Foreign Assistance: Global Food for Education Initiative Faces Challenges for Successful Implementation
Released: 2002-02-28T00:00:00

Letter

Background

At Jomtien, Thailand, in March 1990, representatives of the global education community held the “World Conference on Education for All” and adopted a declaration on universal access to education as a fundamental right of all people. In April 2000, the “World Education Forum”met in Dakar, Senegal. Delegates from 181 nations adopted a framework for action committing their governments to achieve quality basic education for all—including ensuring that by 2015, all children— especially girls, children in difficult circumstances, and those from ethnic minorities—have access to completely free primary education of good quality.

Also in early 2000, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Food Agencies in Rome proposed that the United States, within the U.N. framework, take the lead in organizing a worldwide school lunch program. The purpose would be to provide a meal every day for every needy child in the world. Doing so, the ambassador said, would attract children to school and keep them there under conditions in which they are able to learn and grow. The United States would pay 25 percent of the cost, and other donor nations would pay the rest. The United States would benefit, since Americans produce more food than they can eat or profitably sell and since most of the U.S. contribution would be in the form of agricultural commodities and thus would strengthen the market for cereal grain, dairy products, and livestock. According to the ambassador, other farm surplus countries such as France, Canada, and Australia would benefit as well.

In late May 2000, President Clinton met with the ambassador to discuss the idea and asked senior advisers to prepare an analysis of how the United States might participate. In early July 2000, the advisers reported that all relevant agencies recommended that the president announce a U.S. pilot program to support the international community’s goal of achieving universal access to basic education by 2015 and the U.N.’s 10-year “Girls’ Education Initiative” to help poor countries eliminate gender disparities in educational access. The advisers recommended spending approximately $300 million in the first year on the pilot program, with levels in subsequent years dependent upon factors such as the extent of international participation and the continued availability of CCC funding. At the Okinawa Summit on July 23, 2000, the president announced the Global Food for Education Initiative and the pilot program.

According to the White House press release, which was issued the day the program was announced, the purpose of the pilot program is to improve student enrollment, attendance, and performance in poor countries. These objectives were reaffirmed in USDA’s September 2000 request for proposals from cooperating sponsors and, more recently, in a December 2001 paper describing the goals, scope, and framework for action for monitoring and evaluating the pilot program.

For the pilot, USDA sought proposals from various potential implementing partners, and approved 53 projects in 38 countries covering an estimated 8.3 million children. Partners include WFP and various cooperating sponsors. Among the latter are 13 PVOs and 1 foreign government (Dominican Republic). As of mid-December 2001, USDA had finalized agreements for 21 of 25 PVO projects, 26 of 27 WFP projects, and 1 project with the Dominican Republic. The recent total estimated cost for all of the pilot projects was $227.7 million, allocated as follows: WFP projects, $92.5 million; PVO projects, $121.1 million; and the government of the Dominican Republic, $14.1 million. The total cost is $72.3 million less than the originally planned $300 million initiative. According to USDA officials, the balance will be used in fiscal year 2002 to expand existing projects that show the most potential, based on performance. Appendix II provides more detailed program and cost information.

Lessons Learned from School Feeding Programs Define Conditions for Likely Success

Research and expert views on school feeding programs indicate that these programs are more likely to have positive results when they are carefully targeted and integrated with other educational, health, and nutritional interventions. There is considerable evidence that school feeding programs can increase enrollment and attendance if the programs are targeted at the right communities or populations. Evidence of the effectiveness of school feeding programs in improving learning is somewhat more mixed, possibly because of difficulties isolating factors associated with increased learning, the quality of studies assessing such relationships, or the quality and settings of such programs. Programs are more likely to have a positive result on enrollment, attendance, and learning when they are integrated with a facilitative learning environment and appropriate health and nutritional interventions. Community participation and parental involvement also promote these objectives. Taking steps to ensure that programs will be sustainable when donor assistance is no longer available is important for ensuring long-term effectiveness. At the same time, school feeding programs are costly and may not be cost effective, relative to other possible interventions. (Apps. IV and V provide results from selected studies on these issues.)

Targeting the Right Population Can Improve Enrollment and Attendance

Evidence indicates that school feeding programs can improve school enrollment and attendance if they target the right population. In general, studies and experts point to the importance of targeting programs on low- income communities that lack a secure supply of food and have relatively low rates of school enrollment and attendance. When school feeding programs do improve enrollment and attendance, their contribution is primarily through a transfer of income (the food) to families. School feeding programs may not have much of an impact if children are staying away because the distance to school is too far to walk, parents perceive the quality of the education to be low, or children are disabled. Providing national coverage to all children is usually not cost effective. Targeting high-risk communities is preferable to targeting individual children within schools, which could lead to competition among students and parents, dilution of nutritional impact through food sharing, and insufficient community support. (See app. IV for results from selected studies on the use of targeting to improve the effectiveness of school feeding programs.)

According to several experts and practitioners, school feeding programs can also help reduce the educational gender gap—where the proportion of school-age boys attending school significantly exceeds that for school-age girls. Many studies have shown that the inability of households to cover direct and indirect costs of education results in fewer girls attending school. This inequity exists partly because parents perceive less value in educating girls, there is greater demand for girls’ labor at home, and girls are more affected by issues of school location and security. Yet some of the highest returns to education and other development investments derive from girls’ education. For example, according to studies cited by WFP:

Illiterate girls have an average of six children each while girls who go to school average 2.9 children;

Infants born to mothers with no formal education are twice as likely to die before their first birthday than are babies born to mothers with a post-primary school education;

Between 1970 and 1995, 44 percent of the decrease in child malnutrition was attributable to improvements in female education; and

Educated mothers are more likely to send their own daughters to school.

