Global Food Security: U.S. Agencies Progressing on Governmentwide Strategy, but Approach Faces Several Vulnerabilities
Released: 2010-03-11T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Global Food Insecurity Persists, especially in Sub- Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Haiti

Currently, there are over 1 billion undernourished people worldwide, according to FAO. This number is greater than at any time since the 1996 World Food Summit, when world leaders first pledged to halve the number of the world’s hungry, and has been steadily increasing since the mid- 1990s, even before the food and fuel crisis of 2006 through 2008 and the current economic downturn. Based on FAO’s most recent data, Sub- Saharan Africa and South Asia had the most severe and widespread food insecurity as of 2004-2006. Outside these two regions, Haiti, the least developed country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest countries in the world, had extremely high levels of hunger and food insecurity, which have been further exacerbated by the January 2010 earthquake.

In absolute numbers, more hungry people lived in South Asia than in any other region, whereas the most concentrated hunger was found in sub- Saharan Africa, which had 16 of the world’s 17 countries where the prevalence of hunger was 35 percent or higher. The 17th country was Haiti, where 58 percent of the population lived in chronic hunger. According to FAO’s data for 2004-2006, since 1990, the proportion of undernourished people has declined from 34 to 30 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, from 25 to 23 percent in South Asia, and from 63 to 58 percent in Haiti. However, during this period, the actual number of undernourished people has increased: from 169 million to 212 million in sub-Saharan Africa, from 286 million to 337 million in South Asia, and from 4.5 million to 5.4 million in Haiti—a number that is likely to grow further due to the earthquake.

The United States and Other World Leaders Have Made Longstanding Commitments to Address Global Food Insecurity

In 1996, the United States and about 180 world leaders pledged to halve hunger by 2015. In 2000 they reaffirmed this commitment with the establishment of the UN Millennium Development Goals and, more recently, at the World Summit on Food Security held in Rome in November 2009. As shown in figure 2, both the international donor community and the U.S. government have undertaken a number of key initiatives over the years in their efforts to address global food insecurity. The global food price crisis in 2007 and 2008 spurred new initiatives to address the growing prevalence of hunger.

U.S. Agencies Work with Numerous Development Partners to Advance Global Food Security

In their efforts to advance global food security, U.S. agencies work with numerous development partners. These include host governments, multilateral organizations, and bilateral donors, as well as other entities such as NGOs, philanthropic foundations, private sector organizations, and academic and research organizations. Their roles and types of activities include the following: Host governments. At the country level, host governments generally lead the development of a strategy for the agricultural sector and the coordination of donor assistance. They typically issue a poverty reduction strategy paper that outlines their country development plans and a national action plan to alleviate poverty, both elements considered indicators of national ownership of the development approach. Donors are committed under the Paris Declaration to align their assistance with national development strategies of the host country. Host governments may also participate in efforts at the regional level. For example, in 2003, members of the African Union endorsed the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), a framework that is aimed to guide agricultural development efforts in African countries, and agreed to allocate at least 10 percent of government spending to agriculture by 2008.

Multilateral organizations. Several multilateral organizations and international financial institutions implement a variety of programs in the areas of agricultural development and food security. IFAD and other international financial institutions play a large role in providing funding support for agriculture. Together, the World Bank, IFAD, and the African Development Bank accounted for about 73 percent of multilateral official development assistance to agriculture from 1974 to 2006 in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, the New York-based UN Development Program is responsible for supporting the implementation of the UN Millennium Development Goals. In September 2009, the Group of 20 (G20) countries asked the World Bank to establish a multidonor trust fund to support the L’Aquila initiative to boost support for agriculture and food security. As of January 2010, the World Bank board approved the establishment of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program Trust Fund, which the World Bank will administer. According to Treasury officials, the fund will be operational by the middle of 2010.

Bilateral donors. Major bilateral donors include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States, among others. At the G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy, in July 2009, and the subsequent G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in September 2009, major donor countries and the European Commission pledged to significantly increase aid to agriculture and food security. According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, since the mid-1980s, aid to agriculture has fallen by half, but recent trends indicate a slowdown in the decline, and even the prospect of an upward trend. From 2002-2007, bilateral aid to agriculture increased at an average annual rate of 5 percent in real terms. Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development data show that in 2006-2007, development assistance countries’ bilateral aid commitments to agriculture amounted to $3.8 billion, a little more than half of the L’Aquila commitment on an annual basis.

Other entities. Other entities such as NGOs, philanthropic foundations, private sector organizations, and academic and research organizations— often working in partnership—also play a significant role in supporting food security and agricultural development in developing countries. For example, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which was established in 2006 with initial funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, has entered into a partnership with the New Partnership for African Development to help link African government commitments to agricultural development with programs in seeds, soil health, market access, and policy. U.S. land-grant colleges and universities—institutions of higher education which receive federal support for integrated programs of agricultural teaching, research, and extension—sponsor fellowships for students from developing countries. Additionally, some of these colleges and universities may have partnerships with research organizations, such as the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, including the International Food Policy Research Institute, the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, and the International Livestock Research Institute.

The U.S. Government Supports a Broad Array of Programs and Activities for Global Food Security, but Lacks Comprehensive Funding Data

While the U.S. government supports a broad array of programs and activities for global food security, it lacks comprehensive funding data on these programs and activities. We found that it is difficult to readily determine the full extent of such programs and activities and to estimate precisely the total amount of funding that the U.S. government as a whole allocates to global food security. In response to our data collection instrument, 7 of the 10 agencies reported providing monetary assistance for global food security based on the working definition we developed for this purpose with agency input. USAID, MCC, Treasury, USDA, State, USTDA, and DOD directed at least $5 billion in fiscal year 2008 to programs and activities that we define as addressing global food insecurity, with food aid accounting for about half of this funding. However, the actual total level of funding is likely greater. The agencies were unable to provide us with comprehensive funding data due to (1) a lack of a commonly accepted governmentwide operational definition of what constitutes global food security programs and activities as well as reporting requirements to routinely capture data on all relevant funds, and (2) weaknesses in some agencies’ management systems for tracking and reporting food security funding data comprehensively and consistently.

