, apparently they thought I was a doctor, 

and so they would try to hand me their child because they knew 

that if they didn’t get their child in our hand, the five or six that 

we could only handle, the rest were going to die that day. 

And I saw so many things on that trip that I never got over. 

That commitment is very, very strong in me, and so what you are 

doing through your hearings and the kind of work that you have 

been doing, Mr. Payne, and so many Members of your Committee, 

is so important. 

It is a work that is not necessarily covered by the TV cameras, 

or the newspapers, but it is probably the most important work that 

we do in Congress here. A couple of months ago, I was as many 

45

of these men, I was in northern Kenya, and I saw the benefit of 

good projects. I saw the benefit of the World Food Program working 

there. 

I saw the benefit of a wonderful project by World Vision, and I 

saw our own food being used in the school feeding program. And 

this is probably one of the most important things that we can do. 

The McGovern-Dole school feeding program is about as important as anything that we do in all of our programs. It feeds lots 

of people. It gets kids back in school, and it is one of our best foreign policies. 

I realize that a lot of people can’t travel. I know that you travel. 

I certainly know that Mr. Payne travels. I have seen Mrs. Lee at 

various places, but I am amazed how few people do travel that are 

public officials, even when I was in Rome as the Ambassador there. 

We had a lot of Ambassadors to the World Food Program, and 

very few of them travel. This is not because they don’t want to 

travel, but because often their government does not provide money 

for them to go, and I wonder as I would come back to these board 

meetings how these Ambassadors sometimes, representatives, 

could vote on the kinds of money, and programs, and food, and agriculture projects that we put in these developing nations without 

seeing them. 

So I really applaud your passion, and your ability to go out and 

see it. It is so, so important. What we do in school feeding, and 

with our food is probably, as I said before, one of our best foreign 

policies. 

It creates a safer and more secure world for all of us. I will never 

forget about a man that I met in Pakistan, and he sent his child 

to one of these schools of hate, and I said, ‘‘Well, why would you 

send your kids there that talk about hating Americans, and talk 

about killing us?’’

And he said, ‘‘I don’t have any money. I am poor. And I send my 

child there because they feed him and I can’t feed him. I send him 

there because the education is free.’’ And that is how we compete 

against these hate schools, through school feeding. 

We get kids back in school. Our food aid, as you have heard, does 

so much more than fill stomachs. It is an incentive for women to 

get training and education that helps them and prevents them 

from becoming victims of human trafficking. 

We use food for work projects for irrigation to build sanitation to 

connect roads. I remember in Albania, probably the poorest nation 

in Eastern Europe, where we had a project that connected five 

roads. 

The women there were so happy that instead of giving cash, we 

gave food, food for work projects, because they knew that their husbands, if we gave cash, would take the money out and spend it on 

alcohol. 

Our food aid is a means to motivate hundreds of people at a 

time, and there is a tremendous impact that it has on helping 

those living with HIV AIDS. You have heard the witnesses before 

on how important this is, because in America, and in our Western 

nations, we take nutrition for granted. We take Western health 

care for granted. 

46

And we wonder why these people can’t get help in the developing 

world. Well, it is because they don’t have doctors and nurses in 

rural areas. Most poor people don’t live in cities. They live in rural 

areas. 

And there is no health care really in some of these poor nations 

that we work in, and often times the people, in order to get the 

treatment, the anti-retroviral treatment, they must go into the cities. 

And the problem with that is that if you try to give these kinds 

of drugs without proper nutrition, they can’t stomach it. They will 

vomit it back up again. So nutrition is very, very important when 

we are treating people that are HIV infected. 

We need to do better. As I said to you a few weeks ago, Chris, 

the United States is by far the biggest giver of food aid and development assistance in the world. I told you that through the World 

Food Program, when I first went there, we were giving well over 

60 percent of everything, and the rest of the world was giving 40 

percent. 

Now it is down to 44 percent. It is not because we are giving less. 

It is because now other countries are giving more, which we want. 

We feel that giving 44 percent, or 50 percent, or 60 percent, is way 

too much for one country to give. So we are happy that other donor 

nations are coming on. 

So we are by far the biggest giver. We don’t get a lot of credit 

for this, and we should, and what I try to do when I travel is I try 

to take journalists with us. It is so important for them to see what 

we do, and they are so amazed when I tell them that in Ethiopia, 

in Darfur, in the Congo, in so many nations of the world, that 60 

to 70 percent of all the aid coming in there is humanitarian aid, 

on emergency aid, development assistance, is coming from the 

United States. They are shocked. 

And when I go into the recipient countries, often times public officials that I meet with don’t even know that most of the aid is 

coming from the United States. The other thing is that even people 

in our own country, people in our own districts, they don’t have the 

slightest idea what our food aid and what our development assistance does. 

But when we tell them about it, when we educate them, they become excited about the generosity that we give. Now having said 

all of that, and again going back to the fact that this is one of the 

best things that we do overseas, and we don’t get a lot of credit for 

it, but I want you to remember the statistic that of all of the people 

that are hungry in the world today, we are only getting at 12, 13, 

or 14 percent. 

Even though we are the biggest giver, we are just barely keeping 

our head above water. We can do so much more, and we can get 

our donor nations to do so much more. So this is why these hearings are so important to talk about school feeding, the McGovernDole program. It is so important. 

We could double and triple the aid and the food aid that we get 

from that, and we could place it, and we could place it through a 

lot of different organizations, especially the World Food Program. 

And if we want to get at these 300 million children, and if we want 

47

to cut hunger in half by the year 2015, we are going to have to step 

up to the plate even more. 

And it is not just us. It is other nations as well, because we are 

just kind of keeping our head above water here. So we can do better, but nobody can take away from the United States on what we 

do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Hall follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TONY P. HALL, FORMER U.S. 

AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS AGENCIES FOR FOOD AND AGRICULTURE

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity to testify before you this morning. And I am grateful to be able to share with you my insights 

about world hunger—a topic that I feel passionately about. We have a moral obligation to work to reduce hunger around the world; and doing this also helps us 

achieve other important foreign policy objectives. 

I want to take a moment to acknowledge other guests testifying here today. In 

particular, Mr. Jim Morris, executive director of the World Food Program, who traveled from Rome, Italy—where I was based until recently—to share his tremendous 

expertise in how to meet the needs of today’s 850 million hungry people. He also 

happens to lead one of the best-run UN agencies in the world. 

Mr. Chairman, before I go any further, I want to commend you and this subcommittee for your commitment to the needy and poor people of the world. From 

Darfur to Pakistan, from Southeast Asia to the Horn of Africa, decisions made in 

this subcommittee have helped rescue millions of people from the brink of starvation. The United States is the world’s greatest humanitarian benefactor, and your 

work has in part allowed our country to claim such a distinction. 

USUN ROME

Less than two months ago I completed my assignment as Ambassador to the 

United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture. It was a high honor to serve my 

country for more than three-and-a-half years, and to be able to take on the problem 

of hunger every day. I led a small but effective U.S. mission, powered by a dedicated 

team of Foreign Service Officers from three agencies—State, USDA and USAID—

who helped to elevate the United States to a new level of respect among the UN 

agencies in Rome. 

Much of what I will discuss today is gleaned from my experiences as ambassador, 

but these are personal accounts, and personal conclusions. I don’t want to there to 

be any misunderstanding. I am not speaking on behalf of the State Department. 

That said, I am sure that my colleagues who serve in the Department under the 

leadership of Secretary Rice share many of the conclusions I have drawn. 

For more than 20 years, I have had a profound passion for helping the world’s 

poor and hungry. As we sit here this morning, the clock is ticking for the 25,000 

people who will die today, 16,000 of who are children. To put it another way in just 

over one week, the equivalent of my entire hometown of Dayton, Ohio, would be 

completely wiped out. 

Helping the hungry and poor is not a desk job. You have to see for yourself how 

hunger dismantles otherwise productive lives, and too often destroys them. I have 

traveled to more than 100 countries—most of them war-torn, politically and economically instable, and caught in a desperate cycle of hunger. 

During my time as Ambassador these trips helped me to better understand the 

needs of the poor. They also won me greater credibility among my fellow permanent 

representatives to the UN, because they knew that I had seen the situation first 

hand. They knew that my call to action on a particular food crisis was based on 

the facts. 

But the most important outcome from my collective field experience is that it has 

confirmed my faith in the gift of food as a means of saving lives and rebuilding livelihoods. I am therefore proud of America’s food aid programs around the world. We 

are doing a lot. But we could do still more. Feeding the hungry is not just the right 

thing to do. It also helps create a safer and more secure world for all of us. 

KENYA: EMERGENCY AID IN ACTION

The last trip I made as Ambassador was to the Horn of Africa, where a drought 

has plunged millions of lives into crisis. Driving in Northern Kenya, where the people depend on livestock for most of their food needs, I saw dead cattle scattered 

across the landscape. I saw thatch roofs almost completely stripped from huts—eviVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:23 Sep 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\AGI\052506\27810.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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dence of families’ need to feed their cattle at the expense of a roof over their heads. 

Men, women and children who could no longer survive on their own were trekking 

across the bone-dry land, walking for several days to the nearest village, in the hope 

of finding food. 

Further down the road there was a hopeful sign. We stopped to visit a warehouse 

operated by the non-governmental organization, Oxfam. Inside, we saw rows upon 

rows of USA food bags piled 10 feet high. The United States was among the first 

donors to the Kenya drought. To date we have given close to 100,000 metric tons 

of food aid, worth more than $65 million. 

That afternoon, we met some of the district’s youngest recipients of our aid program. At Wajir Elementary School we found a long line of children waiting for their 

fortified maize porridge. This would be their only meal of the day. You can imagine 

that under difficult drought conditions, school attendance actually rises. ‘‘Many of 

us came to school through drought,’’ said one of the teachers. Families know that 

their children will be fed a good meal, and it’s one less mouth for them to feed at 

home. 

FEEDING THE HUNGRY WHILE STARVING EXTREMISM

The Horn of Africa is at the center of one of today’s most urgent humanitarian 

situations. But I bring it up for another reason, too. It also happens to be a region 

where the harsh conditions and decades of civil strife mean that extremism is a serious concern. Wajir District—one of the areas I visited in Kenya—lies on the porous 

Somali border. It receives a steady stream of refugees from the lawless territories 

to the north, which are also a potential home base for extremist and terrorist 

groups. 

Now, what do you think it means to that hungry family in Wajir to know that 

their child is being fed every day in a U.S.-funded school feeding program? If the 

child returns home each day with a full mind and full stomach, is he likely to succumb to extremist influences? 

Our assistance programs must be targeted toward the most vulnerable—irrespective of color or creed. But we should also recognize the link between poverty, fragile 

states and extremist activity. Our food aid can be a stabilizing force in places where 

families live on the edge. 

FOOD AID AS A MOTIVATOR

Our food aid does so much more than fill stomachs. It’s an incentive for women 

to get training and education that helps prevent them from becoming victims of 

human trafficking. Around the world, food-for-work projects are helping communities reforest mountains stripped of their trees, construct small-scale irrigation 

projects that will help farmers become self-sufficient, and rebuild infrastructure destroyed in natural disasters. It is helping them build dams, train teachers and terrace hillsides. 

Food-for-work programs can be an effective mobilizing force in places afflicted by 

poverty and underdevelopment. Food is a powerful motivator, and even preferred 

over cash. This is particularly true in unstable places where rampant inflation can 

rapidly undermine the purchasing power of bills and coins. A bag of lentils, on the 

other hand, holds its value. Sometimes food aid is practical for other reasons, like 

in Albania, where I met women who were afraid that if they were given cash for 

their work on a road-building project, their husbands would squander the earnings 

on liquor. 