To increase educational opportunities for girls, a “package” of strategies is often tailored to meet a country's special needs. These packages typically contain some combination of interventions to (1) reduce the opportunity costs of sending girls to school; (2) improve the quality and relevance of education; (3) increase access to close, safe schools equipped with basic infrastructure; (4) educate parents and communities about the benefits of girls' education; and (5) establish supportive national policies.

Facilitative Environment Needed for Effective Learning

A group of experts and practitioners who convened at USAID headquarters in October 2000concluded that little learning is likely to occur without a facilitative learning environment, where teachers engage children in stimulating learning tasks, provide frequent feedback and encouragement, and are equipped with motivational textbooks and other learning materials. A facilitative learning environment also requires a suitable physical environment and minimal school supplies. Unfortunately, most schooling in the developing world is far from this kind of environment.Teaching is frequently of poor quality and is poorly supported; and the curriculum often has little relevance to rural life, making formal schooling unconnected with the needs of rural communities. Thus, most developing countries require investments in teacher training; basic supplies (books, blackboards, desks, and chairs); a suitable physical environment; and other learning materials. Furthermore, many school systems in developing countries are dysfunctional, characterized by dispersed or displaced populations (as a result of conflict or natural calamities), limited basic infrastructure, and endemic child malnutrition. Many experts and practitioners also conclude that food for education programs must take place within the context of broad, national education reform programs that focus on essential inputs to education and learning, such as teacher development, curriculum reform, and student assessment. (See app. IV for results from selected studies on the impacts that school feeding programs have on learning.)

Nutritional and Health Measures Are Needed for Effective Programs

According to various studies, poor nutrition and health among schoolchildren contribute to diminished cognitive abilities that lead to reduced school performance. According to experts, school feeding programs can be effective in reducing short-term hunger—which in turn can improve learning capacity—by providing an inexpensive breakfast or small snack, shortly after students arrive at school. Meanwhile, using enriched foods or complementing commodities in school feeding programs with locally available vitamin and mineral-rich foods is an effective route to alleviating the complex micronutrient deficiencies that schoolchildren in developing countries often suffer. At the same time, school feeding programs designed to capture both nutritional and educational gains need to invest in adequate water and sanitation at schools, since poor water and sanitation give rise to infectious diseases, including parasites, which adversely affect schoolchildren’s enrollment, attendance, and learning. These programs also benefit from inclusion of deworming treatments and health and nutrition education. (See app. IV for results from selected studies on nutrition and health measures that can be used in combination with school feeding programs to improve school performance.)

Community and Parental Involvement Also Can Contribute to Enrollment, Attendance, and Learning

Community and parental involvement are also important to successful school feeding programs. Community involvement in implementing school feeding programs can increase contact, and hence communication, between parents and teachers, officials, and others; provide parents an opportunity to become more aware of what goes on at schools; help raise the value of education and the school for parents and the whole community; and motivate parents to enroll their children in school and ensure regular attendance. Parent-teacher associations (PTA) or other outreach efforts can be used to educate parents and other community groups on issues such as the negative effects of temporary hunger on learning or the social and health benefits of educating girls.

Strong Government Commitment Boosts Effectiveness of School Feeding

According to WFP, another important ingredient in successful school feeding programs is national government commitment to the goal of “education for all.” This commitment should be put into practice through policies, programs, and financial commitments within a country’s means that support basic education.

Governments also need to commit to school feeding programs within the context of broad, national school reform programs, according to practitioners and experts who met at USAID in October 2000. These reforms should target essential inputs to education and learning, including teacher development, curriculum reform, and student assessment.

Cost of School Feeding Programs Affects Sustainability

While the benefits of school feeding programs are recognized, the programs are expensive both financially and in terms of the human resources required to operate them. In addition to the price of the food, costs associated with food logistics, management, and control can represent a significant financial burden for recipient country governments. These costs may be difficult for national governments to absorb and thus adversely affect long-term program sustainability.

Estimates of the average cost of school feeding programs vary considerably (see app. V). According to WFP, the average cost per student of its development school feeding projects in 2000 was 19 cents per day, or $34 for a 180-day school year (see app. V). Programs costing $34 per pupil per school year are substantial when compared with what many developing countries spend on education. For example, in 1997 public expenditures of 19 least-developed countries for both pre-primary and primary education averaged only $20 per pupil, according to UNESCO. Average public expenditures of five southern Asian countries were reported at $40 per pupil.

According to many experts, national ministries of education in developing countries should not be encouraged to take on school feeding at the expense of other educational inputs. Few national governments are committed to school feeding programs over the long term, they said. In addition, many governments and education ministries already are struggling to maintain barely functioning education systems; may not be equipped, financially or technically, to assume the additional burden of food distribution; and do not have the financial resources to sustain feeding programs after donor support is withdrawn. These experts say that getting local communities involved from the beginning and giving them ownership of school feeding programs greatly increase the chances for long-term program sustainability. According to WFP, its guidelines for school feeding programs require both national governments and local communities to provide a significant amount of resources and infrastructure.

There are potential detrimental impacts if school feeding programs are not effectively implemented. For example, where adequate infrastructure is not available, increased attendance may lead to overcrowding and actually reduce educational achievement for existing students, while providing minimal benefit to new students. In some developing country circumstances, the school day is only a few hours. In such cases, time taken to prepare a meal may further limit an already inadequate period of instruction. In addition, if volunteers are not available to provide labor, teachers may be required to undertake this task at the expense of instructional time. Since school feeding is a highly visible income transfer, it may also be used for political purposes by actors in the recipient country. If school feeding programs are relatively ineffective, they may result in resources being taken away from better performing programs.