USAID and USDA Reported Providing the Broadest Array of Global Food Security Programs and Activities, while USAID and MCC Reported Providing the Largest Amounts of Funding

Among agencies that support global food security programs and activities, USAID and USDA reported providing the broadest array of such programs and activities, while USAID and MCC reported providing the largest amount of funding in fiscal year 2008. To examine the types and funding levels of these programs and activities as comprehensively as possible, we sent a data collection instrument to the 10 agencies that participated in the 2008 Food Security Sub-PCC: DOD, MCC, OMB, the Peace Corps, State, Treasury, USAID, USDA, USTDA, and USTR. In this instrument, we asked the agencies to indicate what types of food security activities they performed in fiscal year 2008 and the funding levels associated with them. We had to develop a working definition of food security because there is no commonly accepted governmentwide operational definition that specifies the programs and activities that are food security-related. We developed our working definition based on a framework of food security-related activities that we established in a prior GAO report and a series of interactions with the relevant agencies over a period of several months. Our interactions with the agencies focused on refining the definition to ensure that it would be commonly understood and applicable to their programs and activities to the extent possible. The working definition that we developed included the following elements: food aid, nutrition, agricultural development, rural development, safety nets, policy reform, information and monitoring, and future challenges to food security. We asked the agencies to indicate which of these activities they performed and to provide funding data—when these data were available and reliable—on the appropriations, obligations, expenditures, and other allocations associated with these activities in fiscal year 2008. We pretested the instrument with officials at DOD, MCC, State, USAID, and USDA, and distributed it electronically in June and July 2009. All 10 agencies responded to our instrument and 7 of them (DOD, MCC, State, Treasury, USAID, USDA, and USTDA) reported funding data.

In addition, the instrument gave the agencies the option to indicate whether they were involved in other types of food security assistance and if so, to describe them. Figure 3 summarizes the agencies’ responses on the types of global food security programs and activities and table 1 summarizes the funding levels. (The agencies are listed in order from highest to lowest amount of funding provided.)

Our analysis of the agencies’ responses to the data collection instrument shows that USAID, MCC, Treasury (through its participation in multilateral development institutions), USDA, and State are the agencies providing the highest levels of funding to address food insecurity in developing countries. These agencies’ food security assistance, as reported in response to our instrument, can be summarized as follows: USAID. In addition to providing the bulk of U.S. foreign assistance targeting global food insecurity, USAID supports more types of programs and activities in this area than any other agency. The two types of USAID assistance with the highest funding are the delivery of food aid and the promotion of food security by stimulating rural economies through broad- based agricultural growth. According to USAID’s most recent International Food Assistance Report, the agency provided almost $2 billion for emergency food aid in fiscal year 2008. In addition, in response to our instrument, USAID reported about $500 million in funding for agricultural development and other global food security-related programs and activities in that year. USAID’s funding for agriculture would increase significantly under the administration’s fiscal year 2010 budget request to double U.S. assistance for global food security and agricultural development from the fiscal year 2009 request level.

Millennium Challenge Corporation. MCC was established in 2004 and provides eligible developing countries with grants designed to support country-led solutions for reducing poverty through sustainable economic growth. MCC offers two kinds of monetary assistance: (1) compacts, which are large, multiyear grants to countries that meet MCC’s eligibility criteria in the areas of good governance, economic freedom, education, health, and natural resource management; and (2) threshold programs, which are smaller grants awarded to countries that come close to meeting these criteria and are committed to improving their policy performance. According to MCC, as of March 2009, it had obligated nearly $3.2 billion to strengthen the agricultural and rural economies in poor countries to promote reliable access to sufficient, safe, and affordable food. For fiscal year 2008, MCC reported funding obligations of about $912 million for multiyear compacts.

Treasury. Treasury is the lead agency responsible for U.S. participation in the multilateral development banks. It provides funding for agricultural development through the leveraging of its contributions to the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and Fund for Special Operations, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and World Bank. A representative from Treasury’s Office of International Affairs serves in a leadership role as a member of IFAD’s Board of Directors. Treasury reported that in fiscal year 2008 the total financing for public and private sector investments in agricultural development, including rural development and policy reform, from the multilateral development banks was $4.9 billion. We estimate that the U.S. share of this financing is $817 million, including $358 million in highly concessional loans and grants to the world’s poorest countries and $459 million in loans to middle-income and creditworthy low-income developing countries.

USDA. USDA provides nonemergency food aid, as well as technical and nutritional assistance focusing on agricultural development and vulnerable groups. USDA reported $540 million in food security-related funding in fiscal year 2008, including $530.5 million dedicated to food aid programs— namely, Food for Progress and the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program—and the emergency food commodity reserve known as the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust. The remaining amount is used for various technical assistance programs, such as the Cochran and Borlaug fellowships supporting international exchanges to facilitate agricultural development.

State. State’s primary role with regard to food security is to coordinate international communication, negotiations, and U.S. government policy formulation. The President has asked the Secretary of State to lead the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative. A number of State’s bureaus and offices perform duties specific to their expertise that help promote global food security. For example, State’s Bureau of Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs, with assistance from the Office of Policy Planning and others, is involved in the effort to develop a whole-of-government strategy to promote global food security. The Bureau’s Office of Multilateral Trade and Agriculture Affairs assists with food security policy coordination, works toward a successful conclusion of the Doha Round of trade talks in the World Trade Organization, and promotes the removal of export restrictions on agricultural products and the reduction in trade barriers to agricultural biotechnology. The Bureau of International Organizations coordinates U.S. policy towards and participation in FAO and the World Food Program. The Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration coordinates with the World Food Program and USAID regarding food assistance and food security for refugees and other populations of concern. The Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and Science works bilaterally and multilaterally to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives in such areas as the sustainable use of natural resources, protection of biodiversity and wildlife, adaptation to climate change, harnessing of science and technology, and improvements to human health. State’s Office of the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance (State/F) coordinates State and USAID budgets, while the Office of Conflict Prevention acts as the secretariat for the funding of reconstruction and stabilization projects through the use of DOD Section 1207 funds. State reported providing about $168 million for food security programs and activities in fiscal year 2008.

The other five agencies that responded to our data collection instrument are involved in supporting global food security initiatives in different ways. USTDA and DOD provide some food security-related monetary assistance. For fiscal year 2008, USTDA reported providing more than $9 million for agriculture, rural development, and other types of food security assistance, and DOD’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) reported more than $8 million in funding for global food security-related activities that were part of disaster relief and humanitarian assistance efforts. The Peace Corps estimates that many of its volunteers serving in developing countries address the issues of hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity, but did not report any funding data. While USTR does not support any food security programming, it is engaged in interagency consultations and has recently created an interagency subcommittee at the Trade Policy Staff Committee to coordinate trade policy elements of the administration’s global food security initiative. The 10th agency, OMB, participates in the interagency process as part of its mission to help formulate the administration’s budget and to advise the White House and other components of the Executive Office of the President on the resources available to support the development of new food security initiatives. (For a more extensive description of the 10 agencies’ food security-related programs and activities, see app. III.)