FOOD AID AND HIV/AIDS

As food aid is a means to motivate hundreds of people at a time, it has an equally 

powerful impact on helping those living with HIV/AIDS resist the debilitating effects of the virus. 

In the United States, HIV-infected people can live comparatively normal lives because they have access not only to drug therapy, but to good nutrition. We take this 

for granted. But in Africa, even if you are among the minority who are receiving 

anti-retroviral treatment, your days are still limited given the lack of your intake 

of nutrients. A person who is HIV-positive cannot stomach the drugs without an 

adequate nutritional status. We need to make sure that our investment of millions 

of dollars for PEPFAR are closely linked to a food aid component. 

We are getting better at this. I visited several places just in the past year where 

food aid and drug therapy programs were closely linked. In Zimbabwe, I witnessed 

a food distribution program for home-care volunteers, improving prospects for the 

AIDS victims in their care. In the slums of Nairobi I met toddlers who would long 

have left this earth if it weren’t for the nutrition they were receiving from a food 

49

aid program. In many cases, our food aid is doing more than just keeping people 

alive. It’s also allowing wage earners to continue to work and provide for their families. 

‘‘FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’’

U.S.-supported food aid is having a significant impact around the world. Many 

recognize this; but we could do more to get the word out. Those red, white and blue 

bags are unmistakable. The words ‘‘From the American People’’ are being translated 

into local languages. More and more, the recipients I meet in the field know exactly 

who supplies them with food. I’ll never forget arriving in Darfur, at a camp that 

was estimated to hold more than 115,000 refugees. In this desolate, dusty place 

there had been a delivery of USA food bags, stacked tall and ready for distribution. 

A spontaneous chant began, ‘‘USA, OKAY! USA OKAY!’’ I don’t think the children 

and parents I met that day will forget which country brought them help in such 

bounty. 

But we need to do better. When I traveled, I always made sure that journalists 

went out into the field with me. It has had a tremendous impact on public perceptions. We’ve generated hundreds of positive headlines about U.S. assistance, and 

we’ve forged relationships with correspondents who cover these issues daily. When 

we travel to the field with the press, we make a positive statement without saying 

a word. Once the journalists see the piles of food bags, once they talk to volunteers 

who dole out the rations, once they see smiling school kids with fingers sticky of 

fortified porridge, they begin to understand and appreciate in a very personal way 

the human impact of U.S. assistance. 

NEXT STEPS

In 2005, U.S. donations to the World Food Program increased by $200 million, 

thanks to the Bush-Blair announcement last summer of an additional $624 million 

in funding. The G8 brought unprecedented focus on Africa, complete with last summer’s simultaneous rock concerts and major celebrity attention. Countries that once 

received food aid, like India, have become donors. 

Unfortunately, we are a long way from reaching the Millennium Development 

Goals that have been endorsed by the world’s leaders. To reduce hunger by half by 

2015, the number of hungry people needs to fall by 22 million per year. Currently, 

it is falling only by 6 million per year, according to FAO statistics. And yet, global 

food aid donations are shrinking, not growing. 

One in every five people in the developing world is chronically undernourished. 

Every year, nearly 11 million children die before they reach their fifth birthday, almost all of them in developing countries. They don’t die of starvation per se. More 

typically, they die of communicable diseases that ravage their weak systems. They 

are too malnourished to fight back. 

For me, this is the greatest tragedy. Children in the developing world are being 

born underweight because their moms are undernourished. Without adequate food 

during infancy, children succumb to frequent infections and their growth may become stunted. The children are less capable in school because of prolonged malnutrition. In adulthood, they in turn raise children who are born into the same cycle of 

malnutrition. 

Kids can’t focus in school if they are not fed. The poverty perpetuates. How will 

Africa rise to its economic potential as a trading partner if the vast number of its 

youth can’t stay awake in school? If we care about these kids, and if we’re serious 

about ending the cycle of hunger and poverty, then we need to be feeding the children who don’t fall under pre-existing government programs. 

It is an incredible thing to see a child receiving a meal at school. I hope that all 

of you have a chance to witness it for yourselves. For me, when I return from a 

trip to Africa, the images that are most vivid in my mind are of the children who 

burst with energy because they are being fed in school. I have seen, even in the 

most depressing slums of sub-Saharan Africa, ebullient children chanting and singing about how they’ve improved in their studies because of school feeding. Their 

smiles do not lie. 

For me, this is where our political and spiritual will must be directed. We can 

create a new generation of productive young adults if we invest in them now. Then 

some day, maybe this generation will be telling their grandchildren about their 

youth, in the ‘‘olden days’’ when kids had to be given food aid.

Mr. SMITH. Ambassador Hall, thank you so very much. And as 

you know the idea for this hearing arose out of our meeting, and 

50

I do want to thank you for your leadership, which really has inspired people on both sides of the aisle for decades. 

I thought one of the real losses was when the Congress got rid 

of the Hunger Committee itself, which had served as a lighting rod 

and which you so ably served as Chairman, and to make people 

aware, and that starts with educating our own colleagues. 

So again your leadership has blazed a trail that is second to 

none, and many people live today because of you. Let me just ask 

a couple of brief questions, and to ask whether or not you have any 

policy recommendations. 

As I indicated earlier, we plan on crafting a bill that I hope will 

be an omnibus type piece of legislation on how do we upgrade our 

ability, capacity, authorization levels, and it may be a tough sled. 

People want to cut budgets, and sometimes that is certainly warranted, but when it comes to—as you just pointed out that 12 or 

13 percent of the people who need help are getting it, and that 

means that an overwhelming majority are not getting it. 

So your policy recommendations as we write this bill would be 

very, very much appreciated, and in fact, without sounding imprudent, I would like to call it the Tony Hall Bill because of your work. 

I know that you won’t want that, but I think it would be a fitting 

recognition of the work that you have done. 

And so any policy recommendations that you might want to discuss now, or certainly I know that you will give us pages of them 

going forward, and whether or not if you could, is about our European partners. The European community has emerged as the 

United States of Europe; strong, very prosperous, and we often find 

other than for specific programs like on torture, and the Nordic 

countries are very effective there. 

But when it comes to just general aid, there is sometimes a 

shortfall there. I would think that they could do more, and your 

thoughts on there, because you obviously worked with their Ambassadors in Rome. 

Secondly, the food aid convention, whether or not you think there 

needs to be any revisions made there, renegotiate additions to, either now or for the record, and if you could provide us with some 

thoughts there as well. 

And finally lessons learned on having served as Ambassador, and 

also knowing Congress, having served from Ohio for so many years, 

your recommendations to us on what we could do to do a better job. 

You mentioned travel, and I think that was a very good point. 

I remember that one of our Members used to brag that he didn’t 

own a passport, and I actually took a trip with him when we went 

to Sankovich in Macedonia, where the Kosovo Albanians were 

flooding into, and it was like this enormous eye opener to him—

I won’t name his name, of course—as to what he was seeing. 

It was like, well, that is exactly our point. Junkets are one thing, 

and humanitarian trips, and human rights trips, are absolutely 

quite another. So there would be some recommendations to our colleagues as well. 

Ambassador HALL. That is a big list, Mr. Chairman, but I will 

try to take a bite out of it. I would increase school feeding two or 

three times if we could. If it is $100 million, I would try to get it 

up to $300 million. 

51

I would certainly increase our water projects that we are trying 

to do, and certainly more in Subsahara Africa. We need lots of 

water projects; well diggers. Money for microfinance, and that is 

one of the most valuable things that we do to get mostly women 

to have a trade, and to produce their own income, and to teach 

mothers reading and writing, and a little bit of education. 

You want to talk about population, and you want to lower the 

population, teach the mothers how to read and write. They get 

smart, and the gross national product goes up, and the population 

goes down. 

And it is because they realize that they don’t have welfare systems or Social Security in these countries. Their welfare system is 

their children, and they have got to have a lot of children. They expect a number of them will die because their children are going to 

be their welfare. 

Their children are going to be their Social Security. They are the 

ones who are going to take care of the parents. So when the mothers learn about reading and writing, and when they learn about 

breast feeding, and clean water, and nutritious food, and immunizations, then they start to think through microfinance how they 

can produce a little bit of income. 

And they get smart, really smart. The country really prospers. 

The gross national product goes up and the population goes down. 

All of those things are so important. It could be the most important 

thing that we do. 

I mean, if I had to write a bill, I would say that nobody in this 

country first is going to go to bed hungry ever again. I am going 

to make it my goal to feed everybody in this country that is hungry. 

And the second thing that I would do is to do these things that 

we are talking about overseas; school feeding, microfinance, water 

projects, reading and writing for women. I will tell you that you 

will get the Nobel Peace Prize if you do this, Chris, if you could 

produce a bill that in the long run would do these kinds of things, 

I would tell you that you would put a dent in hunger like you can’t 

believe. 

There is no reason that we should have 25 million people hungry 

in our own country. There is no reason, no reason at all, why we 

should have 25 or 26 million die today. I mean, if there is one thing 

that we can do in the Congress of the United States, it is to make 

a commitment to end this, or to at least put a major dent in it. 

And so those are my recommendations. Secondly, you talked 

about what we can do, and if you can get your colleagues to travel 

like you do, and like Mr. Payne does, I think it is so important, because I remember one of my good friends who passed away, Bill 

Emerson, and Bill Emerson was opposed to my Select Committee 

on Hunger. 

And I said, ‘‘Bill, why don’t you go with me, travel with me?’’ So 

he did, and he also went with Mickey Leland, and he came back 

such a believer that he came one of the real giants around here, 

especially on domestic hunger and trying to make things work, and 

passing legislation. 

And his work on the Agriculture Committee was unbelievable, 

and so when we get Members to travel, and when we get AmeriVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:23 Sep 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\052506\27810.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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cans to see what we see, all you have to do is touch their heart, 

and they will figure out what to do. 

And you asked a couple of other things, and I can’t remember, 

but those are some of the things that come to my mind. 

Mr. SMITH. The issue on the food aid convention, and also on the 

European community. 

Ambassador HALL. The European community, they can be painful sometimes, very painful, because I have been dealing with them 

the last 31⁄2 years. And they talk a lot, and they give us a lot of 

grief. When I first went there, Biotech was the big issue, and every 

time they got a chance to beat us up, it was the biotech issue. 

Now the latest issue is cash versus in-kind food, and they were 

wrong on biotech, and they are wrong on this issue before the 

WTO, and they have a tendency to say that the check is in the 

mail. 

And you will say, well, the United States is going to give this 

kind of money, and we are going to give that kind of money, and 

they will say, we are going to give double that, and we are going 

to do this or that, and I am scratching my head. I have never seen 

these numbers before. Where do they get this stuff? 

And to make a long story short, they can do a lot more. We have 

got some good friends there. You know, Canada is a good friend, 

and Great Britain is a good friend, and Japan, and they are pretty 

good donors. The Nordic countries do give, but compared to us, 

there is no comparison, and they can do a lot more. 

Mr. SMITH. Anything that you would like to add, Mr. Ambassador? 

Ambassador HALL. I think I have probably said enough. It is a 

good thing that I am not an Ambassador anymore. 

Mr. SMITH. Again, I want to thank you for your tremendous service, which will continue, and I look forward to working with you as 

we go forward, Tony, and thank you for your patience. 

Ambassador HALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. I noticed in your opening statement that you said 

good morning, and it has long passed morning. Your written statement rather. Thank you again. 

I would now like to invite our third panel to the witness table. 