According to several experts, in particular situations, school feeding programs may not be as cost effective in promoting learning as other possible approaches, such as establishing maternal child health and early childhood development programs or providing alternative nutritional and educational interventions (see app. V).

Pilot Program Did Not Adequately Incorporate Lessons Learned

The pilot program has not provided reasonable assurance that lessons from previous school feeding and food for education programs have been integrated into approved pilot projects. Under pressure to get the pilot up and running quickly, USDA gave interested applicants little time to prepare proposals, and it did not require them to provide basic information on and analysis of various factors important to successful food for education programs. Written criteria for evaluating proposals similarly did not focus on many of these factors. Many of the proposals approved did not address key elements of successful school feeding programs. Moreover, USDA provided little funding for important nonmeal components of the food for education projects, and only a few of the approved PVO proposals indicated they had obtained other donors’ support for nonmeal components.

USDA Did Not Have Sufficient Information for Its Evaluation

According to USDA officials with whom we spoke, the agency was under pressure to start a new and complex food for education program quickly and with far less funds—$300 million—than what is needed to fully address the educational components of school feeding. As a result, USDA did not solicit basic information on various factors linked to effective school feeding and food for education programs. Table 1 lists a set of questions, based on lessons learned, that USDA could have used to guide the type of information and analysis requested from implementing partners (i.e., cooperating sponsors and WFP) and, subsequently, for evaluating proposal quality. As shown in table 1, many important factors that experts cited were not addressed specifically by USDA in its formal request for proposals, and other items were only partly addressed in its request. The request was made to cooperating sponsors but not to WFP. (Less information was sought from WFP because, as a USDA official told us, many projects in the WFP proposals had previously been reviewed and approved by the U.S. government as part of the process by which the WFP Executive Board approves its projects.) We derived the questions from our review of lessons described in various studies and other documents on school feeding and food for education programs (see app. IV, especially tables 4 to 10. Also see app. VI for a more complete discussion of the interagency process used to evaluate, and approve proposals.)

As table 1 indicates, USDA sought some information on how the projects would be targeted. For example, USDA indicated that it wanted to target poor countries and that it favored programs that would significantly improve enrollment and attendance. However, USDA did not require that proposals address how programs would be designed to improve educational performance, nor did it seek any information on factors that are key to whether learning could occur, such as adequate numbers of well- trained teachers and reasonable supplies of good learning materials. Similarly, USDA asked requesters how their programs would affect health and nutrition but did not specifically ask whether the schools had safe water and adequate sanitation facilities and whether intestinal parasitic infections in the student population were likely to be a problem. A USDA official told us there were limits on how much information the agency could require, given the short amount of time sponsors had to prepare proposals and the 1-year duration of the pilot. Further, the agency did not want to make the information requirements so costly for sponsors that it would get few or no proposals, the official said.

Regarding the criteria used to evaluate the programs, table 1 also shows that U.S. agencies’ written criteria did not specifically address most of the key factors we derived, based on our review of lessons from previous school feeding and food for education programs. Of the 20 questions in table 1 on key factors in effective school feeding and food for education programs, 1 question was addressed specifically in the agencies’ written criteria and 8 were partly addressed. None of the agencies’ criteria specifically addressed the four learning environment questions shown in table 1. See appendix VI for a discussion of the written criteria used by agencies in evaluating the proposals.

Some PVO and WFP Proposals Included Additional Information on Key Factors

We also reviewed the approved PVO and WFP proposals and found that many included information related to the key factors we identified as important to successful food for education programs, although fewer than a third of the approved PVO and WFP proposals discussed most of the items. In general, the response rate was highest for those factors where USDA had solicited information.

Table 2 shows the number of approved PVO and WFP proposals that provided information related to the key factors irrespective of whether USDA requested this information. For example, a considerable number of the PVO and WFP proposals included information on certain health and nutrition issues that were not specifically requested by USDA. To a lesser extent, proposals also included information on factors associated with the learning environment. Overall, the highest response rates were mostly for factors for which USDA had sought information (i.e., school enrollment and attendance levels, literacy rates, target area based on low economic status, and programs that involve the community and parents.) (See app. VI for additional discussion about the information that was included in WFP proposals.)

USDA Provided Little Funding for Components Identified as Important to Successful Programs

USDA provided little funding for nonmeal components—such as basic classroom materials, nutritional education, and treatment of parasitic infections—that are essential elements of an integrated approach to food for education programs. Altogether, USDA approved 60 proposals, including 34 for WFP, 25 for PVOs, and 1 for the government of the Dominican Republic. For WFP projects, USDA largely funded only school meals and related costs, including storage, transportation, and handling of the food. For the PVO projects, USDA was willing to consider proposals that included nonfood components to be funded by monetizing some of the surplus commodities or by the PVOs themselves. We found that 17 of the 25 approved PVO proposals included nonmeal components; but of the 17 proposals, only 10 included in their proposed budget a dollar value for resources that would be allocated to some or all of these activities. (See app. VII, table 14, for additional information on the extent to which PVO proposals included nonmeal components and budgeting for these activities.)