The Agencies Did Not Report Comprehensive Funding Information Due to Incomplete Data and Inadequate Data Management Systems

Comprehensive data on the total amount of funding dedicated to global food security programs and activities by the whole of the U.S. government are not readily available. In response to our data collection instrument, the agencies providing monetary assistance for global food security reported directing at least $5 billion in fiscal year 2008 to programs and activities that we define as addressing global food insecurity, with food aid accounting for about half of this funding. However, the actual total level of funding is likely greater. We were only able to obtain these funding data and ascertain their reliability through repeated inquiries and discussions with the agencies over a 6-month period. The estimate does not account for all U.S. government funds targeting global hunger and food insecurity. The agencies did not provide us with comprehensive funding data because they lack (1) a commonly accepted governmentwide operational definition of global food security programs and activities as well as reporting requirements to routinely capture data on all relevant funds, and (2) data management systems to track and report food security funding comprehensively and consistently. For example, the estimate does not include funding for some of USAID’s food security-related activities, some U.S. contributions to international food security organizations, or funding for relevant programs of agencies that did not participate in the Food Security Sub-PCC, and were, therefore, outside the scope of our audit, such as nutritional assistance implemented as part of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. In addition, the agencies used different measures, such as planned appropriations, obligations, expenditures, and, in Treasury’s case, U.S. contributions to multilateral development banks, which made it difficult to arrive at a precise estimate.

Incomplete Funding Data Due to Lack of a Commonly Accepted Governmentwide Operational Definition and Reporting Requirements

The agencies reported incomplete funding data due to a lack of a commonly accepted governmentwide operational definition of what constitutes global food security programs and activities as well as a lack of reporting requirements to routinely capture data on all relevant funds. An operational definition accepted by all U.S. agencies would enable them to apply it at the program level for planning and budgeting purposes. Because food security is an issue that cuts across multiple sectors, it can be difficult to define precisely what constitutes a food security-related program or activity, or to distinguish a food security activity from other development activities. Principal planning documents, even at the agencies with the highest levels of funding, have not recognized food security as a distinct program area. For example, as State noted in a written response to our data collection instrument, State’s and USAID’s Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2007 to 2012, the most recent guidance that sets these agencies’ priorities, does not use the term “food security.”

We also found that the Foreign Assistance Coordination and Tracking System (FACTS) database, which State and USAID use to collect and report data on the U.S. foreign assistance that they implement, provides limited guidance for identifying food security programs and activities. The organization of the FACTS database reflects the four levels of the standardized program structure of U.S. foreign assistance: objectives, program areas, elements, and subelements. USAID could identify subelements whose definitions included food security activities. After extensive discussions with USAID, we selected 13 subelements as primarily containing food security programs and activities and added up funding levels associated with these subelements to estimate USAID’s global food security assistance in fiscal year 2008. However, if subelements contained both food security and non-food security activities, USAID could not always isolate the former from the latter. We identified about $850 million in funding for 12 such subelements. For example, the subelement for livelihood support, infrastructure rehabilitation, and services, with $123 million in funding in fiscal year 2008, combines food aid activities, such as food for work, with other activities, such as education and income generation, but FACTS is currently not designed to readily identify what portion of the $123 million is related to global food security.

The lack of a commonly accepted governmentwide operational definition may also lead the agencies to either define food security very broadly or to not recognize food security-related activities as such. For example, in response to our instrument, USDA reported some of the activities supported by USDA’s Forest Service—such as the migratory bird and monarch butterfly habitat management—but did not explain how they were related to global food security. Conversely, DOD did not initially report any global food security-related programs and activities because food security is not recognized as part of DOD’s officially defined mission. However, in subsequent inquiries we established that some of DOD’s humanitarian assistance projects, such as those implemented by DSCA, have food security components. DOD officials acknowledged that the Combatant Commanders’ Initiative Fund and the Commanders’ Emergency Response Program likely support food security-related projects but did not provide us with relevant data. DOD’s involvement could be significant—for example, the Center for Global Development estimates that in 2007 DOD implemented 16.5 percent of U.S. development assistance—and DSCA’s $8.4 million for global food security-related projects likely represents only a portion of DOD’s total spending on food security-related activities.

Additionally, some agencies that support food security activities lack reporting requirements to routinely capture data on all relevant funds. For example, although the Peace Corps has adopted a Food Security Strategic Plan and estimates that about 40 percent of its volunteers contribute in some capacity to food security work through projects in agriculture, health, and environment, the agency did not report any funding information. In an interview, senior Peace Corps officials noted that, given the circumstances under which Peace Corps volunteers work and live, it is impossible to isolate what portion of volunteers’ time is spent on food security. Furthermore, according to these officials, the Peace Corps does not track what percentage of the organization’s budget is spent on supporting volunteers’ food security-related work.

Data Management Systems Are Inadequate for Tracking and Reporting Food Security Funding Comprehensively and Consistently

We found that some agencies’ data management systems are inadequate for tracking and reporting food security funding comprehensively and consistently. Most notably, USAID and State/F—which both use FACTS— failed to include a very large amount of food aid funding data in the FACTS database. In its initial response to our instrument, USAID, using FACTS, reported that in fiscal year 2008 the agency’s planned appropriations for global food security included about $860 million for Food for Peace Title II emergency food aid. However, we noticed a very large discrepancy between the FACTS-generated $860 million and two other sources of information on emergency food aid funding: (1) the $1.7 billion that USAID allocated to emergency food aid from the congressional appropriations for Title II food aid for fiscal year 2008, and (2) about $2 billion in emergency food aid funding reported by USAID in its International Food Assistance Report for fiscal year 2008. Officials at USAID and State/F were unaware of the discrepancy until we brought it to their attention. As of February 12, 2010, USAID had not updated FACTS to incorporate the missing information. In formal comments on a draft of this report, USAID and State officials attributed this discrepancy to the fact that Title II food aid supplemental appropriations had not been entered into FACTS because these were made fairly late in fiscal year 2008. USAID officials reported that the agency has checks in place to ensure the accuracy of the regular appropriations data entered by its overseas missions and most headquarters bureaus. However, the omission of the supplemental appropriation information for emergency food aid, which is USAID’s food security program with the highest level of funding, raises questions about the data management and verification procedures in FACTS, particularly with regard to the Food for Peace program, and seriously limits its capacity to track all food security funding.

In another example, in its initial response to our instrument, USDA provided us with conflicting data for the total amount of funding for its food security programs. In addition, the funding information USDA reported to us for the Food for Progress program differed from what was reported in the International Food Assistance Report for fiscal year 2008. USDA acknowledged and reconciled the conflicting data after repeated inquiries from us.

The implications of these data weaknesses will be discussed in the context of the development of a governmentwide global food security strategy in the next section of this report.