First is Mr. Sean Callahan, who is Vice President of Overseas Operations for Catholic Relief Services. Mr. Callahan is responsible 

for the oversight of programmatic activities in more than 90 countries. 

Mr. Callahan has a wide variety of experience in South Asia, including working closely with Mother Theresa of Calcutta, and facilitating programming in Afghanistan during and after the 

Taliban. 

We then will hear from Mr. Gabriel Laizer, who currently works 

with the Alliance to End Hunger. Previously, Mr. Gabriel worked 

for 5 years with Bread for the World. In addition, he spent several 

months as an international policy analyst with the Government Relations Department to monitor and promote the implementation of 

the Millennium Challenge Account. 

And then we will hear from Gawain Kripke, who is a Senior Policy Advisor on International Trade Issues with Oxfam America He 

directs the policy work of the organization’s Make Trade Fair CamVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:23 Sep 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\052506\27810.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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paign, which aims to change unfair trade rules so that international can become a powerful force for reducing global poverty. 

Mr. Callahan, if you would begin. 

STATEMENT OF MR. SEAN CALLAHAN, VICE PRESIDENT, 

OVERSEAS OPERATIONS, CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES 

Mr. CALLAHAN. I wish to thank Chairman Smith, and Mr. Payne, 

and the honorable Members of Congress for the opportunity to testify before this Committee. My name is Sean Callahan, and I am 

the vice president of overseas operations of Catholic Relief Services. 

And I appreciate you, Mr. Chairman, and the Committee in taking the initiative to have a hearing on this particular topic. Our responsibility is great. As the blessed Mother Theresa, who I had the 

blessing to work with in Calcutta, and who had several centers 

throughout the world that are supported by PL 480 and Title II, 

said:

‘‘When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take the care of him or her. It has happened 

because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he 

or she needed.’’

During my 18 years with Catholic Relief Services, I have managed food aid programs in Central America, Africa, and Asia. I 

wish to summarize my prepared statement, and ask that it be 

made a part of the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Hearing no objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. CALLAHAN. And at this time, I would like to highlight three 

key points; building bridges, staying the course, and responsibility. 

First, on building bridges. I can tell you from my personal experience in drought affected Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, at the 

schools and child laborers in Hyderabad, India, and through community self-help projects in Central America, food aid is an effective means of foreign assistance. 

Food aid can help stabilize societies facing social upheaval, help 

remove the fuel of violence, and offer hope to those whose future 

is utterly bleak. Food aid bridges the gap between cultures. As 

Catholic Relief Services ensures an American face on thousands of 

tons of food aid delivered to predominantly Muslim populations in 

Sudan, Indonesia, Senegal, Northern Ghana, and elsewhere. 

As an American organization, our presence reinforces the message that food aid used in school feeding and well baby clinics 

comes from the American people. In fact, food aid may be the least 

expensive and most effective investment in public diplomacy. 

I can also tell you that food aid will remain a critical component 

of our humanitarian and development programs in Africa. From 

emergency aid in the Sudan, to nutrition for AIDS patients in 

Southern Africa, to food for education programs in Northwest Africa, food aid is critical in each case. 

Second, staying the course. When we stay the course, great 

changes happen. Food aid works best when it is part of long term 

programs into making generational changes. An example of this 

generational approach is the combination of food assisted child survival, and school feeding programs in the same village over the 

course of a decade. 

54

Together these programs boost immunization rates, improve 

child nutrition, and increase school attendance. They result in a 

generation of healthy and educated parents whose children are 

even better fed, better educated, and healthier. 

The danger today is that we so often don’t stay the course. It is 

tempting to take a hot spot approach to foreign aid, and particularly to food aid. Instead of providing new resources to address the 

requirements of disaster, they are often taken from the areas of 

need, disrupting the quieter, yet effective, long term school feeding, 

child survival, and natural resource management programs. More than $2 million in Title II resources was diverted this year 

from Haiti alone to meet the needs in other hot spots. We should 

not be forced to make the choice of having to starve Peter to feed 

Paul. 

Last year, CRS used millions of dollars of privately raised cash 

to plug holes in the United States and U.N. food aid pipelines in 

Niger and Southern Africa. We raise millions of dollars each year 

from private citizens and foundations to feed the hungry. 

We can and will continue to augment the Title II pipeline, but we can’t replace it. We need a robust appropriations of $2 billion 

a year for Title II, a level that should be authorized in the 2007 

Farm Bill. 

We need these resources not only to meet our moral commitments, but for our national security, too. We must also stay the 

course at the World Trade Organization. Food aid should not be a 

trade negotiation bargaining chip. The WTO can’t be allowed to 

limit or govern food aid flows, particularly by private voluntary organizations. 

Third, responsibility. I think the humanitarian spirit of the 

American people is great enough that we can both feed the chronically hungry in the developing world, and still meet the acute 

needs of those who face natural and man-made disasters. CRS regularly surveys the 65 million American Catholics. 

We find that there is overwhelming support for feeding the poorest of the poor. To give some perspective, if we adjust for inflation, 

in real dollars, the United States is spending 25 percent of what 

we did in the mid-60s on food aid. By any measure, we are falling 

short and failing the world’s most vulnerable. 

Due to the U.S. Government funding constraints, by 2009, CRS 

will close eight of its fifteen food assisted development programs, 

many of them in the Muslim world. CRS is also facing the prospect 

of having to tell Mother Theresa’s Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, and elsewhere, that we will no longer be able to provide 

United States food aid to help them, which we have done for over 

50 years. 

CRS certainly will continue to provide private funds, but we will 

not be able to fill the gap. I urge the Subcommittee to support the 

$2 billion necessary for PL 480 Title II so that we can meet the 

most urgent emergency needs, while preserving our ability to carry 

out quality, sustainable development programs. 

In doing so, we can also augment our national security, and bolster our public diplomacy in unfriendly environments. I thank you 

and all Members of Congress for making this assistance a reality, 

and I hope that we can count on our continued support in the fuVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:23 Sep 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\052506\27810.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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ture. Let us continue to build bridges by fulfilling our responsibilities to those in need. Let us stay the course. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Callahan follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. SEAN CALLAHAN, VICE PRESIDENT, OVERSEAS

OPERATIONS, CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Mr. Payne, and Honorable Members of Congress, my name is Sean Callahan. I am vice-president for Overseas Operations at 

Catholic Relief Services (CRS), for whom I have worked in the US and overseas for 

18 years. 

CRS is among the largest, most experienced and most effective users of emergency 

and development food aid provided by the people of the United States. We represent 

the 65 million member Catholic Community in a 52-year-long partnership with Food 

for Peace that expresses like nothing else the compassion and good will of the American people. 

Today let me sketch the global requirements for aid and then discuss the key role 

of food aid in public diplomacy. Then I would I like to summarize related issues, 

which demonstrate or affect the role of private voluntary organizations like CRS in 

global food aid. 

GLOBAL REQUIREMENTS OF ADEQUATE FOOD AID

We face a severe challenge in responding to the grim requirements posed by global hunger. The UN estimates 852 million people are undernourished worldwide. According to USDA, 83 million people live on less than 1,100 calories a day. Six million people will die of hunger related causes this year. According to the United Nations, 25,000 people a day die of hunger related causes. They are too weak to fight 

off flu or the effects of diarrhea. They are underweight infants and overwhelmed 

mothers. They die quietly, off camera, unnoticed by the rest of the world. 

To provide a nutrition supplement to the most undernourished 10 percent of the world’s population would cost $3.3 Billion a year. An authorization of $2 billion a 

year in the 2007 Farm Bill for PL 480 Title II would meet 60% of these needs. We 

would expect European, Asian and even African donors to make up the remaining 

shortfall. 

The U.S. share of total global food aid has ranged from 40% in the early 1990s 

to approximately 60% in recent years. The U.S. food aid contributions for PL 480 

Title II (regular appropriations plus supplementals) have neared or exceeded$2 Billion several times since 2001. 

This is not a large amount in historical terms either. If we adjust for inflation, in real dollars the United States spent more than $8 billion a year in food aid during the mid-60s. In 1988 the Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed 

a measure that stated that food aid should not be less than one-third of all United 

States foreign economic assistance. We can’t expect you to match one-third of the 

FY 07 Foreign Operations budget for development and economic assistance with 

food aid. But if we were to honor the spirit of the law, we would have the $2 billion 

in annual appropriations, an amount necessary for Title II to meet the most urgent 

emergency needs while preserving our ability to carry out quality, sustainable development programs. 

I worry that when we need to be increasing our efforts, we are cutting back. At 

the World Food Summit in 1996 attendees pledged to cut hunger by 50% by the year 

2015. Instead of cutting hunger in half—donor countries have cut assistance in half. 

The amount of food aid committed dropped from 15 million metric tons to 7 million 

metric tons from 1996 to 2004. To the US Government’s credit, in the face of reduced contributions from some countries, Title II funding has ranged from $1.6 billion to $2 billion in recent years. 

However, to meet increasing emergency food aid commitments, USAID is reducing 

from 32 to 15 the number of countries in which it supports development food aid. 

CRS will be forced to close feeding programs in eight countries. Up to 2 million program beneficiaries will be unable to access a school meal, participate in health programs or supplement their meager incomes with food for work. Even more sadly, 

we will need to find new ways with reduced resources to support long-term partners 

such as Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. 

THE KEY ROLE FOR FOOD AID IN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Section 12 of the 9/11 Commission Report includes numerous references to the 

need for the United States to communicate its basic values and its humanitarian 

concerns. The commission called upon us to create ‘‘opportunities for people to imVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:23 Sep 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\AGI\052506\27810.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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prove the lives of their families and to enhance the prospects for their children’s 

success.’’

Food aid communicates our humanitarian spirit while improving people’s lives 

and prospects—each bag is marked with a USAID logo and the words, ‘‘Gift from 

the people of the United States.’’

Within the context of public diplomacy, food aid bridges the gap between cultures. 

CRS is an American face on thousands of tons of food aid delivered to Muslim populations in Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Southern Sudan, Senegal, Northern Ghana 

and elsewhere. As an American organization, our presence reinforces the message 

that the food aid used in school feeding programs and well baby clinics comes from 

the American people. 

When we stay the course, great changes happen. 

Food aid works best when it is part of longer term, multi-year programs aimed 

at making generational changes. Examples of the generational approach are food assisted child survival coupled with a school-feeding program carried out within the 

same village over the course of a decade. Together these programs boost immunization rates, improve child nutrition and improve school attendance. They result in 

a generation of healthy and educated parents whose children are even better fed, 

better educated and healthier. 

The danger today is that we don’t stay the course. It is too tempting to take a 

‘‘hot spot’’ approach to food aid. The hot spot approach throws resources at the CNN 

disaster of the month, depriving resources from the quieter, school feeding, child 

survival and natural resource management programs that work more effectively in 

the long-term. 

More than $2 million in Title II resources were diverted this year from Haiti alone 

to meet other more noticeable hot spots such as Sudan. The point is that we need 

resources for both struggling countries. Saving Peter by starving Paul is a recipe 

for disaster. Naturally, the federal government cannot shoulder the burden by itself 

but it must do more. 

Last year CRS used millions of dollars of privately raised cash to plug holes in 

the US food aid pipelines to Niger and Southern Africa. We raise millions of dollars 

each year from private citizens and foundations to feed the hungry. We can augment 

the Title II pipeline—but we can’t replace it. 