Weaknesses in Structure, Planning, and Management Reduce Chances for Pilot Program Success

While the U.S. pilot program expects to provide food to more than 8 million schoolchildren in developing countries, its structure, planning, and management to date do not reasonably ensure a program that will produce substantial gains in enrollment, attendance, and especially learning. The administration’s decision to fund the program through surplus commodities may be appropriate for a 1-year pilot but is not sustainable for a longer-term program. USDA, which was selected to manage the pilot, lacked the expertise and resources of USAID--the agency traditionally responsible for foreign development aid such as food for education programs. The pressure on USDA to get the pilot program up and running quickly did not allow time to adequately plan the program and hire additional staff to manage it. USDA launched the pilot before fully developing a strategy for monitoring and evaluating performance; and, because of the pilot’s short time frame, USDA officials told us they would not be able to evaluate improvements in learning—one of the program’s three objectives. This weakness, as well as others related to ensuring financial accountability for some parts of the projects, could make determining the pilot’s effectiveness difficult.

Surplus Commodities Not Reliable Funding Mechanism

The administration’s decision to use surplus agricultural commodities to fund the pilot was an expedient way to get the program quickly under way. However, surplus commodities are not a good vehicle for funding a medium- or long-term development program, since surpluses cannot be ensured on a regular basis. (For example, between fiscal years 1996 and 1998, there was no section 416(b) program.) Although the pilot was expected to run for just over 1 year, the administration contemplated a multiyear food for education program, possibly lasting as long as a decade. Under this scenario, when surpluses were not available, the administration would have to end the program or sustain it through the foreign aid budget, which is expected to have many competing priorities in the foreseeable future.

USDA Lacked Expertise on School Feeding Programs

USAID—traditionally the U.S. agency for providing foreign development assistance, including school feeding and food for education programs— would normally have been the logical choice to establish and run the pilot. However, in light of constraints on foreign aid funding generally and other high priority development needs, the administration wanted CCC to manage the pilot, and to do so using available surplus agricultural commodity funding authority (i.e., section 416(b) of the Agricultural Act of 1949).

The administration’s decision to assign management responsibility for the pilot to USDA rather than USAID follows a recent trend of giving USDA a larger role in U.S. food aid programs, primarily because of increased section 416(b) program activity. However, USDA lacked USAID’s resources (such as USAID’s overseas development missions) and USAID’s school feeding/food for education development expertise. The principal mission of USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) is to help ensure open markets for U.S. agricultural exports; it generally has had little experience in managing school feeding development assistance programs. USDA has previously used section 416(b) authority to provide some commodities for international school feeding programs, but we were told the amounts were relatively smalland not for integrated food for education programs. In contrast, USAID has been engaged in school feeding programs since the 1950s and administers economic and humanitarian assistance programs in more than 80 countries. Beginning in the mid-1990s, USAID began reducing its support for traditional school feeding programs that provided only meals, citing mounting evidence that school feeding, in and of itself, contributed little to improving child learning ability or child nutrition on a sustainable basis. According to USAID officials, its school feeding assistance has evolved into programs designed to improve education (i.e., enrollment, attendance, and graduation rates, especially for girls) by focusing on national education policy reform, curriculum development, and teacher training programs. In 2000, USAID spent $33 million on PVO- operated food for education programs in eight countries that benefited 1.3 million children.

Pilot Program Was Launched Quickly and Has Been Understaffed

President Clinton announced GFEI on July 23, 2000. USDA began to implement the pilot program almost immediately, leaving little time for planning and relying on existing staff from within the Foreign Agricultural Service to work on the assignment. USDA issued its request for proposals on September 6, 2000, with a closing date for all submissions at the end of September. (See app. IX for key events from the time the concept of an international school lunch program was suggested until approval of the GFEI pilot program proposals.)

According to USDA officials, USDA was understaffed when the GFEI pilot was launched and a year later still lacked sufficient staff for handling food aid matters. For example, in a July 2000 meeting with PVOs to discuss the pilot program, the Secretary of Agriculture said the lack of staffing in U.S. agencies for running food aid programs was acute. At the same time, he said the president wanted to see some benefits from the pilot program before leaving office. In November 2000, a USDA official told us that USDA was generally understaffed for monitoring food aid programs. At a July 2001 meeting with PVOs, other USDA officials apologized to PVO representatives for having too few staff available to negotiate agreements and address other food aid program issues in a timely manner.44, 45 According to OMB, in March 2001, the administration authorized USDA to use $2.5 million of the $300 million in CCC funds for administrative salaries and expenses. According to a USDA official, the funds are being used to facilitate monitoring and evaluation of the pilot program’s impact. As of September 2001, a year after the pilot was launched, USDA was still in the planning stage regarding hiring regional coordinators and local national staff in PVO recipient countries to help monitor pilot program projects.

USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service has managed the pilot with existing Program Development Division staff resources, which were already stretched thin because of a recent section 416(b) program expansion, personnel turnover, and slow hiring of replacements. During our review, a significant portion (ranging from between 25 percent to 33 percent) of the division’s permanent staff positions were vacant.

WFP and IPHD noted that many of the recipient countries were well into their academic year before USDA commodities were procured, shipped, and available for distribution.

USDA Policy Change on Funding PVO Projects Delayed Implementation

USDA’s September 2000 Federal Register notice indicated that CCC funds might be available to cover some of the cooperating sponsors’ expenses related to implementing the school feeding projects. As a result, many PVOs submitted proposals based on the assumption that they would receive CCC funds to cover part of their expenses. However, in January 2001 USDA reversed its position, announcing that funding would not be available. This meant that PVOs’ expenses in recipient countries would have to be covered by selling (monetizing) commodities in the recipient countries and using the resulting local currency proceeds to cover in- country costs. The policy change further meant that PVO direct administrative headquarters’ costs could not be covered, since the section 416(b) program does not allow monetization of commodities for that purpose.