The Administration Is Developing a Governmentwide Global Food Security Strategy, but Efforts Are Vulnerable to Data Weaknesses and Risks Associated with the Host Country-Led Approach

Consistent with our 2008 recommendation, the current administration has taken a number of steps toward developing a U.S. governmentwide strategy for global food security, including improving interagency coordination at the headquarters level in Washington, D.C.; finalizing the main elements of the strategy; and identifying potential countries for assistance. Two interagency processes established in April 2009—the National Security Council (NSC) Interagency Policy Committee (IPC) on Agriculture and Food Security and the Global Hunger and Food Security (GHFSI) working team—are improving coordination among numerous agencies, particularly at headquarters. The strategy under development is embodied in the GHFSI Consultation Document that State issued in September 2009, which is being expanded and is expected to be released shortly, along with an implementation document and a results framework that will include a plan for monitoring and evaluation. The administration has identified a group of 20 countries around which to center GHFSI assistance in fiscal year 2011, including 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 4 in Asia, and 4 in the Western Hemisphere. However, the administration’s efforts are vulnerable to weaknesses in funding data as well as risks associated with the country-led approach. Currently, no single information database compiles comprehensive data on the entire range of global food security programs and activities across the U.S. government. The lack of comprehensive data on current programs and funding levels may impair the success of the new strategy because it deprives decision makers of information on all available resources, actual costs, and a firm baseline against which to plan. In addition, although the host country-led approach—a central feature of the forthcoming strategy—is promising, it is vulnerable to some risks. These include (1) the weak capacity of host governments; (2) limitations in the U.S. government’s own capacity to provide needed assistance to strengthen host governments’ capacity, as well as review host governments’ efforts and guide in-country activities, due to a shortage of expertise in agriculture and food security; and (3) difficulties of aligning donor assistance with host governments’ own strategies.

The Administration Is Making Progress toward Finalizing a Governmentwide Global Food Security Strategy

The Administration Has Established Interagency Coordination Mechanisms at the Headquarters Level to Facilitate the Development of a Governmentwide Strategy

Since 2009, to facilitate the development of a governmentwide global food security strategy, the administration has been taking steps to enhance coordination among the relevant entities and to ensure communication between policymakers and program implementers, particularly at the headquarters level in Washington, D.C. Two interagency coordination mechanisms are currently under way. These interagency coordination mechanisms, established in April 2009, are (1) the NSC/IPC on Agriculture and Food Security and (2) the State-led GHFSI working team, which have identified cross-cutting priorities and key areas of potential investment. (See figure 4.)

The IPC, which provides the opportunity for agencies to coordinate and integrate strategies, is led by the NSC’s Special Assistant to President and Senior Director for Development, Democracy, and Stabilization. Ten agencies participated in the IPC when it was initially established: USAID, MCC, Treasury, USDA, State, DOD, Peace Corps, USTDA, USTR, and OMB. These agencies previously participated in the Food Security Sub- PCC, which was created in May 2008 and dissolved in January 2009. Other agencies have since joined the IPC, including the Departments of Commerce and Labor, the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The GHFSI working team is developing the governmentwide strategy and coordinating the implementation of the initiative. The primary agencies participating in the GHFSI working team are State, USAID, USDA, MCC, Treasury, and USTR. The Secretary of State’s Chief of Staff leads the GHFSI effort and has been convening weekly meetings with relevant agency officials since April 2009 in support of this effort.

In addition, several agencies at headquarters, such as USAID and USDA, have established teams comprised of staff from different entities within the agency to coordinate their food security activities. USDA has recently named a coordinator for the global food security initiative in the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture. Furthermore, the administration is considering appointing a high-level U.S. food security coordinator to help clarify roles and responsibilities and facilitate improved coordination among the multiple agencies. Finally, a number of U.S. missions— including several in countries we visited during fieldwork—are organizing an interagency task force or working group to help coordinate efforts at the mission level, and some missions are considering designating a country coordinator position for GHFSI activities. In Bangladesh, for example, an active interagency food security task force meets at least biweekly and includes staff from USAID, State, and USDA, according to the USAID Mission Director, and the post is considering creating a GHFSI country coordinator position to coordinate the initiative’s activities in- country. Similarly, in Ethiopia, the USAID Mission Global Food Security Response Team was expanded to include DOD, the Peace Corps, State, various USAID units, and USDA, and the post is considering adding an initiative facilitator. Concurrent with these efforts, the administration continues to define the organizational structure within the executive branch to effectively manage U.S. support for the development and implementation of host country-led plans, links to regional activities, and GHFSI leadership and oversight.

The Administration Is Finalizing an Implementation Document and a Results Framework, and Moving Forward with Country Selection

Since April 2009, consistent with our recommendation in a 2008 report, the administration has taken a number of steps to develop the elements of a U.S. governmentwide strategy to reduce global food insecurity— including an implementation document and a results framework—and is moving forward with selection of countries where GHFSI assistance will be focused. The administration’s actions reflect the President’s commitment, made in January 2009, to make the alleviation of hunger worldwide a top priority of this administration. In remarks to participants at a UN High-level Meeting on Food Security for All in Madrid, Spain, later that month, the Secretary of State reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to build a new partnership among donors, host governments in developing countries, UN agencies, NGOs, the private sector, and others to better coordinate policies to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals adopted in 2000. However, as U.S. agencies working on the strategy recognize, translating these intentions into well-coordinated and integrated action to address global food insecurity is a difficult task, given the magnitude and complexity of the problem, the multitude of stakeholders involved, and long-standing problems in areas such as coordination, resources, and in-country capacity.

The strategy is expected to be released shortly, according to senior U.S. officials. In September 2009, State and the GHFSI working team issued an initial draft of the strategy, known as the Consultation Document. The Consultation Document delineates a proposed approach to food security based on five principles for advancing global food security, as follows: 1. Comprehensively address the underlying causes of hunger and undernutrition. 2. Invest in country-led plans. 3. Strengthen strategic coordination. 4. Leverage the benefits of multilateral mechanisms to expand impacts. 5. Deliver on sustained and accountable commitments.

These principles reflect the approach endorsed in several recent multilateral venues, including the G8 L’Aquila joint statement, the UN Comprehensive Framework for Action, and the World Summit on Food Security declaration. To develop the Consultation Document, the administration engaged in a consultative process within the U.S. government and with the global community and other stakeholders through the NSC/IPC and the State-led GHFSI. The Consultation Document was posted on State’s Web site for input from a broad range of relevant entities. According to State, to date, the document has also been shared with more than 130 entities for input, including multilateral donors, NGOs, universities, philanthropic foundations, and private sector entities. Based on the input provided, the GHFSI working team is expanding the initial Consultation Document and expects to release it to the public shortly.