THE CRITICAL ROLE OF PVOS IN EFFECTIVE PROGRAMS

Mr., Chairman, I next want to highlight this morning the effectiveness of PL 480 

Title II feeding programs and the need for this committee to support a $2 billion 

authorization for Title II. This level will allow the U.S. to meet our share of relief 

and development commitments around the This $2 billion level needs to be authorized and appropriated ‘‘up front’’ in the budget process and not be done piecemeal 

through an under funded regular bill followed by one or more supplemental appropriations. 

CRS supports protecting a core level no less than $500 million (of the $2 billion 

above) of Title II funding for ongoing, multi-year programs that address the causes 

of chronic food insecurity and enable communities to build better coping mechanisms in the face of recurring disasters. The practice to date has been for annual 

emergency needs, beyond planned levels, to be met by taking from on-going multiyear food security programs. 

Food aid is an effective means of addressing both chronic and acute food insecurity in emergency situations and when carrying out development and social safety 

net programs. Annual results reports consistently show increases in vaccinations, 

girls’ graduation rates, school attendance and crop yields and decreases in rates of 

malnutrition. Evaluations of CRS Title II programs between 2001 and 2004 showed 

the following results:

• Yields increased by an average of 43%

• More than 1 million students enrolled and receiving a school meal

• Primary School graduation rates up 42% with an 86% increase in girls’ graduation in Burkina Faso

• An average of a 60% increase in vaccination rates among under-three-yearolds

• An average of 86% increase in exclusive breastfeeding of infants during the 

first six months of life, greatly improving their chances of survival.

Not only are CRS programs measuring positive results; they are accountable for 

the resources used to achieve the results. Each year our programs are audited by 

the USAID Inspector General and by our internal auditors. 

57

Most importantly, the very effectiveness of programs managed by CRS and other 

private voluntary organizations (PVOs) helps advance US public diplomacy. Beneficiaries in both friendly and contentious nations recognize and appreciate the American contribution in fighting hunger. 

I have seen this time and again in my travels for CRS across Africa, Asia, and 

Latin America. 

THREATS TO PVO PARTICIPATION IN GLOBAL FOOD AID

To ensure the effectiveness of our public diplomacy, I urge the Committee to monitor the work of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in global trade talks. 

We first must keep in mind that humanitarian food aid programs are in danger 

today because they are on the negotiating table at the Doha round of World Trade 

Organization (WTO) talks. The American people’s ability to offer a hand up to the 

needy should not be a bargaining chip in agriculture trade negotiations with other 

countries 

CRS supports balanced trade liberalization through the WTO while also creating 

a preferential option for poor countries. The USTR should seek inclusion of tariffs, 

quotas and other protective measures that enable poor countries the time to develop 

local economic and trade capacity. 

The USTR further needs to assure that food aid remains available to both international organizations and private voluntary organizations for emergency, multiyear development and social safety net programming. 

Food aid flows should be monitored by an independent body with PVO and WFP 

representation that succeeds the Consultative Subcommittee on Surplus Disposal 

(CSSD) in FAO. The WTO is not the correct body to set regulations on food aid flows 

and as such should not be tasked with the monitoring of such flows. Further, it is 

critical that the Doha Round negotiators refrain from taking any actions that result 

in a decline in food aid availability. 

While the USTR negotiates for robust food aid, the US can unilaterally advance 

food aid. 

We will go a long way to meeting our Millennium Development Goal of halving 

world hunger if we take the lead in honoring donor commitments to the Food Aid 

Convention. These commitments dropped from 7.5 million metric tons in 1986 to 4.8 

million metric tons in 1999. The US should lead the other donor nations in reaching 

the 10 million metric tons target of the original Food Aid Convention, and then encourage even more robust contributions by an expanded donor community. 

CHANGES NEEDED IN U.S. PARTICIPATION IN GLOBAL FOOD AID

In addition to changes in food aid monitoring noted before, CRS also supports a 

change in the 1999 Food Aid Convention (FAC). The modification will elicit greater 

contributions of cash and in-kind food aid worldwide and expand representation of 

donor and recipient countries, as well as International Organizations and PVOs, in 

food aid deliberations 

Most emergencies do not have a rapid onset. They result from poor governance, 

failed rains, heavy rains, seasonal pests and ongoing conflicts. Donors, policymakers 

and aid agencies do not acknowledge most emergencies until they reach an acute 

stage. There is a general tendency to ignore the warning signs and the initial onset. 

But we can see them coming. If it rains hard during the monsoon season in China 

and Nepal, floodgates of dams will be opened and there will be flooding in Bangladesh and India. If there is El Nin ̃ o in the Pacific, there will probably be droughts 

in Africa. 

Resources were not committed last year when it was apparent to the food aid community that the drought would worsen the food security of millions of people in Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia. Niger is once again off the radar screen. However, more 

than 2 million people were financially ruined in last year’s emergency. Today they 

lack the resources to feed their families and rebuild their lives. Our failure or inability to act costs people their lives and makes the lives of those who survive more 

difficult and shorter than they need to be in the 21st century. 

Thus, we need to recognize the need for a robust FY 06 Supplemental Appropriation that provides $600 million more. At the same time, we must press towards a 

target of $2 billion for Title II in FY 07. 

To date, the Supplemental includes only $350 million and the House-passed FY 

07 Agriculture Appropriations bill provides only $1.2 billion for Title II. I fear that 

we are on a collision course with famine. 

Meanwhile, the concentration on acute rather than chronic needs is one of the factors contributing to the shortening of intervals between emergencies. I have witnessed this in Ethiopia and parts of Southern Africa. The Bill Emerson HumaniVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:23 Sep 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\AGI\052506\27810.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
58

tarian Trust (BEHT) is designed to meet immediate emergency needs and prevent 

emergency programs from using the resources of development and safety net programs. There has not been adequate funding to replenish the BEHT, leading to disruptions in emergency, development and safety net programs. 

CRS supports the restructuring of emergency response mechanisms so that aid 

can be delivered quickly and effectively. The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust 

should be used first to forestall taking food from ongoing multi-year Title II development programs. The replenishment mechanism for the Trust needs to be streamlined and made automatic—as opposed to requiring an appropriation. 

It was reported in the Economist magazine that investing $1 in emergency preparedness and mitigation through development programs would save $7 in emergency response. Not doing the development programming often results in needing 

to respond to an emergency situation, and often the delay in responding to the 

emergency means that it is much larger than if we’d been able to mobilize the resources at the first sign of trouble. 

In conclusion, not funding development programs is short sighted. If we won’t pay 

now, we all will pay later. I ask you once again to commit to a PL 480 Title II authorization level of $2 billion for FY 07 and beyond. It will save time. It will save 

money. And it will save lives. This modest investment will also advance public diplomacy in areas of conflict and tension. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be pleased to respond to any questions that 

the Committee may have.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Callahan very much. Mr. Laizer. 

STATEMENT OF MR. GABRIEL LAIZER, BENEFICIARY OF 

SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAM, TANZANIA 

Mr. LAIZER. Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, 

fellow panelists, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor and indeed 

a humbling experience for me to be participating at this hearing on 

a very critical topic of hunger and food aid. 

Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that one day 

I would be sitting here discussing an issue very close to my heart. 

How did I get here? Eleven years ago, I met an American missionary named Ruth Klavano in my hometown of Arusha, Tanzania. It was the first time that I had met an American. 

Ruth was to become my English teacher at Moringe Sokoine Secondary School. She needed to learn Swahili if she was to succeed 

in her teaching and I needed to learn English. A lifelong relationship developed during my many sessions of English and Swahili 

lessons. 

As her contract expired, Ruth invited me to live with her in Vancouver, Washington, and attend high school. I was able to graduate 

and quality for a scholarship at California Lutheran University to 

study political science. Following the completion of my Bachelor’s 

degree, I was awarded another scholarship to attend American 

University, where I studied international development, all under 

my student visa. 

While our meeting might have just been a coincidence, it has 

transformed both of our lives and the lives of hundreds of other 

people both here in the United States and in Tanzania. To me, the 

generous spirit of America is shown in Ruth Klavano. 

She was always the first to ask how can I help. She was always 

the first to know that the borders of the world are only drawn on 

maps and not in our lives. I hope that I have given back to Americans what I have been privileged to receive from you. I have had 

many opportunities to speak to different audiences in schools, 

churches, and elsewhere about the challenges that my country and 

my continent face. 

59

I came from very humble beginnings. I am one of seven children. 

My family lives in Arusha, Tanzania, a city in the hills of Mount 

Kilimanjaro, where the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has been held. Both of my parents were lucky to be educated. 

They instilled in all of us the importance of education. I am 

happy to say that I was the first one in my family to receive a college degree. All of this was made possible in part because of school 

feeding and food aid. I can distinctly remember going to kindergarten and elementary school and receiving a midday meal of corn 

meal porridge, tea, and biscuits. 

I ate the meal in my plastic bowl, but I never saw the bags with 

an American flag on them or got to say thank you until today. This 

food kept me in school, and it gave me an opportunity to learn and 

to grow into the person that I am today. 

Like all kids, my classmates and I were excited about recess. But 

we were more excited about lunch time. The warm porridge was 

very welcome on a cold day. Later in my schooling years, my parents were asked to contribute time and money toward the meals 

programs. Other families that couldn’t contribute financially were 

able to volunteer in the kitchen. 

I remain thankful to many Americans who have assisted my 

family in one or another way. While the challenges that Tanzanians face are many, I am here today to talk about the challenge 

of hunger and food insecurity. 

In August 1998, the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam 

and Nairobi were bombed by associates of Osama bin Laden. I believe it is correct to say that most Americans had not heard about 

Tanzania before then. 

Americans, Tanzanians, and Kenyans were killed that fateful 

morning, as were other Americans and citizens of the world 4 years 

later on September 11. We are at a global crossroads today. Our 

security will not be guaranteed while millions of people around the 

world are living in desperation. There isn’t a good justification for 

why 850 million people are living without food today. 

Today’s hearing is timely and could play a key role in our desire 

to prevent terrorist attacks from ever happening again. We know 

how to end world hunger, and some of the misery that stems from 

it. What we need is political will to do so. 

A recent poll done by the Alliance to End Hunger, the organization that I work for, found that 78 percent of Americans want Congress to approve President Bush’s proposal to increase funding for 

Africa and poor countries to help reduce hunger, poverty, and disease. 

The Alliance has members from various sectors of society, including corporations like Cargill, and non-governmental organizations 

such as Save the Children, and Counterpart International that 

have benefitted from food aid. 

Just as in America, most of what I learned about my culture and 

society, my values, and morals, happened around the dinner table. 

With many families facing famine in Africa, this great transfer of 

knowledge and of family values is being lost. 

There isn’t a more powerful tool for diplomacy than seeing bags 

of rice or cans of cooking oil marked ‘‘A gift from the people of the 

60

United States’’ being distributed in villages all over the developing 

world. 

Our shared values rising from the Embassy attack in August 

1998, and that of September 11, have brought our people closer together. Food aid is a critical short and long term investment, just 

like the education that my parents wanted for me and my siblings 

to receive. 

Food aid creates a healthy nation. A healthy nation is a productive society. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for the nutritious 

food that I received during my primary and secondary education 

years. 

Since Tanzania qualified for debt relief in 2000 and started to 

provide free primary school education, enrollment has increased by 

85 percent. An additional 1.5 million children are in school today. 

School feeding programs will contribute greatly to the improvement 

of the attendance, academic achievement, and the retention of students, especially girls. 

According to the World Food Program, only 190,000 Tanzania 

children are benefiting from school feeding programs today. For a 

few of my middle school years in the 1980s, the United States provided $33 million in mostly non-emergency food aid to Tanzania. If 

that did not end up in the bowl of lunch that I had, it certainly 

did for some of my fellow Tanzanians. 