USDA’s policy shift resulted in several of the proposals having to be restructured, causing discontent within the PVO community and leading to delays in concluding a number of agreements. In fact, about one-third of the approved PVO agreements were not signed by the end of September 2001. In addition, the change presented problems for some PVOs because it required them to monetize increased quantities of commodities within recipient countries to recover some of their costs, and there were limits on the commodity tonnage that could be monetized effectively. Some PVOs were also upset because all of WFP’s operating expenses, including headquarters’ costs, were funded by CCC cash payments. Legislative relief in the form of limited CCC funding was provided to PVOs in late July 2001; at that time, only 4 PVO agreements had been signed. (App. IX discusses the funding sources used for pilot program sponsors in more detail.)

Weaknesses in Program Management and Short Duration of Pilot Will Affect Monitoring and Evaluation

To know whether programs are effective, program objectives should clearly describe the intended end results and accompanying indicators so that changes and progress toward achieving the objectives can be tracked over time. However, USDA initiated its requests for proposals in September 2000 without having a comprehensive plan for how it would monitor and evaluate project performance and has spent much of the time since then establishing such a plan. USDA and WFP will collect baseline data on school enrollment and attendance for the time before the projects began and monitor and assess change in these variables over the course of the projects. However, USDA has not set specific targets or desired performance levels for enrollment and attendance in its agreements with most of its implementing partners. In addition, although improved learning is one of the three principal objectives of the pilot program, USDA said it will not monitor and evaluate performance on this variable, unless improved learning is an element within an agreement, because of the program’s short duration.

Officials from USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service told us USDA is responsible for evaluating the performance of WFP, PVOs, and the Government of the Dominican Republic in implementing GFEI projects. According to these officials, FAS’ mandate is to monitor and review the 25 PVO and 1 country government projects in 20 countries from October 2001 through March 2003, and at appropriate intervals report to the Congress on the projects’ status. They added that FAS headquarters staff is also responsible for evaluating WFP’s GFEI project implementation. They stated that the agency intends to complete an interim status report on the pilot for the Congress by July 2002 that will address several performance- related issues.

In its September 6, 2000, Federal Register notice, USDA said that cooperating sponsors would be required to report periodically the number of meals served, enrollment levels, and attendance levels, including female attendance levels. In addition, USDA said that reports should include information on infrastructure relevant to sustaining the feeding program, such as establishment of PTAs and community groups. However, the notice did not indicate whether sponsors would be required to collect baseline data on these variables, which would permit comparisons of conditions before a project got under way and when it was completed. It did not indicate whether or how success would be measured—for example, what percent improvement in attendance would represent achievement of the program’s objectives. In addition, the notice did not discuss whether sponsors would be required to report on educational performance, one of the program’s three principal objectives.

In February 2001, USDA began negotiating final agreements with cooperating sponsors and WFP for approved proposals. As of December 2001, USDA had completed agreements for 21 of 26 approved cooperating sponsor project proposals. All 21 proposals contained provisions that required reporting on the number of meals served, enrollment and attendance levels (including female attendance), and establishment of infrastructure relevant to sustaining the feeding program, such as PTAs and community groups. However, less than half of these agreements indicated a requirement for baseline data; and a majority of the agreements did not specify performance targets for enrollment, attendance, and female attendance. None of the agreements included reporting requirements for educational performance. (According to USDA officials, PVOs opposed such reporting, arguing that the pilot was too short in duration to permit a meaningful analysis of impacts on learning.) By September 2001, 33 of 34 agreements for WFP projects were concluded, with 1 deferred until fiscal year 2002. None of these agreements specified requirements for measuring project performance; in fact, they did not even say that WFP would report the types of data USDA had required from cooperating sponsors, such as enrollment and attendance data.

Nonetheless, WFP developed a detailed survey instrument for collecting baseline information on its GFEI-funded projects. The survey was pilot- tested in August 2001, approximately 1 year after USDA received proposals from WFP and cooperating sponsors. According to USDA and WFP officials, WFP conducted the surveys in a sample of schools for all of its projects before the end of 2001 and before the food aid was distributed. In addition to collecting basic information on the feeding program, the survey sought detailed baseline and subsequent performance data on school enrollment and attendance (broken down by boys and girls and grade level); the number of certified and uncertified teachers in the school; the number of classrooms; certain baseline information on community and parental involvementand health and nutrition issues; and whether the school had other ongoing programs related to effective school feeding programs and if so, the name of the donor providing the program.

The survey also called for the use of focus groups to collect views on the likely reasons why eligible children did not enroll and enrolled boys and girls did not attend school during a year.

The survey instrument indicates WFP’s interest in upgrading monitoring and evaluation of its feeding programs, since previous efforts revealed some weaknesses. However, the survey included only two questions focused on the possible impact of the programs on improved learning.WFP is sharing its survey results with USDA. (See app. III for additional information on WFP activities to improve monitoring and evaluation of school feeding programs.)

During the summer of 2001, USDA was still debating how to monitor and evaluate performance for the cooperating sponsors’ projects. In August 2001, it convened a working group of USDA officials and USAID consultants with expertise in monitoring and evaluation methodologies to discuss the issue. The group recommended use of local school or government records for collecting data on enrollment and attendance, but it was against collecting quantitative data on indicators for measuring educational progress (such as reduced dropout rates, retention and/or completion, and promotion to the next grade) and level of community participation and infrastructure development. For the latter variables, it recommended information be collected through a combination of focus groups and structured interviews with school staff and parent and community groups.