Furthermore, the GHFSI working team is developing an implementation document and a results framework for this initiative under development. According to the GHFSI working team, the effort to develop an implementation document has involved intensive interagency consultations and meetings with donors, such as FAO, the World Bank, and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, to discuss implementation “best practices,” the establishment of common global guidance on the development process, and reviews of country-led investment plans. Additionally, a number of U.S. missions overseas have submitted draft implementation plans for fiscal year 2010 that include staffing and budget resources required to achieve planned objectives in core investment areas. Absent a finalized governmentwide strategy, however, it is difficult to evaluate the subordinate implementation plans that field missions are submitting to ensure sufficient resource and funding levels. The GHFSI working team is also developing a whole-of- government results framework, which articulates specific objectives of the initiative as well as causal linkages between certain objectives, their intended results, and contribution to the overall goal. The results framework will be accompanied by a monitoring and evaluation plan, which identifies indicators to be used to report progress against planned outputs and outcomes. The framework has been externally reviewed by 10 experts, is now under review by U.S. government representatives in the field, and will be made available for public comment shortly, according to State and other members of the GHFSI working team.

The administration is moving forward with plans to select about 20 countries where GHFSI assistance efforts are concentrated. State’s Fiscal Year 2011 Congressional Budget Justification (CBJ) for the GHFSI identified 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 4 countries in Asia, and 4 countries in the Western Hemisphere on the basis of four criteria, as follows: 1. Prevalence of chronic hunger and poverty in rural communities. 2. Potential for rapid and sustainable agricultural-led growth. 3. Host government commitment, leadership, governance, and political will. 4. Opportunities for regional synergies through trade and other mechanisms.

According to the Consultation Document, the GHFSI focus countries will fall into two general categories: countries in the first phase that would benefit from technical assistance and capacity building to fully develop investment plans, and countries in the second phase with advanced national food security plans and already-established public and private capacities to enable successful plan implementation. Phase I countries will receive targeted assistance to generate a comprehensive national food security investment plan, including assistance to increase technical expertise, improve natural resource management, prepare inventories and assessments of the agricultural sector, conduct reform of trade and agricultural policies, and meet critical infrastructure needs. Phase II countries will be considered for significant resources and have to demonstrate sufficient capacity, have an enabling environment for sustainable agricultural-led growth, and have a completed country plan. According to State’s Fiscal Year 2011 CBJ for GHFSI, the administration will develop a set of objective indicators that measure both the progress toward reforms that a country has committed to in its internal consultative processes and a minimum set of internationally recognized cross-country policy indicators. As of February 2010, GHFSI has identified 15 Phase I countries (7 in sub-Saharan Africa, 4 in Asia, 4 in the Western Hemisphere) and 5 Phase II plan countries (all in sub-Saharan Africa) that are being considered for assistance in fiscal year 2011. (See table 2.) GHFSI proposed budgets for Phase I countries range from $11.56 million to $36.75 million for a total of $352 million in fiscal year 2011. For Phase II countries, the proposed budgets range from $42 million to $63 million for a total of $246 million in fiscal year 2011.

The Strategy under Development May Be Vulnerable to Weaknesses in Funding Data and Risks Associated with the Host Country-Led Approach

Comprehensive Data on Global Food Security Are Not Collected in a Governmentwide Information Database

Comprehensive data on the entire range of global food security programs and activities across the U.S. government are not collected in a single information database. As we discussed earlier in this report, the agencies we surveyed do not routinely collect and report such information using comparable measures. As a result, it is extremely difficult to capture the full extent of the U.S. government’s ongoing efforts to promote global food security as well as the sources and levels of funding supporting these efforts. Current planning does not take into account comprehensive data on existing programs and funding levels, officials reported, but relies instead on budget projections for the programs considered in the strategy. However, the lack of such data deprives decision makers of information on all available resources, actual costs, and a firm baseline against which to plan. Such information would be critical for the development of a well- informed and well-planned governmentwide strategy.

FACTS, which is currently used only by two agencies, is an information system with the potential to collect and report comprehensive data using comparable measures across the U.S. government on a range of issues, including food security, but it has serious limitations in implementation. FACTS was initially designed to be a comprehensive repository of program and funding data on the U.S. foreign assistance, and State expected the system to eventually include data from the more than 25 other U.S. entities involved in providing foreign assistance, including MCC and Treasury. However, it is currently used only by State and USAID to collect, track, and report standardized data for all foreign assistance that they implement. Expanding the use of FACTS to other agencies has proven to be difficult, in part because agencies use different data management systems and procedures to allocate resources and measure results. Even different units within an agency may use different data management systems. In addition, as USAID officials in Ethiopia told us, information sharing may have been hindered by a perception among officials from at least one agency providing U.S. foreign assistance that supporting the coordination effort through the State/F process created an additional layer of work that was not regarded as a priority by other agencies. As we discuss earlier in this report, FACTS currently has limited capacity to track data for global food security programs and activities. We highlight FACTS because, despite its limitations, it was originally designed to compile and report comprehensive and comparable funding data on assistance programs implemented by multiple agencies of the U.S. government, and State/F and USAID could address the limitations we note by changing their operating procedures rather than by redesigning the system itself.

Host Country-led Approach Could Be Central to the Success of the Forthcoming Strategy but Has Key Vulnerabilities

The administration has embraced the host country-led approach as central to the success of the new strategy, reflecting a consensus among policymakers and experts that development efforts will not succeed without host country ownership of donor interventions. At the same time, as our current and prior work shows, the host country-led approach, although promising, is vulnerable to a number of risks. These include (1) the weak capacity of host governments, which can limit their ability to absorb increased donor funding and sustain these levels of assistance; (2) a shortage of expertise in agriculture and food security at relevant U.S. agencies that could constrain efforts to help strengthen host governments’ capacity as well as review host governments’ efforts and guide in-country activities; and (3) difficulties in aligning donor assistance, including that of the United States, with host governments’ own strategies.

Weak Capacity of Host Governments Can Limit Sustainability of Donor Assistance The weak capacity of host governments—a systemic problem in many developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa—could limit their ability to (1) meet their own funding commitments for agriculture, (2) absorb significant increases in donor funding for agriculture and food security, and (3) sustain these donor-funded projects over time. In addition, host governments often lack sufficient local staff with the technical skills and expertise required to implement donor-initiated agriculture and food security projects.

First, while donors are poised to substantially increase funding for agriculture and food security, many African countries have yet to meet their own pledges to increase government spending for agriculture. At the G8 and G20 summits in 2009, major donors pledged to direct more than $22 billion for agriculture and food security to developing countries between 2010 and 2012. In 2003 African countries adopted the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) and pledged to commit 10 percent of government spending to agriculture by 2008. However, in December 2009, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) reported that only 8 out of 38 countries had met this pledge as of 2007, namely Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Niger, and Senegal (see fig. 5).