I am aware of the current debate about food aid reform. However, I will focus my suggestions on three items to make sure that 

our emphasis is on helping the hungry and poor children reach 

their full potential. 

Our programs should sustainably help people in need. Their welfare should be our moral obligation, and should be our top priority. 

My current work has involved me with the ONE Campaign. Two 

million Americans have also signed up with this goal of making 

poverty history. 

They are now asking President Bush and this Congress to provide an additional 1 percent of the Federal budget toward the goal 

of ending hunger, poverty, and disease. But the ONE campaign is 

more than Bono traveling to Africa and highlighting some development success stories on NBC News. 

Bread for the World, one of the founding partners of the ONE 

Campaign, is mobilizing people in churches and on college campuses across this country. They and others are engaging their elected officials to say reducing hunger, poverty, and disease over there 

is an important issue over here as well. 

One of my hopes is that this Congress will keep President Bush’s 

promise to increase poverty-focused development assistance by $25 

billion over the next 5 years. In order to honor his word, and meet 

this goal that was established at the G8 Summit, Congress needs 

to approve a $5 billion increase this year alone. 

My second hope is that this Congress will increase support for 

school feeding programs like the one that benefitted me. The 

George McGovern-Bob Dole International Food for Education and 

Child Nutrition Program has proven itself a huge success. Your 

support for expanding this effective program that changes young 

lives is crucial. 

61

This Committee was instrumental in authorizing the McGovernDole Program in the 2002 farm bill. I and others sincerely hope 

that you will play a leadership role in the next farm bill. School 

feeding is not the only solution to development problems, but is one 

of the most proven and effective interventions for helping people 

help themselves. 

Finally, I would hope that this Congress would strengthen response mechanisms to international famine. Unfortunately, responses often come after images of starving children appear on television. 

The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, named after one of your 

colleagues, and a true hero for the hungry, exists to prevent famine. Please assure that the trust is sufficiently funded with an 

automatic replenishment system. 

Currently the decision makers hesitate to use it because the 

needs far exceed available resources. Also, an international famine 

relief fund, under the auspices of the World Food Program, should 

be considered. 

Mr. Chairman, I am grateful for this opportunity to share my 

story and these thoughts. The decision that you make today affect 

the leaders of tomorrow in very real ways. I hope and pray that 

the children of Africa will have the opportunities that I have been 

given. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Laizer follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. GABRIEL LAIZER, BENEFICIARY OF SCHOOL FEEDING

PROGRAM, TANZANIA

Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, fellow panelists, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor and indeed a humbling experience for me to be a participant 

at this hearing, on the very critical topic of hunger and food aid. 

Not in my wildest dreams could I ever have imagined that one day, I would be 

sitting here discussing an issue very close to my heart that affects millions of people 

in my home continent and around the world. 

How did I get here? 

Eleven year ago, I met an American missionary named Ruth Klavano in my 

hometown of Arusha, Tanzania. It was the first time that I met an American. Ruth 

was to become my English teacher at Moringe Sokoine Secondary School. She needed to learn Swahili if she was to succeed in her teaching and I needed to learn 

English. A lifelong relationship developed during many sessions of English and Swahili lessons. 

As her contract expired, Ruth invited me to live with her in Vancouver, Washington and attend high school. I was able to graduate and qualify for a scholarship 

at California Lutheran University to study political science. Following the completion of my bachelor’s degree, I was awarded another scholarship to American University where I studied International Development, all under a student visa. 

While our meeting might have just been a coincidence, it has transformed both 

of our lives and the lives of hundreds of other people both here in the United States 

and in Tanzania. The generosity of Americans has played a key role in my success 

so far. They have supported me financially, emotionally and spiritually. I have 

learned about your culture, your hopes, dreams and ambitions and I have shared 

mine as well. 

To me, the generous spirit of America is shown in Ruth Klavano. She was always 

the first to ask, can I help? She was always the first to know that the borders of 

this world are only drawn on maps, not in our lives. I hope that I have given back 

to Americans what I have been privileged to receive from you. I have had many opportunities to speak to different audiences in schools, churches and elsewhere about 

the challenges that my country and my continent face. 

I came from very humble beginnings. I am one of seven children. My family lives 

in Arusha, Tanzania, a city in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro where the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is located. Both of my parents were lucky 

62

to be educated. They instilled in all of us the importance of education. I am happy 

to say that I was the first one in my family to ever receive a college degree. 

All of this was possible in part because of school feeding and food aid. I can distinctly remember going to kindergarten and elementary school and receiving a midday meal of corn meal porridge, tea and biscuits. I ate the meal in my plastic bowl, 

but I never saw the bags with an American flag on them or got to say thank you, 

until today. This food kept me in school. It gave me an opportunity to learn and 

to grow into the person that I am today. 

Like all kids, my classmates and I were excited about recess. But we were more 

excited for lunch time. The warm porridge was very welcome on a cold day. Later 

in my schooling, my parents were asked to contribute time and money toward the 

meals program. Other families couldn’t contribute financially, but did volunteer in 

the kitchen. 

I am also proud to say that three of my siblings are now completing or enrolled 

in universities in Tanzania. This is no small feat given the challenges that families 

face in Tanzania and around Africa. I remain thankful to many Americans who 

have assisted my family in one or another way. 

While the challenges that Tanzanians face are many, I am here today to talk 

about the challenge of hunger and food insecurity. 

In August 1998, the US embassies in my capital of Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, 

Kenya were bombed by associates of Osama Bin Laden. I believe it is correct to say 

that most Americans had not heard about Tanzania before that day. Americans, 

Tanzanians and Kenyans were killed that fateful morning, as were other Americans 

and citizens of the world four years later on September 11th. 

Dr. Martin Luther King once said, ‘‘I adamantly believe in the right of people everywhere to three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their 

minds, and dignity, freedom and equality for their spirits. I believe that whatever 

self-involved men tear down, other-involved men, can put back.’’

We are at a global crossroads. Our security will not be guaranteed while millions 

of people around the world are living in desperation. There isn’t a good justification 

for why 850 million people do not have enough food to eat today. 

Today’s hearing is timely and could play a key role in our desire to prevent other 

terrorist attacks from ever happening again. We know how to end world hunger and 

some of the misery that stems from it. What we need is the political will to do so. 

A recent poll done by the Alliance to End Hunger, the organization that I work for, 

found that 78 percent of Americans want Congress to approve President Bush’s proposal to increase funding for Africa and other poor countries to help reduce hunger, 

poverty and disease. The Alliance has members from various sectors of society, including corporations like Cargill and non-governmental organizations like Save the 

Children and Counterpart International that have benefited from food aid. 

Just as in America, most of what I learned about my culture and society, my values and morals, happened around the dinner table. With many families facing famine in Africa, this great transfer of knowledge and of family values is being lost. 

The recent drought in Tanzania created a shortage of food for 3.2 million people. 

85 percent of districts were hit by drought. Poor rainy seasons reduced crop production by 50–70 percent. The situation is worse across the border in Kenya and other 

parts of East Africa. Food aid from the US and around the world averted a major 

crisis and probably saved hundreds of thousand of lives from death. Hopefully, you 

and your colleagues in Congress will approve more aid that will save even more 

lives. 

There isn’t a more powerful tool of diplomacy than seeing bags of rice or cans of 

cooking oil marked ‘‘A gift from the people of the United States’’ being distributed 

in villages all over the developing world. Our shared values, rising from the embassy attacks in August of 1998 and that of September 11, have brought our peoples 

closer than ever. 

Food aid is a critical short and long-term investment, just like the education that 

my parents wanted for me and my siblings. Food aid creates a healthy nation. A 

healthy nation is a productive society. I wouldn’t be here today, if it wasn’t for the 

nutritious food that I received during my primary and secondary education years 

in Tanzania. 

Since Tanzania qualified for debt relief in 2000 and started to provide free primary school education, enrolment has reached 85 percent. An additional 1.5 million 

students have joined primary schools. School feeding programs will contribute greatly to the improvement of attendance, academic achievement and the retention of 

students, especially girls. 

According to the World Food Program, only 190,000 Tanzanian children are benefiting from school feeding programs today. These are children from major cities in 

Tanzania. With 80 percent of Tanzanian living in rural areas, we need to figure out 

63

ways to reach children in those areas with food. The United States has provided 

tens of millions of dollars in food aid to Tanzania through the World Food Program 

in recent years. For a few of my middle school years in the 1980’s, the US provided 

$33 million dollars in mostly non-emergency food aid. If that did not end up in my 

bowl for lunch, it certainly did for some of my fellow Tanzanians. 

I am aware of the current debate about food aid reform. However, I will focus my 

suggestions on three items to make sure our emphasis is on helping hungry and 

poor children reach their full potential. Our programs should sustainably help people in need. Their welfare is our moral obligation and should be our top priority. 

Hunger, poverty and disease lead people into desperation. Food and education can 

give these people hope. I was happy to hear that the US has signed onto the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). The first goal is to cut hunger and extreme poverty in half by 2015. Much more needs to be done for this goal to be realized and 

you hold part of the key in making that a reality. 

My current work has involved me with the ONE Campaign. Two million Americans have also signed up with the goal of making poverty history. They are now 

asking President Bush and this Congress to provide an additional 1% of the federal 

budget towards the goal of ending hunger, poverty and disease. 

Bono of U2 compared this fight to that of ending apartheid or the civil rights 

struggle of the 1960’s. He said, ‘‘we have no room to fail, this is what the history 

books will remember our generation for—or blame us for.’’

But the ONE Campaign is far more than Bono traveling to Africa to highlight 

some development success stories on NBC News. Bread for the World, one of the 

founding partners of the ONE Campaign, is mobilizing people in churches and on 

college campuses across this country. They and others are engaging their elected officials to say reducing hunger, poverty and disease over there is an important issue 

over here. 

One of my hopes is that this Congress will keep President Bush’s promise to in- crease poverty-focused development assistance by $25 billion dollars over the next 

five years. In order to honor his word, and meet this goal that was established at 

the G8 Summit, Congress needs to approve a $5 billion dollar increase this year. 

My second hope is that this Congress will increase support for school feeding programs like the one that benefited me. The George McGovern-Bob Dole International 

Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program has proven itself a huge success. 

Your support for expanding this effective program that changes young lives is crucial. 

This committee was instrumental in authorizing the McGovern-Dole Program in 

the 2002 farm bill. I and others sincerely hope that you will play a leadership role 

in the next farm bill. School feeding is not the only solution to development problems, but it is one of the most proven and effective interventions for helping people 

help themselves. 

Finally, I would hope that this Congress would strengthen response mechanisms 

to international famine. Unfortunately, responses often come after images of starving children appear on television. The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, named 

after one of your former colleague and a true hero for the hungry, exists to prevent 

famine. Please assure that the Trust is sufficiently funded, with an automatic replenishment system. Currently the decision makers hesitate to use it, because the 

needs far exceed available resources. Also an international famine relief fund, under 

the auspices of the World Food Program, should be considered. 

Mr. Chairman, I am grateful for this opportunity to share my story and these 

thoughts. The decisions you make today affect the leaders of tomorrow in very real 

ways. I hope and pray that other children of Africa will have the opportunities that 

I have been given. 

Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Laizer, thank you very much for you testimony, 

and for your success story, which actually acts as an inspiration for 

all of us to do more, and thank you for spending your time with 

us this afternoon. Mr. Kripke. 