In fall 2001, USDA decided to use the WFP survey instrument for the cooperating sponsors’ projects and, like WFP, apply the survey in a sample of the schools in each project. According to USDA officials, doing so would allow collection of comparable data, provided USDA’s sampling strategy was properly designed. USDA also decided to contract with about 20 local national monitors (approximately 1 per country) to collect the data and 5 regional coordinators to manage the monitors. In late December 2001, USDA officials told us they planned to add a few more questions to the survey to address concerns about whether some of the projects were well targeted. They also said the surveys would be conducted in early 2002.

USDA officials told us that they ultimately decided not to measure change in school learning. They said that from the beginning of the pilot, USDA, WFP, and PVOs were concerned about the ability to effectively evaluate and judge an increase in student performance under a 1-year pilot program. Research that tries to demonstrate improvements in academic achievement is lengthy and requires a long-term approach, they said. USAID officials with whom we spoke were also critical of the short time allowed for running the pilot program. They said USAID pilot programs usually take 4 to 5 years, with an evaluation done in the third year to see if the program is on track, and an assessment of the impact conducted in the fourth year.

Processes to Prevent Disincentive Effects of Food Aid Raise Some Concerns

An effective global food for education program needs to ensure that food aid does not interfere with commercial markets and inhibit food production in developing countries. USDA uses an international consultative process—the Consultative Sub-Committee on Surplus Disposal (CSSD)—to keep the pilot program’s food aid from interfering with commercial exports. The process involves notification of various categories of food aid donations, prior consultation with other exporters, and establishment of Usual Marketing Requirements (UMR) to ensure that food aid recipients maintain a normal intake of commercial imports in addition to the food aid they receive. According to the CSSD, in recent years several factors reduced the effectiveness of the UMR approach, including (1) lack of uniformity in the compliance period (fiscal year, crop year, and calendar year); (2) fewer food aid operations covered by the UMR because many transactions are exempt; (3) a rise in UMR waivers for countries facing difficult economic situations; and (4) delays in collecting trade data, which make establishment of 5-year average commercial imports as a benchmark for current import levels unrealistic. USDA officials acknowledged that some countries have expressed concerns that GFEI might adversely affect commercial exports but said they have not received any specific complaints about the U.S. pilot’s food exports.

To address disincentive effects of food aid on local production, the United States requires all proposed food aid projects to submit an analysis showing the recipient has adequate storage facilities and that food aid will not disrupt domestic production and marketing. (Technically the analysis is known as a Bellmon determination.)

We reviewed the analyses by cooperating sponsors whose projects were approved for the pilot and found the analyses were not adequate for determining disincentives to production of local commodities. All cooperating sponsors concluded that the amount of food for their projects was so small it was unlikely to significantly affect local production. But their analysis of data on local market conditions was generally based on production of identical commodities. For example, if wheat was not grown in the recipient country, sponsors concluded there was no disincentive to importing and monetizing wheat—without considering whether the amount of imported wheat would affect price or demand for locally produced substitute commodities. Cooperating sponsors did not adequately verify that the commodities were in demand and would not compete with local markets, other commercial export programs, and other donor imports.

USDA officials told us that cooperating sponsors are responsible for analyzing the potential disincentive effects of their projects. They said USAID no longer has agricultural officers stationed overseas and now USDA has to rely on PVOs—which have on-the-ground, in-country staff—to determine whether the food aid will adversely affect recipient country markets. (USAID advised us that while the number of agricultural officers overseas has been reduced in recent years, it still has such officers in a number of posts.) Although USDA and/or USAID attaches may review such analyses, USDA does not independently verify the results. USDA officials also noted that the lack of good data could affect sponsors’ ability to prepare more robust analyses. USDA does not require WFP to conduct or submit similar analyses of WFP projects that are partly funded by the U.S. pilot program. However, WFP told us a review is required of all WFP proposed projects for their potential impact on production and markets, and food aid donors (including the United States) participate.

Key Weaknesses in Financial Accounting Could Have Negative Impact on Pilot Program

We identified several weaknesses in how USDA has maintained financial accountability over WFP and PVO projects that could adversely affect the pilot program. Although USDA advances funds (in the case of WFP) or food (in the case of cooperating sponsors) on the basis of their estimated needs and requires them to provide regular though different forms of financial and project status reporting, WFP in particular has not adequately accounted for past Section 416(b) program donations. The PVOs provide more detailed financial reporting, in part, because a large portion of the commodities they receive are to be monetized in country to cover foodand other expenses. USDA requires that PVOs monetize commodities at market prices, but it has not systematically tracked whether the PVOs received prices for the monetized commodities that were commensurate with their cost or whether the funds were spent in accordance with approved program plans.

WFP Reporting Has Been Inadequate

Under a section 416(b) umbrella agreement, WFP is required to account for the costs it incurs and charges USDA on food aid donations. WFP is supposed to submit annual standardized project reports that provide implementation and actual expenditure data for ongoing activities similar to what is required of PVOs. We found that WFP had not met its obligation to provide USDA with an accounting for past Section 416(b) program donations by providing detailed actual cost data. As a result, USDA is not in position to know whether its advances to WFP, on the basis of initial cost estimates, are consistent with actual project costs and to what extent the project objectives are being achieved within the approved budget estimates. A similar situation exists with USAID-funded donations to WFP. According to a USAID official, WFP has not provided actual cost data for direct and indirect project costs at the level of project activities and by donors. Such data is needed, the official said, to know whether the United States is meeting and not exceeding its fair share of a project’s total cost, as well as the costs of specific project activities.