Despite stakeholders’ endorsement of progress Rwanda has made toward addressing agriculture and food security at the first CAADP post-compact high-level stakeholder meeting in December 2009, an IFPRI review raised some concerns about growth performance in Rwanda’s agricultural sector, which is nearly 50 percent below long-term targets. IFPRI found that (1) Rwanda’s aggregate agricultural growth is higher than the precompact level and the CAADP goal of 6 percent but lower than is necessary to meet the poverty MDG, and (2) even successfully implemented investment plans that achieve their targets for individual sectors would only meet the required growth objectives to realize the poverty MDG by 2020, but not by 2015.

Second, the weak capacity of host governments raises questions about their ability to absorb significant increases in donor funding for agriculture and food security. According to MCC, as of the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2009, it had disbursed approximately $438 million in compact assistance. Prior GAO analysis shows that this constitutes 32 percent of initially planned disbursements for the 16 compacts that had entered into force. The 16 compacts have a total value of approximately $5.7 billion. According to a senior technical financial advisor to the government of Ghana, a number of donor-funded projects have often not been able to spend their full funding and delays in project implementation are not uncommon. For example, as shown in figure 6, MCC’s $547 million compact with Ghana, which w in August 2006 and entered into force February 2007, had contract commitments totaling $340 million but had disbursed only about $123 milli as of December 2009, more than halfway through the 5-year compact that ends in January 2012.

Conclusions

In the face of growing malnutrition worldwide, the international community has established ambitious goals toward halving global hunger, including significant financial commitments to increase aid for agriculture and food security. Given the size of the problem and how difficult it has historically been to address it, this effort will require a long-term, sustained commitment on the part of the international donor community, including the United States. As part of this initiative, and consistent with a prior GAO recommendation, the United States has committed to harnessing the efforts of all relevant U.S. agencies in a coordinated governmentwide approach. The administration has made important progress toward realizing this commitment, including providing high-level support across multiple government agencies. However, the administration’s efforts to develop an integrated U.S. governmentwide strategy for global food security have two key vulnerabilities: (1) the lack of readily available comprehensive data across agencies and (2) the risks associated with the host country-led approach. Given the complexity and long-standing nature of these concerns, there should be no expectation of quick and easy solutions. Only long-term, sustained efforts by all relevant entities to mitigate these concerns will greatly enhance the prospects of fulfilling the international commitment to halve global hunger.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To enhance U.S. efforts to address global food insecurity, we recommend that the Secretary of State take the following two actions: 1. work with the existing NSC/IPC to develop an operational definition of food security that is accepted by all U.S. agencies; establish a methodology for consistently reporting comprehensive data across agencies; and periodically inventory the food security-related programs and associated funding for each of these agencies; and 2. work in collaboration with the USAID Administrator, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Secretary of the Treasury, and other agency heads, as appropriate, to delineate measures to mitigate the risks associated with the host country-led approach on the successful implementation of the forthcoming governmentwide global food security strategy.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to the NSC and the 10 agencies that we surveyed. Four of these agencies—State, Treasury, USAID, and USDA— provided written agency comments and generally concurred with our recommendations. In addition, they provided updated information and clarifications concerning data issues and the host country-led approach. We have reprinted these agencies’ comments in appendixes V, VI, VII, and VIII, respectively, along with our responses.

Both State and USAID agreed that implementing the first recommendation—to develop an operational definition of food security that is accepted by all U.S. agencies—would be useful, although State expressed some concern regarding the costs of doing so. However, the limitations we found in FACTS could be addressed by improving operating procedures and therefore need not be costly. Moreover, technical comments from OMB suggest that its budget database may be able to address our recommendation to establish a methodology for consistently reporting comprehensive data across agencies and periodically inventory agencies’ food security-related programs and funding. State’s and USAID’s comments confirm our finding that the FACTS data were incomplete and did not reflect all food security funding as FACTS lacks complete data for supplemental appropriations. This is a serious limitation given the size of these appropriations—$850 million in fiscal year 2008—for Food for Peace Title II emergency food aid, which is USAID’s global food security program with the highest level of funding. In addition, USDA noted that the recommendation gives State the lead role, despite acknowledging that USAID and USDA offer the broadest array of food security programs and activities. The report recognizes the important roles that all the relevant agencies play in the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative (GHFSI) currently led by State as a whole-of-government effort. The recommendation is also intended to recognize the expertise that various agencies can contribute toward the effort and encourage fully leveraging their expertise.

Regarding the second recommendation, the four agencies all noted that the administration recognizes the risks associated with a country-led approach and are taking actions to mitigate these risks. State indicated that the implementation strategy for GHFSI will incorporate mechanisms to manage these risks. Treasury noted that the interagency working group is proposing to increase the amount of technical assistance to recipient countries and that a new multidonor trust fund administered by the World Bank will complement U.S bilateral food security activities by leveraging the financial resources of other donors and utilizing the technical capacity of multilateral development banks. USAID noted that the administration is planning to implement support to host governments in two phases in order to reduce the risks associated with limited country capacity and potential policy conflicts. USDA pointed out the technical expertise that the department can offer, including its relationships with U.S. land grant colleges and universities and international science and technology fellowship programs to help build institutional and scientific capacity.

In addition, DOD, MCC, NSC, OMB, State, Treasury, USAID, USDA, and USTDA provided technical comments on a draft of this report, which we have addressed or incorporated as appropriate. The Peace Corps and USTR did not provide comments.

We are sending copies of this report to interested members of Congress; the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Development, Democracy, and Stabilization; the Secretary of State; and the Administrator of USAID as co-chairs of the NSC/IPC on Agriculture and Food Security; and relevant agency heads. The report is also available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-9601 or melitot@gao.gov. Contact points for our Office of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix VIII.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

We examined (1) the types and funding levels of food security programs and activities of relevant U.S. government agencies and (2) progress in developing an integrated U.S. governmentwide strategy to address global food insecurity, as well as potential vulnerabilities of that strategy.