STATEMENT OF MR. GAWAIN KRIPKE, SENIOR POLICY 

ADVISOR, OXFAM AMERICA 

Mr. KRIPKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would really like to 

thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the staff of the Subcommittee for 

putting together this hearing. It is really important. It has also 

been very moving just to hear the testimony of my fellow panelists, 

64

and also to see the major challenges ahead of us in dealing with 

hunger and making food aid as effective as possible. 

I work for Oxfam American, which is an affiliate of the Oxfam 

Family. There are 12 Oxfams around the world, and we are involved in humanitarian and development work in over a hundred 

countries. 

We don’t take government money, although we are involved in 

food aid programs in Africa, or largely in Africa. We are an implementing agency with WFP, and we run our own food aid projects 

in many countries. 

I want to echo the comments of all the earlier panelists who have 

described the challenge, and the importance of food aid in addressing hunger, and also the significance that the U.S. plays in addressing that role. 

Americans are justifiably or should be justifiably proud of the 

U.S. contribution to food aid and to addressing hunger, and Congress should be proud of the commitment of resources that we have 

done. We are leading the way as has been abundantly described 

earlier. 

But being proud of it shouldn’t be a cause for complacency, because we are not even coming close to meeting the challenge that 

hunger is facing, acute hunger and chronic hunger, and our food 

aid programs could be a lot more effective at almost every level. 

The two main themes of my testimony I think is: (A) the need 

for more food aid and assistance generally; but (B) the need for better food aid, and better systems. I won’t dwell on the former because I think that has been described better than me by the testimony from USAID and the WFP. 

But I would like to focus a bit on the needs for reform of our food 

aid program to make it more effective, cost effective and flexible. 

The testimony from USAID, I think, was quite telling about the 

need for new tools and new flexibilities in our food aid program. 

Our food aid program is very effective, but that is despite many 

constraints put on the program legislatively and politically. As you 

know, we have a somewhat rigid program in that we can only provide U.S. sourced food and commodities, and provide the great majority of that in transport on U.S flagged ships. 

And I don’t want to dwell on the point, but there are very large 

costs to those kinds of constraints, and while I would not expect a 

radical reform in any short term, I think that this is the direction 

that Congress should be moving, and I would hope that the Subcommittee would seriously consider making steps in this direction. 

We need to make our food aid more flexible in order to make it 

more effective. What does the flexibility mean? Well, the flexibility 

means that we should be able to respond a lot quicker than we do. 

I have been talking to USAID staff recently about the long lead 

time that they need to have in order to provide food aid, but emergencies happen without much lead time, and we need to be a lot 

more flexible. 

Right now virtually 100 percent of our food aid has to be provided with this very long pipeline, very long requirements for planning, and it simply is not supple enough to address the needs. 

The flexibility would also make food aid cheaper. There have 

been some very good studies recently about the cost of providing 

65

food aid in the way that we do. OECD did a rather comprehensive 

study that showed that providing food aid through local or regional 

purchase has very significant savings associated with it. 

A 30 percent improvement in cost effectiveness if you buy it regionally, and a 50 percent increase in cost effectiveness if you buy 

it locally. That is a responsibility that we all should share in improving the program in terms of its costs, and our duty to taxpayers to get the most value. 

But also our duty to the beneficiaries to make sure that we are 

providing the most resource for our dollar to people who need it. 

The flexibility extends beyond food, I think, and again the testimony from USAID was instructive. 

That even hungry people have many other needs than food, and 

even hungry people may choose things other than food as their first 

priority. Oxfam right now is running some experiments in Southern Africa where we would traditionally run feeding programs, providing food rations to people where we have identified food in secure communities, and the most vulnerable people within those 

communities. 

But rather than distributing food rations, we are distributing the 

equivalent value in cash to households to see how those households 

would respond to having cash. And not surprisingly, most of those 

households do indeed use the cash to buy food. 

Approximately 88 percent of the cash is used to buy food products. The food is often better than what we would be providing, or 

rather to say it is more diverse. There is a better dietary diversity 

than what we would be providing if we were giving it to them. 

But what is really interesting is to look at the 11 or 12 percent 

of cash that is used for other purposes. When we surveyed the recipients on what did they use the cash for, they say things like 

farm implements, or school fees for their children, or medicines. 

You can imagine a family wanting to prioritize those things, even 

above food, for the next generation or for the next planting season, 

or for their health. And I think that this is instructive for all of 

us to think about the role that food aid plays, but also the limits 

that food provides, in terms of providing real assistance to people 

who need it. 

I want to say a little bit about the controversies around food aid 

at the WTO. I think there are a lot of misunderstandings about it, 

and I think there have been some concern that the WTO and the 

doha round could get it wrong. 

The negotiations started at sort of extreme positions, with the 

EU making very aggressive demands of U.S. reform, and the U.S. 

replying that it wasn’t willing to make changes. The controversy I 

think is a result of some misunderstandings. 

From our trading partners, I think they are looking at an old picture of food aid. As is described in many places, our food aid program is a legacy of our farm programs, our farm supports. But it 

really no longer is that closely tied to our farm supports. 

In the old days, we would have massive government surpluses, 

or stocks that we would need to dispose of. But our farm program 

doesn’t operate that way anymore. We don’t have government 

stocks. If we want to provide food aid, we actually have to go out 

and buy food in order to provide it as food aid, for the most part. 

66

So it is an on budget expense. It is not like free food that we just 

send overseas. And I think there is a lot of mythology about that, 

because since our food aid program historically was so tied to our 

farm subsidies, there is a sense that it is still a part of that. 

But I think demystifying our current food aid program is an important objective, and we have tried to do that. At the same time, 

there have been abuses and there still remains the legal possibility 

of abuses of food aid, using it to dump surplus stocks on other 

countries without a humanitarian or development purpose. 

And I think it is reasonable for the WTO to try to constrain that 

kind of abuse of the U.S. and of our trading partners, and many 

other countries are now getting involved in the food aid system, 

and so it is reasonable for us to have an interest in making sure 

that food aid is legitimate for the future. 

In the last 2 months a middle proposal has come forward from 

African countries and least developed countries, who have joined 

together to make a sort of compromise proposal on disciplines at 

the WTO. I think it is quite reasonable. Number one, it totally exempts emergency food aid from any rules that the WTO would provide; taking that whole concern that food aid would constrain emergency response off the table. 

We should not have to worry about that, and the WTO is not an 

appropriate agency to address emergency food aid. Beyond that for 

non-emergency food aid, there is a legitimate interest in making 

sure that it isn’t trade distorting. That it is targeted, and that it 

is effective. That it is provided not for donor interest, but for the 

interest of the beneficiaries. 

And the LDC African proposal makes some very modest suggestions on how to regulate food aid in that direction. So I would hope 

that Congress and also USTR would get into a more cooperative 

posture for these negotiations. First, because the negotiations 

themselves are very important, and secondly, because I think 

where we are going in those negotiations is not as scary as has 

been advertised. 

Looking at those negotiations on global food aid, I think we see 

some challenges, but also some opportunities. The WTO negotiations I think provides an opportunity for the United States to challenge other donors to carry more of the weight. We are the biggest 

contributor as we have said, and many other donors are coming 

into it, but they still are not filling their place. 

The United States is often by far the biggest donor of emergency 

relief, and in many places where 80 percent or higher levels of the 

donations, and we can’t get the EU to come in with support. 

So this is an opportunity for us to say, yes, we want to make 

some reforms. We are willing to accept a compromise, but in the 

process, we want to challenge our counterpart donors to come up 

with more. So that is one opportunity. 

But the other challenge is why is food aid in the WTO. Well, one 

of the reasons is that there isn’t very good multilateral governance 

in oversight of food aid, and the WTO is seen as an institution that 

has the capacity. But the other multilateral institutions are rather 

weak, and I think there is an opportunity before us, and a challenge, to create a better multilateral system for making commitVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:23 Sep 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\052506\27810.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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1 A discussion on the legal and historical underpinnings of the right to food can be found on 

the website of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, at: http://www.righttofood.org/ 2 Cook, C. D. (2004) Diet for a Dead Planet: How the Food Industry is Killing Us, New York: 

New York Press 

ments, and enforcing those commitments, and assuring best practices around food aid. 

And looking at the renegotiation of the Food Aid Convention is 

a big opportunity to do that, and so I would put that forward as 

an opportunity for Congress and the Administration to look to. 

The last thing that I want to say is something about the constraints that are on our food aid program. They are attributed to 

agri-business or our farm communities, but again I think there is 

a lot of mythology about it, and I think Congress, and even most 

farmers, would want to see more flexibility, because in the end the 

mission is so important to feed hungry people. The U.S. food aid program is in the range of $1–$2 billion annu- ally. U.S. farm production is $200 billion annually. This is a blip. 

It is tiny. It is insignificant as a contribution to consumption or exports. It really is not important. 

And we need to de-link our commercial interests from the fundamental mission of food aid, which is humanitarian and developmental purposes, and I think we are letting a mythology about food 

aid dictate our policy, when in fact it is really not significant as an 

economic matter for the United States, but critically important for 

humanitarian development purposes. 

So I just wanted to make that point that I think that this Committee in particular could serve a really important role in making 

that demystification and trying to prioritize the purposes of food 

aid over the operational constraints that are currently imposed 

upon it. Thank you very much, and I appreciate the opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kripke follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. GAWAIN KRIPKE, SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR, OXFAM

AMERICA

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Payne, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank 

you for the opportunity to present the views of Oxfam America at this hearing 

today. Oxfam appreciates the invitation and your interest in gathering a variety of 

perspectives on the critical issue of food aid. 

Oxfam America is an international development and relief agency committed to 

developing lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice. We are part of a confederation of 12 Oxfam organizations working together in more than 100 countries 

around the globe with an annual budget over $400 million dollars. 

1. THE IMPORTANCE OF FOOD AID. 

There is no more important issue facing this committee than the hunger and malnutrition which afflicts more than 840 million people across the globe. The numbers 

boggle the mind and are, quite simply, a human tragedy. In sub-Saharan Africa, as 

much as 30 percent of the population is undernourished. 

Reducing by half the proportion of people suffering from hunger by 2015 is a key 

target for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The right to food is enshrined in numerous international instruments, including the Universal Declaration 

on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural 

Rights, and many others.1 However, the world’s farmers produce more than enough 

food to fulfill the minimum caloric needs of humanity. According to the Food and 

Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in 2001 the total global food 

supply amounted to 2,800 calories and 76 grams of protein per person per day—

plenty to nourish the world’s population and remove chronic hunger.2

Yet fulfilling the right to food, achieving the Millennium Develop Goal 1, and reducing hunger is not as simple as redistributing food from countries producing surVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:23 Sep 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\AGI\052506\27810.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
68

3Webb, Patrick., ‘‘Food as Aid: trends, needs and challenges in the 21st century’’, World Food 

Program, 2004. 4 Barrett, C.B. and D.G. Maxwell (forthcoming), Food Aid After Fifty Years: Recasting Its Role, chapters 5 and 8. Routledge 5 Ibid., chapter 8

pluses to countries in deficit. A broad focus on poverty reduction, agricultural productivity, good governance, reduced conflict are needed to address hunger. 

However, many acute situations—wars, famine, and natural disasters—call for 

food aid as an essential tool. 

Unfortunately, the global food aid system needs improvement. Too often, food aid 

is not provided at the right time, at the right place, or in sufficient quantities. Despite great need, global food aid flows actually declined during the 1990s from a 

peak of 17m tons in 1993 to less than 10m tons today. In most years, donors fail 

to fulfill the World Food Program’s emergency appeals for assistance, providing an 

average of 85 per cent of requested food aid.3

Meeting the critical needs of people facing emergencies or dislocations is increasingly becoming the focus of US food aid. Emergency food aid is the largest portion 

of US and global food aid, currently accounts for more than two-thirds of all food 

aid. Faced with limited budgets, the composition of US food aid has been shifting 

toward emergency response in recent years. For decades, non-emergency, government-to-government, ‘‘program’’ food aid made up the bulk of food aid distribution. 