In April 2001, U.S. officials reiterated to WFP officials the need for disaggregated actual cost data. During the meeting, WFP officials noted that WFP was in transition, using a new financial information system for new business while still using the earlier system for old business. According to a USAID review conducted in June 2001, WFP’s new system appeared to have the capacity to accurately monitor and report on full cost recovery in the aggregate. However, the system was not yet fully operational and thus the adequacy of the complete system could not yet be determined. In September 2001, WFP told USDA it would not be able to provide finalized reports for fiscal year 1999 obligations that were due by the end of that month. According to USAID, pursuant to bilateral consultations between an interagency U.S. government delegation and WFP management, the United States agreed to a 6-month extension for WFP to report actual cost data for all U.S. government contributions to WFP.

Oversight of PVO Monetized Commodities Is Limited

As previously indicated, a substantial portion of the commodities provided to PVOs are to be monetized, with the proceeds used to pay for other foods and/or other expenses, such as administrative expenses and inland transportation, storage, and handling costs. For the first 17 completed PVO agreements, more than 80 percent of the commodities are to be monetized. At issue is whether USDA is sufficiently tracking the proceeds that PVOs receive from the commodities they monetize. Also, if a PVO sells a commodity for less than the market value, the commodity could undercut other commercial sales, including imports or domestically produced commodities, and fewer proceeds would be available for financing the school meals or related activities.

USDA regulations require that PVO commodity sales meet local market conditions and that PVO and government sponsors provide a report showing deposits into and disbursements out of special accounts established for commodity sales proceeds. In past Section 416(b) programs, USDA did not determine to what extent proceeds compared with what sponsors expected to receive as stipulated in the project agreements, nor whether the commodities were sold at real market prices. However, in September 2001, USDA officials told us they plan to conduct such an analysis for the pilot program projects.

Most Other Donors Currently Uncommitted or Opposed to Major Support of GFEI

The success of a comprehensive, long-term GFEI strongly depends on other donor support, but most other donors are either opposed or not committed to supporting GFEI at this time. A few donors have indicated support for the food for education initiative but have offered little in terms of specific additional contributions. While WFP officials are confident of eventual support, most donor countries seem unlikely to provide substantial support unless the United States adopts a permanent program that is not dependent on surplus commodities and/or unless the pilot program demonstrates strong, positive results. Some donors are opposed to GFEI on the grounds that developmental food aid assistance is ineffective in promoting sustainable development. Others are noncommittal for a variety of reasons, including possible adverse impacts on commercial agricultural exports to and domestic agricultural production in recipient countries.

Long-Term Program Will Need Substantial Support from Other Donors

The U.S.-proposed GFEI challenged other donor countries and organizations to join the United States in helping achieve the goal of education for all children in developing countries by 2015. Indeed, the United States said that its willingness to extend the pilot program beyond its first year would depend in part on other donors’ response. Since the initiative was first proposed, U.S. officials have indicated they would like to see other donors contribute, in aggregate, anywhere from two-thirds to three-quarters of the total cost of a global food for education program.

The Clinton administration estimated that at least 300 million children in developing countries need school meals. Assuming an annual average cost of $34 per student for a 180-day school year, the annual meal cost alone for 300 million children would be approximately $10.2 billion.To put this estimate in perspective, in 1999, $10.2 billion represented about 96 percent of the Organization for Economic Cooperation/Development Assistance Committee countries’ official development assistanceto least developed countries, or about 18 percent of development assistance directed to all developing countries. In addition, net official development assistance has declined during the past decade, from $56.7 billion in 1991 to $53.7 billion in 2000.

We estimate the food tonnage required to provide a school meal for 300 million children (for a 180-day school year) to be in excess of 16 million metric tons, which would exceed average annual global food aid deliveries between 1990 and 2000 by about 40 percent. (Global food aid deliveries averaged approximately 12 million metric tons per year from 1990 through 2000.) Moreover, food aid for development programs, only a part of which is for school feeding, averaged about 3 million metric tons per year. Thus GFEI would represent more than a fivefold increase for these types of programs.

Donors Have Been Generally Noncommittal to GFEI

According to a State Department cable, when the United States proposed GFEI at the July 2000 G-8 Summit, the proposal received a cool reception. Subsequently, in November 2000, the State Department headquarters asked U.S. diplomats in 23 countries to explain the U.S. pilot program to foreign governments and encourage their support. In addition, the previous U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Food Agencies in Rome sought other countries’ support for GFEI through his participation in the WFP Executive Board and in official visits to food aid donor countries, such as Denmark and Finland. These efforts notwithstanding, most donor countries have yet to respond in a strongly positive or substantial way.

Of the top 13 food aid donating countries for the period 1995 through 1999, the United States supplied more than half of all deliveries, with the other donors providing slightly more than 41 percent (see app. X). Table 3 summarizes general views of all but one of these other donor countries as well as Finland and their plans or actions to contribute to GFEI or the WFP’s school feeding initiative. As table 3 shows, representatives of 4 of the 12 donors (Japan, France, Italy, and Finland) indicated general support for the food for education initiative. The European Commission, the second largest provider of food aid in the world, has said it is against a “one-program-fits-all” approach, citing a preference for strategic planning that identifies all of a country’s development needs and then analyzes alternative ways to achieve them. According to the Commission, education forms an integral part of the European Union’s development policy, and it is crucial that all shortcomings in providing education are tackled at the same time. If analysis indicated that a food for education program would have a positive impact, the Commission would still want to assess the relative cost effectiveness and efficiency of the alternatives. Representatives of Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden also expressed reservations about GFEI not being an integrated approach to development assistance and/or about the ability of recipient countries to sustain the programs over the long run. Representatives of Australia, Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom indicated they would like to see whether the U.S. pilot program or WFP program demonstrates successful results. Representatives of the European Commission, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden expressed concerns about or said they thought the U.S. program was being used to dispose of surplus commodities.