To examine the types and funding levels of food security programs and activities of relevant U.S. government agencies, we administered a data collection instrument to the 10 U.S. agencies that are engaged in food security activities and participated in the Food Security Sub-Policy Coordinating Committee on Food Price Increases and Global Food Security (Food Security Sub-PCC). These agencies included the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Department of the Treasury (Treasury), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Department of State (State), Department of Defense (DOD), U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), the Peace Corps, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and Office of Management and Budget. We had to develop a working definition of food security because there is no commonly accepted governmentwide operational definition that specifies the programs and activities that are food-security related. We developed our working definition based on a framework of food security-related activities that we established in prior work on international food assistance, including our 2008 report, and a series of interactions with the relevant agencies over a period of several months. Our interactions with the agencies focused on refining the definition to ensure that it would be commonly understood and applicable to their programs and activities to the extent possible. The working definition that we developed included the following elements: food aid, nutrition, agricultural development, rural development, safety nets, policy reform, information and monitoring, and future challenges to food security. We asked the agencies to indicate which of these activities they performed and to provide funding data—when these data were available and reliable—on the appropriations, obligations, expenditures, and other allocations associated with these activities in fiscal year 2008. We pretested the instrument with officials at DOD, MCC, State, USAID, and USDA, and distributed it electronically in June and July 2009. All 10 agencies responded to our instrument and 7 of them (DOD, MCC, State, Treasury, USAID, USDA, and USTDA) reported funding data.

We conducted extensive follow-up with the agencies to determine the completeness, accuracy, and reliability of the data provided. While the agencies provided us with data about their food security programs and activities, we noted limitations in terms of establishing a complete and consistent U.S. governmentwide total. Some agencies could not report funding information for all or some of their food security activities because their databases did not track those specific activities. In s cases, agencies could provide funding information for their major security programs, such as USDA’s Food for Progress and Food for Education programs administered by the Foreign Agricultural Service, bu were limited in their ability to provide this information for food se activities that spanned several units within agencies. The agencies th were able to report funding information did so using different measures: USAID reported data on planned appropriations (plans for implemen current-year appropriated budgets); State provided appropriations, , obligations, and expenditures data for different programs; and DOD, MCC USDA, and USTDA reported obligations data. Treasury’s funding figure is a GAO estimate based on Treasury data for (1) agricultural sector lending commitments made in fiscal year 2008 by multilateral development bank s, (2) the U.S. share of capital in the banks which lend to middle-income and creditworthy low-income countries, and/or (3) the U.S. share of total resources provided to the multilateral development bank concessional windows from donor contributions for the replenishment active in fiscal year 2008. In addition, the Treasury funding estimate distinguishes between support to the poorest countries and to middle-income and creditworthy low-income developing countries. As a result, the data reported by the agencies are not directly comparable.

Where possible, we performed some cross-checks of the data we received in response to our instrument with data from published sources. During this review, we compared USAID’s planned appropriations for emergency food aid—about $860 million—subm itted in response to the instrument to (1) the $1.7 billion that USAID allocated to emergency food aid from the congressional appropriations for Food for Peace Title II food aid for fiscal year 2008; and (2) about $2 billion in emergency food aid funding reported in USAID’s International Food Assistance Report (IFAR) for fiscal year 2008, and found a very large discrepancy of between about $84 0 million to $1.1 billion. In this instance, we relied on the IFAR data instead of the data USAID reported using the Foreign Assistance Coordination and Trackin System (FACTS), because we determined that the IFAR data for emergency food aid were more reliable. Officials at USAID and State/F were unaware of this discrepancy until we brought it to their attention. formal comments on a draft of this report, State/F and USAID explainedIn that the discrepancy occurred because the funding data for the fisca 2008 supplemental appropriations for Food for Peace Title II emergencyfood aid had been entered into FACTS. Our own analysis confirmed this explanation. Based on discussions with USAID officials about their procedures for entering data into FACTS, we determined that, once we had made the correction for emergency food aid, the data we received were sufficiently reliable to indicate a minimum amount that USAID had directed to food security programs and activities. However, this amount did not include funding for USAID programs and activities that have a foo tion, security component, but also have other goals and purposes. In addi we determined that it likely did not include all supplemental appropriations for the agricultural and other programs and activities reported. Hence, the total actual level of funding is likely greater.

Overall, based on our follow-up discussions with the agencies, we determined that their responses to the data collection instrument had covered their major food security programs, but that there were weaknesses in their reporting on other programs that addressed aspects o food security. We determined that the reported funding data were sufficiently reliable to indicate the relative size of the major agencies’ efforts in terms of approximate orders of magnitude, and included the funding information provided by the agencies—as amended during the course of our follow-up inquiries—in appendix III. However, due to the limitations in the funding data reported by the agencies, we could not make precise comparisons of the agencies’ funds for food security in fisc year 2008, nor could we provide a precise total. As a result, we presented rounded totals for funding in our discussion of our findings.

To assess progress in developing an integrated governmentwide strategy to address global food insecurity—as well as potential vulnerabilities of that strategy—we reviewed selected reports, studies, and papers issued by U.S. agencies, multilateral organizations, research and nongovernmental organizations.

In Washington, D.C., we interviewed officials from the National Security Council Interagency Policy Committee on Agriculture and Food Security to discuss the interagency process to develop a governmentwide food security strategy. We reviewed the initial Consultation Document that State issued in September 2009, which is regarded as the strategy under development. Similarly, we discussed the forthcoming U.S. global food security strategy with the officials in the agencies that are developing it, but were not able to fully consider the final draft for this review. At the time of our review, the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative working team was in the process of finalizing the strategy, along with an implementation document and a results framework that will provide a foundation for country selection, funding, and mechanisms to monit evaluate the strategy.

We conducted fieldwork in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, and Malawi. We selected these countries for fieldwork because the United States has multiple active programs addressing food insecurity there. The proportion of the chronically hungry in these countries—based on the Food and Agriculture Organization’s most recent estimates— 8 percent of the population in Ghana to 58 percent in Haiti. In addition , we also selected these countries to ensure geographic coverage of U.S . global efforts in Africa, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere. While this selection is not representative, it ensured that we had variation in the key facto considered. We did not generalize the results of our fieldwork beyond o ate of selection, and we used fieldwork examples to demonstrate the st food insecurity in the countries we visited and U.S. efforts to date. In the countries that we selected for fieldwork, we met with U.S. mission and host government, donor, and NGO representatives. We also visited numerous project sites, smallholder farmer groups, and distribution site funded by the U.S. government and other donors. In addition, we attend the 2009 World Food Summit as an observer and met with the Rome-bas UN food and agriculture agencies—namely, the Food and Agriculture Organization, World Food Program, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, as well as the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and representatives of other donor countries such as Kingdom’s Department for International Development.

We conducted this performance audit from February 2009 to March 2010 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: GAO’s Data Collection Instrument

Appendix III: Summary Description of U.S. Agencies’ Reported Food Security Activities and Funding

The following tables summarize the responses of 10 U.S. agencies to our data collection instrument regarding their global food security programs and activities and associated funding levels in fiscal year 2008. The summaries are listed by agency in order from highest to lowest amount of funding reported. The totals in each summary table may not match the sum of individual rows due to rounding.

U.S. Agency for International Development

Table 3 summarizes the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) funding for global food security in fiscal year 2008. USAID reported providing the broadest array of programs and activities and the largest amount of funding.