However, this kind of program food aid has declined in recent years. In cereal foods, 

it accounted for 58 per cent of the total from all donors between 1988 and 1991, 

but its share fell to 19 per cent from 2000 to 2003. Emergency food aid grew from 

18 per cent of global flows in the 1988–1991 period to 57 per cent in 2000–2003. 

The USA is by far the most generous donor of food aid. And this food aid is critically important for hundreds of thousands—even millions—of people around the 

globe. But we can not congratulate ourselves when so many continue to suffer food 

insecurity and hunger. Instead, Oxfam feels that Congress should urgently look at 

both increasing our overall commitment to food aid, and also examining reforms to 

improve the effectiveness of food aid. 

2. THE NEED FOR MORE, AND FOR BETTER FOOD AID. 

US food aid provides a critical lifeline for hungry people. But Congress should 

consider increasing the overall amount of resources available, and also consider important reforms to improve the effectiveness of US food aid. 

On the other hand, increasing the US commitment on food aid should be complemented with reforms to maximize the value of taxpayer dollars. Currently, the 

US food aid programs are encumbered by restrictions and requirements that waste 

resources and undermine the mission of helping to feed people in need. 

A major obstacle is Congressional requirements that food aid be exclusively American commodities sent on US-flagged ships. To comply with Congressional restrictions, the government restricts bids for sales of surplus agricultural commodities to 

a limited list of pre-qualified US-based agribusiness companies. The US also has a 

cargo preference requirement that mandates 75 per cent of all food aid transport 

be handled by shipping companies carrying the US flag. 

These restrictions add enormous costs and delays to the US food aid. The cargo 

preference requirement adds as much as 78 percent to the cost of shipping. The 

added costs mean that procurement, storage, and shipping can eat as much as 50 

percent of food aid budgets.4

Instead, virtually all US food aid donations are made in the form of food commodities. Although the US and other humanitarian agencies have created effective food 

aid programs around these commodities, there is little humanitarian or development 

justification for donating in commodities rather than in cash. Indeed, there are 

strong arguments to the contrary. 

First, cash is usually faster. In humanitarian emergencies, where weeks or even 

days can mean the difference between life and death, there is no excuse for delay. 

It can take months from the date of a procurement order for food aid to be delivered 

to port. US emergency shipments experienced a median lag of nearly five months 

in 1999–2000, due to bureaucracy and cumbersome procurement restrictions—and, 

of course, the need to ship food over long distances.5 By contrast, cash can be used 

to procure food locally or regionally, in close proximity to the places it is needed. 

In most cases (though not all), purchasing food closer to its intended destination reduces the time delay. 

Cash gives decision-makers more flexibility in addressing emergencies. 

Second, cash is cheaper. The inefficiency of sending food over long distances, with 

restrictive procurement and shipping requirements, means that funds are spent on 

69

6 Clay, E., in collaboration with B. Riley and I. Urey (2004) ‘The Development Effectiveness 

of Food Aid and the Effects of its Tying Status’, OECD Development Assistance Committee, 21 

October 2004, (DCD/DAC/EFF(2004)9) 8 Consultative Sub-Committee on Surplus Disposal: Thirty-Ninth Report to the Committee on 

Commodity Problems, 64th Session, Rome, 18–21 March 2003

bureaucracy, process, and shipping rather than on the food and its distribution. In 

fact, according to a study by the OECD, shipping food from donor countries is 33 

per cent more expensive than buying it from a third-party country (usually closer 

to the destination) and 46 per cent more expensive than buying it locally in the destination country.6 Purchasing food locally is not always possible—but it often is. 

Third, cash can be used to procure better, or more appropriate, aid. Rather than 

limiting food aid to commodities available in donor countries, cash can be used to 

procure food that is more appropriate to local conditions and tastes. In the past, 

there have been serious mismatches between food aid donations and recipient needs. 

There are many anecdotal examples of food aid donations that require unfamiliar 

preparation or impose new burdens on recipients through introduction of exotic 

foods that are not well suited to local conditions. Some food aid packages can require more cooking time, for instance, requiring recipients to expend more time and 

energy collecting firewood. Donors should attempt to ensure that food aid supports 

and enhances longer-term development. 

Cash can also be used to flexibly to purchase things other than food. Even for 

hungry people, food is not always their highest priority. In recent months, Oxfam 

has been experimenting with making cash transfers in emergencies rather than distributing food rations. In southern Africa, Oxfam identified communities with significant food deficits, affected by poor rains, but where food was available in local 

markets. Oxfam targeted identified households with few assets, and high vulnerability. Rather than distribute food rations, Oxfam provided cash transfers. While 

final results of these experiments are being evaluated, the results are both encouraging and intriguing. One, we find that recipients spend most of the money on 

food—88 percent in early surveys. Oxfam found indications that the dietary diversity increases with cash rather than food distribution. Cash not used for food was 

spent on useful household expenses including farm implements and medicines. Final 

results from these experiments will be available soon. 

Providing cash, rather than commodities, is a much more flexible tool, and permits more creative responses to emergencies. Many countries have already begun 

shifting food aid donations from commodities to cash, and most donors have taken 

steps to decouple food aid policy from commodity surpluses. Some, like the EU, have 

taken steps to provide more flexibility in the use of food aid budgets, permitting 

more use of food aid funds to purchase commodities in local or regional markets. 

Last year, Canada announced that up to 50 percent of Canada’s food aid will be 

available for purchase in developing countries. In January, President Bush proposed the make up to $300 million of the US food 

aid budget available for purchase of food in developing countries. Providing this 

flexibility could be a major improvement of the US food aid program. Tying food aid 

to US commodities and services really makes little difference to our economy. Food 

aid is a small fraction of total US food exports: 5.1m tonnes in food aid in 2002, 

while its total cereals exports were 82m tonnes.8 On the other hand, providing the 

flexibility to purchase food from developing countries could serve as a major boost 

to their agriculture sectors and long-term food security. Even in Africa, while some 

countries face food crises, other countries enjoy food surpluses. some of The gross 

impact of food aid for donors—including the USA—is certainly small. But it can 

have significant impacts on smaller economies and on the poor farmers who rely on 

local markets for their livelihoods. 

3. FOOD AID AND TRADE NEGOTIATIONS. 

If all food aid contributions were made in unrestricted cash donations, there 

would be little or no controversy around food aid. Certainly, there would be little 

concern about its trade-distorting impacts. If contributions were made in unrestricted cash, the WFP, governments, and NGOs could purchase food on open commercial markets and distribute it to hungry people as quickly and efficiently as possible. 

Food aid has become a controversial issue in the Doha Round trade negotiations. 

At the WTO, other countries are calling for new rules to regulate possible abuses 

of food aid. The primary target of these rules has been the US food aid program. 

In theory, food aid is potentially trade-distorting, and food aid will satisfy consumer demand whenever it is distributed. In places where people are simply too 

poor to purchase food, or where there is no functioning market, there is little or no 

70

7Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), searchable database, 

FAOSTAT On-Line Statistical Service, at: http://earthtrends.wri.org/searchableldb/

index.cfm?theme=8. FAO: Rome, 2004 9 ‘‘Joint Submission by the African and LDC Groups on Food Aid’’, 6 March 2006, WTO: TN/

AG/GEN/13

market distortion as any consumption will be additional. In other cases, food aid has 

the potential both to reduce domestic production of food in the recipient country, 

damaging the livelihoods of rural populations, and to displace exports into the recipient country market from other countries. 

Critics point out that there have been abuses of US food aid in the past, and note 

that commercial motives are explicitly included in some US food aid programs. Our 

trading partners are suspicious of US motives in food aid. This is because some US 

food aid programs retain commercial and geopolitical objectives rather than humanitarian goals. The USA remains the biggest user of food aid (Title I)—that is government-to-government transfers, mostly in the form of concessional sales. There is 

poor linkage of this food aid with anti-hunger or poverty goals and yet there is 

strong evidence that this kind of food aid does, indeed, crowd out other commercial 

exporters. While the use of this type of food aid has declined in recent years, there 

were large spikes as recently as the late 1990s, when the US made large shipments 

to Russia. 

One reason our trading partners are seeking to use the WTO negotiations to regulate food aid is the weakness of oversight institutions on food aid. The Consultative 

Subcommittee on Surplus Disposal (CSSD) is hosted by the FAO and is made up 

of both donor and recipient governments. While the CSSD has little real enforcement authority, it has served as a reporting and oversight body, as well as a forum 

for complaints about food aid abuses. However, reporting of food aid transactions 

under the CSSD has been notoriously poor in recent years. While in 1991 average 

reporting rates were nearly 80 per cent of transactions, by 2001 they had dropped 

to a record low of just 4 per cent.7

Another oversight body, the Food Aid Convention (FAC) is meant to enhance the 

capacity of the international community to respond to emergencies by guaranteeing 

a predictable flow of food aid each year irrespective of fluctuations in price or supply. The agreement has been periodically updated and revised, and was scheduled 

to be re-negotiated in 2002. However, negotiations on a new FAC have been put on 

hold pending action on food aid disciplines at the WTO. Like the CSSD, the FAC 

lacks a binding enforcement or dispute settlement mechanism. While both the CSSD 

and the FAC offer some help, neither is adequate to instigate reform or impose the 

discipline needed on food aid. 

On the whole, new rules at the WTO should be seen as a possible benefit for food 

aid. Oxfam feels they could help to focus and improve food aid programs while eliminating abuses and inefficiency. Many developing countries agree. 

In March, the African Group and the least-developed-country group submitted a 

proposal to regulate food aid under the WTO9. The proposal would exempt emergency food aid from any WTO regulation. But, for non-emergency food aid, the proposal would require food aid to be in grant form, remove commercial interests from 

food aid programs, and prohibit market development objectives for donors. In addition, the African and LDC groups would restrict monetization to fund activities directly related to the provision of food aid or for procurement of agricultural inputs. 

These seem like reasonable and modest reforms. 

4. RECOMMENDATIONS

Oxfam believes that food aid is essential to humanitarian response. But Congress 

should take steps to increase and improve US food aid programs.

A. Congress should increase food aid budgets to $2 billion annually.

B. Congress should approve President Bush’s request to make up to $300 million available for local or regional purchase of food.

C. The US should seek to reform and reinvigorate the Food Aid Convention 

to provide strong governance, best practice guidelines, and enforce commitments of food aid contributions.

Thank you again for this chance to share Oxfam’s perspective. 

In keeping with clause 2(g)(4) of House Rule XI, I affirm that Oxfam America does 

not receive any Federal grant funding. 

For more information, see www.maketradefair.com and Oxfam America’s website: 

www.oxfamamerica.org.

71

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Kripke, thank you very much, and for your guidance on something that people have not paid enough attention to 

here on the Hill, or at least I don’t think we have. So thank you 

for that, and especially as it relates to the USTR, and as you pointed out, demystifying or getting rid of those myths that continue to 

abound. Your points were very well taken. 

I do have just a few questions before we conclude, and any final 

comments that any of you might have. Fist of all to Mr. Callahan, 

last January I traveled with a delegation to Phuket and Banda 

Aceh, and then actually met with Cardinal McCarrick and Mr. 

Hackett in Sri Lanka. 