Millennium Challenge Corporation

Table 4 summar obligations for a izes the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s gricultural and rural development in fiscal year 2008.

Department of the Treasury

Table 5 presents GAO’s estimate of U.S. contributions made by the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) to multilateral development banks for agricultural development, rural development, and policy reform in fiscal year 2008.

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Table 6 summarizes the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) funding obligations for global food security programs and activities in fiscal year 2008.

Department of State

Table 7 summarizes the Department of State’s (State) funding for global food security programs and activities in fiscal year 2008.

U.S. Trade and Development Agency

Agency’s (USTDA) ding obligations for global food security-related pro iscal year 2008.

Department of Defense

Table 9 summarizes the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s funding obligations for disaster relief and humanitarian assistance with global food security components in fiscal year 2008.

The Peace Corps

Table 10 summarizes the Peace Corps’ response to our data collection instrument. The Peace Corps did not report any funding data.

Office of the U.S. T Representative

Table 11 summarizes the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) response our data collection instrument. USTR did not report any funding data.

Office of Management an Budget

Table 12 summarizes the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) response to our data collection instrument. OMB stated that it is not an implementing agency for global food security activities, and as such does not have programs, activities, or funding to report.

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of State

The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of State’s letter dated March 1, 2010.

GAO Comments

Appendix V: Comments from the Department of the Treasury

The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of the Treasury’s (Treasury) letter dated February 26, 2010.

GAO Comments

1. Consistent with Treasury’s comments, the draft report recognized the difference between concessional windows and nonconcessional windows and noted the breakdown between funding to poor and middle-income countries. 2. The definitional issue is a challenge in estimating or determining the funding level for food security provided by the international financial institutions. Accordingly, we discussed this issue with Treasury and mutually agreed on the method to calculate U.S. contributions to multilateral development banks that address global food insecurity. We mutually agreed to use a percentage of the banks’ funding for agricultural development—which is key to food security—as a way to estimate food security funding. The percentage is based on U.S. contributions to the banks. 3. We do not question the appropriateness of the host country-led approach. However, we do point out the potential weaknesses of the approach as risks that the administration should mitigate to ensure successful implementation of the strategy.

Appendix VI: Comments from the U.S. Agency for International Development

The following are GAO’s comments on the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) letter dated February 26, 2010.

GAO Comments

1. The report recognizes the progress that U.S. agencies are making toward the development of the strategy, Feed the Future: The Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative Strategy. The implementation of our recommendations, including developing an operational definition of food security that is accepted by all U.S. agencies, will better help to ensure the successful implementation of the evolving strategy. 2. We compared the data in the Foreign Assistance Coordination and Tracking System (FACTS) to data in other sources that reported funding for food security, such as the annual International Food Assistance Report (IFAR), and several years of congressional budget justifications because that is a standard methodology for assessing data reliability. Our goal, as USAID officials were aware through months of discussion, was to collect the most complete and accurate data possible on food security funding. With that in mind, we requested data on supplemental appropriations and were given data tables that included some supplemental appropriations data. In addition, when we alerted USAID officials to the discrepancy we found in the Title II emergency food aid data, they advised us to use the complete funding data reported in IFAR rather than the incomplete data that were reported in FACTS. 3. USAID’S comments confirm our finding that the FACTS data were incomplete and did not reflect all food security funding. While FACTS contains reasonably complete and accurate data for regular food security-related appropriations, it lacks compete data for supplemental appropriations. This is a serious limitation inasmuch as USAID’s global food security program with the highest funding level received a supplemental appropriation of $850 million in fiscal year 2008. 4. The report acknowledges the roles of all development partners, including host governments, multilateral organizations, bilateral donors, and other entities such as nongovernmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, private sector organizations, and academic and research organizations—with whom U.S. agencies will have to coordinate their efforts. As with other donors, the United States is supporting the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) to help ensure a coordinated approach. However, we note in the report that the data suggest that the vast majority of African countries have not met their own commitments to direct 10 percent of government spending to agriculture. This calls into questio development many of these countries’ commitment to agricultural which, in turn, could impact the development of technically sound investment strategies for food security that reflect the reality of these countries’ capacity to implement their own strategies, with donor support and assistance. 5. While the two-phased approach in selecting countries for GHFSI ound development policy, we report that two of the five countries assistance may reduce the risks associated with limited host country s on capacity and potential significant conflicts with U.S. perspective s currently under consideration as Phase II countries—Rwanda and Tanzania—have not met their 10-percent CAADP pledges (see comment 4). In identifying and selecting Phase I and Phase II countries, the U.S. government should be clear on its application of th g criteria that the GHFSI strategy has delineated, which include, amon other things, host government commitment, leadership, and governance. 6. Consistent with USAID comments, the report acknowledges the recen steps that USAID has taken to rebuild its staff with technical expertise in agriculture and food security, which is necessary to enhance the agency’s efforts to help strengthen the capacity of host governments in these areas.

Appendix VII: Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture

The following are GAO’s comments on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) letter dated February 22, 2010.

GAO Comments

1. We are making our second recommendation to the Secretary of State to work in collaboration with the U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Secretary of the Treasury, and other agency heads, as appropriate. We recognize the important roles that all the relevant agencies play in the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative (GHFSI) currently led by State as a whole-of-government effort. We also recognize the expertise that agencies such as USDA and USAID offer, and encourage fully leveraging their expertise, which is essential to U.S. efforts to help strengthen host governments’ capacity in a country-led approach. USDA’s expertise includes its relationships with U.S. land grant colleges and university partners, as well as the science and technology programs that the department supports. 2. Consistent with USDA’s comments, the report acknowledges USDA’s limited in-country presence and tight travel budgets—issues that agricultural attachés raised during our fieldwork. The report also acknowledges steps that USDA is taking to increase its presence, especially in Africa, in light of the growing role of Africa in USDA’s food security and trade portfolios. 3. We do not question the appropriateness of the host country-led approach. However, we do point out the potential weaknesses of the approach as risks that the administration should mitigate to ensure successful implementation of the strategy. We note that the weak capacity of host governments is a systemic problem in many developing countries. 4. See comment 1. 5. See comment 3. 6. See comment 1. 7. See comment 2. 8. See comment 1. 9. See comment 2. 10. We added a footnote to provide USDA’s explanation for how the migratory bird and monarch butterfly habitat management were related to global food security. 11. Although our review focuses on U.S. efforts, consistent with US DA’s comments, the report also acknowledges the roles of all development partners, including host governments, multilateral organizations, bilateral donors, and other entities such as nongovernmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, private sector organizations, and academic and research organizations.

Appendix VIII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

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