And they brought forth some very disturbing news that while the 

U.S. Government kept increasing its amount of money for emergency assistance, it was a zero sum gain. It was being derived from 

Africa mostly, with a very unsure flow as to whether or not that 

money would be replenished. 

And it was taken from Education, and it was taken from food, 

security, and you pointed out in your testimony that there needs 

to be a $500 million core for multi-year programs to address the 

needs so that we do not ‘‘rob Peter to pay Paul.’’ Could you just 

elaborate on why the $500 million is necessary, and why that is a 

critical amount? 

And how often does this happen in your view, and of other panelists as well, where money is taken to meet an emergency, and then 

it is a big coin toss as to whether or not that money is replenished? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. Certainly. Basically, what we did is some research back on what we were actually spending as the U.S. Government over the last several years on food aid, and where that 

was going. We were then trying to see how many of our programs 

we could sustain. 

I think the example that you bring up with the tsumani is a very 

good one. When the tsumani hit, the country that responded the 

quickest and the best was actually India in a lot of the responses 

that went on. 

Part of that was that it has a long term developmental food aid 

program, and people were on the ground within hours being able 

to provide emergency assistance, and being able to provide food aid, 

and what food aid has provided in many of these cases is a multisectorial platform in which we can do many activities. 

Often times we earmark funding for something. McGovern-Dole 

is very good, but as well when you have the PL 480 Title II, you 

can do education, and you can do agriculture, and you can do 

microfinance. You can do health. It is a combination, a holistic and 

integral human development program. 

So we see the cut in development programs actually hurting our 

ability as a nation and as humanitarians to respond to emergencies 

because we won’t have that basis there. We won’t have the resources in the countries in which we need to respond to emergencies when they hit at that time. 

And then we will be forced to do this either purchase or shipment at a later date, which will cause us to be slower in our response. So we basically took what was going on in some of the development programs currently, and did a proportion of that, and 

not the entire need, seeing that our European friends and others 

72

in Asia and other places should contribute, but that we really saw 

that you could predict a little bit better the emergencies. 

I know that there was some hesitation from the earlier AID person on what the emergencies are, and looking at the Sudan, and 

looking at Afghanistan, and looking at Iraq, and some of these 

other places, we don’t see a decline in the emergencies coming up, 

and that we need to protect that development in food aid. 

Mr. SMITH. Both Oxfam and the Catholic Relief Services, you 

both suggested that we increase food aid budgets to $2 billion annually. Do you see that as a floor or a ceiling? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. We actually see it as a floor. We are saying that 

60 percent is only part of the total need, only reaching between 10 

and 15 percent of those most in need. If there were more resources 

available, we could reach out to more people, but we do see it as 

a floor right now. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Mr. Kripke. 

Mr. KRIPKE. Well, I think it has to be seen as an aspiration given 

the way that the budgets are right now. So Oxfam wants to align 

itself with the goal for increasing food aid, but also recognize that 

within budgets that we have that we need to improve less time, 

and that there are tradeoffs in how food aid is conducted. 

But overall, yes, we do need an increase. Food aid is shifting 

rather rapidly, and the humanitarian emergency responses are taking a larger and larger portion, not just of U.S. food aid, but of food 

aid globally. This is in response to increased demand for that. 

So there is less and less of this sort of development side available, and I have to say that I think it is the right priority. We need 

to address humanitarian emergencies, but it would be useful to 

have more funds available. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask Mr. Laizer. The Tanzanian Government for years maintained a collectivist type of approach, and obviously the droughts exacerbate the situation no matter what approach is utilized. 

We have long argued that good governance is really—we all remember the five plans of the former Soviet Union, and the catastrophic impact that had. What is the government doing now with 

regards to agriculture to become self-sustainable? 

Mr. LAIZER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, the President 

of Tanzania was in the United States less than a week ago, and 

in one of the meetings that I attended, he did speak about agriculture and the role of agriculture in Tanzania. 

Eighty percent of the Tanzanian population lives in rural areas, 

and relies on agriculture. The problem has been that people rely 

mostly on just rain for their food production, and when you have 

4 years straight when there isn’t good enough rain to grow the 

crops and everything, we ended up falling in the problem that we 

are having right now with 3.2 million people needing extra food. 

Tanzania qualified for the MCA recently as well, and the threshold, and another thing that we are dealing with is this issue of corruption and good governance, and a lot of things have been addressed and are being addressed by the new government. 

I believe as the South African President has said, that Africa is 

going through a renaissance, and Tanzania is one of those counVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:23 Sep 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\052506\27810.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
73

tries that is doing very well, and growing at almost 7 percent economically a year, and with a good government in place. 

So I am hoping that in 2, 3, or 4 years that we won’t be sitting 

here discussing this issue, but we would be talking more about 

computer software and building, and high employment rates. So I 

am hoping and looking forward to that much better. 

Mr. SMITH. When we marked up Henry Hyde’s legislation, the 

PEPFAR legislation, which was eventually enacted into law, the 

President’s initiative, several of our witnesses earlier today spoke 

to the importance of having proper nutrition as a component of 

good anti-retroviral intervention. 

Is it your view that PEPFAR, and the Global Fund as well, has 

sufficiently incorporated the importance of nutrition into their programming? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. Maybe to start, Mr. Chairman. From a CRS perspective, I would have to say categorically no. The funding for 

many of the initiatives in the PEPFAR, particularly the ARV portion, is directed specifically for ARV. 

In the countries in which we work, and we have a nine country, 

$335 million AIDS relief program, and I was most recently 2 weeks 

ago in Nigeria, there is a call coming out strongly for nutrition to 

be added to these. 

There is a recognition from CDC, and there is a recognition from 

the local missions, and the comment is that if you can get that 

someplace else, that is great. Our money is targeted directly to 

ARV. So we have been finding a problem in that. 

There has been some funding in Zambia and in Southern Africa, 

and in looking at ways of using and somehow combining some food 

aid or local purchase in different ways in supporting the AIDS relief type of programs, and the ARVs. But to date the coordination 

has not been there to the degree that it is necessary. 

Mr. SMITH. Could I ask you before going to the other witnesses, 

does that fall, the responsibility fall to the local mission, or is it essential planning that is lacking in terms of integrating the two? 

Mr. LAIZER. I would say that it is probably both. I think what 

ended up with the PEPFAR initiative in many of the cases is numbers needed to be met, and numbers have been met and exceeded. 

What ends up being cut are the wrap around services and packages, and how much counseling, food aid, and nutrition, and things 

of that nature. 

So I think at the central level certainly the office of OGAG 

should push it and then provide the resources to the local missions. 

Mr. SMITH. Could you provide us additional information on that, 

especially on the countries that CRS is involved in? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes? 

Mr. LAIZER. For Tanzania, what I know is that 400,000 people 

absolutely need ARV right now, but only 26,000 people are receiving it. So I think the focus of the government has been more or less 

to reach the 400,000 people, and then maybe at some other point 

to deal with the nutritional side of the issue, which I think something needs to be done now, at least for the 26,000 people. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. KRIPKE. I am afraid I don’t have a comment on that. 

74

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Do you have anything further you would like 

to add before we conclude? Oh, if I could, Mr. Callahan, the Global 

Fund. What is your take on how they have integrated nutrition 

with the anti-retroviral and other interventions? 

Mr. CALLAHAN. To be honest with you, in many of the countries 

in which we have been working, the Global Fund was a little slower in getting going than the President’s initiative. The President’s 

initiative got out there and pushed the numbers, and it was going. 

In the Global Fund, there has been a mix, depending on the different country. In certain areas, it relates well with an already developed program from private voluntary organizations and others, 

and in others, it is not integrated quite as well, and so it would 

depend on a country by country basis on how that is working. 

Mr. SMITH. If you have any additional data that you could provide for the record, we would appreciate it. 

Mr. CALLAHAN. We would be happy to. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you so much, all three of our very distinguished witnesses, for taking the time and for your patience as the 

hearing has gone on, but it is important to get as much information 

as possible, and then to know what further questions to ask going 

forward, and you have helped us immensely. 

We will be drafting legislation and it has been my experience, 

and I have been here 26 years, that we start with something and 

we won’t let up until it will eventually get passed, in whole or in 

part, and I hope in whole. So your insights and suggestions will be 

very much valued. So I thank you. 

Mr. CALLAHAN. And we thank you for your passion on this, too, 

Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:15 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(75)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

RESPONSES FROM THE HONORABLE TONY P. HALL, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE

UNITED NATIONS AGENCIES FOR FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, TO QUESTIONS SUB- MITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE BARBARA LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Question: 

Are you finding that food and nutrition programs are being integrated into ARV 

treatment programs either through PEPFAR or the Global Fund? 

Response: 

I find that these programs are being implemented very slowly, and that we have 

a tendency to look at this treatment through the eyes of Western healthcare systems. We need to do a lot more work in joining nutrition and the treatment of 

HIV/AIDS. These issues are very closely related, but so far the process has been 

very slow. 

Question: 

As the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture 

what was your mandate/goals for your tenure? As your term comes to an end what 

goals went unmet? 

Response: 

My goals were to feed as many people as I could, along with the World Food Program, and to represent my country in the developing nations where we are presenting our humanitarian aid. In addition, it was my goal to be a proper steward 

of our money and our food. The goal that was not met is that the United States 

as a nation, as well as all the other nations in the world, signed a commitment to 

cut in half the number of people going hungry by the year 2015. Unfortunately, we 

are not truly on track to reach that goal as of now. 

RESPONSES FROM MR. GAWAIN KRIPKE, SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR, OXFAM AMERICA, 

TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE BARBARA LEE, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Question: 

In FY2004, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) reports that 

transportation costs associated with the provision of U.S. commodities as food aid 

were $786.5 million, just over half of the funds allocated to P.L. 480 Title II that 

year. And right now it takes 4–6 months from a donation is made until the food aid 

is actually in the hands of the hungry. What is your opinion of allowing USAID to 

do emergency local/regional purchase and how could purchasing food locally benefit 

or hurt African Farmers? 

Response: 

Oxfam feels that using local and regional purchase as an option for our emergency 

food aid programs is a very welcome—even urgently needed improvement. USAID 

is currently very constrained by restrictions on sourcing and transport of food aid—

and these indeed result in long delays and enormous added expense. President Bush 

has proposed to make a portion of the food aid budget available for this kind of 

sourcing, and we believe Congress should support this proposal. Local and regional 

sourcing may not be the best option in every case—but it is important to provide 

more flexibility and gain more experience with this option. Other food aid donors 

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and agencies have successfully implemented local and regional purchase. There’s no 

reason the USA shouldn’t. 

Question: 

Impact on U.S. Farmers—U.S. Farmers argue that local purchase may impact 

their commodities; however, the top five food grains, ranked by quantity, produced 

in Africa in FY2004 were maize, sorghum, millet, barley, and cereals (unspecified) 

while the top five commodities provided in food aid to Africa under P.L. 480—Title 

II were wheat, sorghum, corn, corn-soy blend, and a combination of peas, beans, and 

lentils in FY2004. Is it a myth that purchasing food in the surrounding non-impacted areas will hurt U.S. farmers? 

Response: 

Oxfam believes that sourcing US food aid contributions exclusively from US commodities has a tiny impact on US farmers and agriculture markets. The amount of 

money and commodities involved is simply too small to make a significant difference. US farm production is in the range of $200 billion annually, while total food 

aid budgets are in the range of $1–2 billion. US farmers do not count on the US 

food aid program as a major market for their products now, if they ever did. The 

restrictions on the food aid program that require sourcing the food from the US impose large costs on food aid programs, in lost time and money. But, the benefits to 

US farmers are so small they can hardly be measured.

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