In addition, some donors indicated they favor using food aid for emergency (rather than development) purposes, expressed reservations about providing assistance for school feeding programs in the form of food or surplus commodities, or indicated they lack convincing information on the effectiveness of WFP school feeding activities. (See app. VIII for additional information on donor views on food aid.)

Regarding actual support for GFEI, Italy has contributed nearly $1 million to the WFP initiative in three African countries. A French representative said France might provide some support, either on its own or through WFP, but added that France wanted to maintain its current level of WFP development activities, which would limit France’s ability to greatly increase funding for WFP’s school feeding initiative. Representatives of Japan and Finland, the two other supporters, indicated their countries would not increase their current level of donations to support the initiatives. Meanwhile, representatives of Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Sweden all indicated that they would track the progress of the food for education initiatives for the results. The German representatives said their country’s budget situation does not permit providing additional support.

In mid-April 2001, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Food Agencies in Rome acknowledged that there had been very little movement by other donor countries toward supporting GFEI but said that they were coming around to the idea. They want to see an American commitment, which will begin with the pilot program’s implementation, he said. The Ambassador said he thought Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden would be on board within the next few months and that France and Germany would soon join in. At the same time, WFP officials told us that most or all governments, donors and recipients alike, support a global school feeding effort and that they were optimistic that additional contributions would be forthcoming by the end of 2001.

At the beginning of August 2001, WFP officials told us the Swiss government was contributing 194 metric tons of food, and France intended to contribute a total of 5,280 metric tons of rice, beans, oil, and corn/soy blend to a Honduran program. In addition, they said, Cargill, Inc., had provided a $50,000 donation to assist WFP’s school feeding operation in Honduras (to be matched by the local Cargill affiliate in Honduras). Apart from food donations, the Canadian government approved the use of a $250,000 grant facility for WFP for a deworming effort in conjunction with WFP school feeding efforts in Africa, WFP officials said. In addition, an international fund offered to consider providing upwards of $300,000 to fund nonmeal items (such as construction of schools, teacher training, training materials, school books, and cooking utensils) in least-developed countries. And, the officials said, WFP was negotiating new partnerships for school feeding, including the health, sanitation, and educational aspects of primary schools, with a variety of U.S. government and international agencies.

At the end of December, 2001, the U.S. Mission to the U.N. Food Agencies in Rome told us that Italy, France, and Switzerland were still the only countries that had agreed to supplement the U.S. government contribution to the WFP school feeding program.

Conclusions

In our review of the current GFEI pilot, we found a number of weaknesses that make it difficult to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. For example, our research of past school feeding programs indicated that the programs are more likely to improve enrollment, attendance, and learning if they are carefully integrated with other educational, health, and nutritional interventions—such as ensuring adequate numbers of well-trained teachers and providing treatments for parasitic infections and micronutrient deficiencies. However, USDA began the GFEI pilot quickly and did not require potential implementing partners to provide important information on the linkages to these other interventions. Since most of the pilot’s funding is targeted for the school meals, it is unclear whether these other important factors that contribute to effective programs are adequately addressed. In addition, USDA has not effectively managed the pilot in part because of its lack of expertise and resources for food for education development programs. It has not set specific targets or desired performance levels for enrollment and attendance in its agreements with most of its implementing partners. WFP has recently collected baseline data on enrollment and attendance, and USDA is in the process of doing so. USDA will not try to measure the projects’ impacts on learning, as it believes the 1-year time frame is too short for such an assessment.Because of these weaknesses, we do not believe the pilot program will yield adequate information on whether its projects have succeeded or failed in improving enrollment, attendance, and learning—and why. Furthermore, a number of other donor countries will not contribute to GFEI until they see if the pilot is successful. These are important concerns as the Congress considers what actions to take regarding legislation on GFEI.

Matters for Congressional Consideration

As the Congress decides whether to further fund GFEI, it may wish to consider: extending the pilot program to permit an assessment of its effects on learning, as well as a more meaningful review of its impact’s on enrollment and attendance; deciding whether additional funding for pilot project related activities, such as teacher training and textbooks, may be needed for effective projects; assuring that the administering agency has sufficient expertise and staff resources to effectively manage the program; and requiring the administering agency to establish measurable performance indicators to monitor progress and evaluate project results.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We received written comments on a draft of this report from USDA, USAID, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that are reprinted in appendixes XII, XIII, and XIV. These agencies also provided technical comments, which we incorporated in this report as appropriate. The Department of State’s liaison for GAO told us that State believes the report findings are essentially factual and correct and opted not to comment further. We also obtained technical comments on parts of the report from the World Bank, WFP, and six PVOs and have incorporated them as appropriate.

In its comments, USDA reiterated a number of key points and findings that were in the draft report and provided some additional information about certain aspects of the pilot program. Beyond that, USDA said it believes we have taken an overly critical view of how it has administered the pilot program, given time and resource constraints. Our draft report cited time and resource limitations as key factors affecting the management and possible effectiveness of the program. USDA also said it believes the report fails to recognize that the president directed a school feeding program, not an entire educational program. We disagree with this statement. We clearly said— as the White House did on the day the program was announced and as USDA itself did in its comments—that the pilot is a school feeding program with the three purposes of improving student enrollment, attendance, and learning.

USAID said our draft report accurately and fairly depicted the complex and formidable challenges confronting the GFEI, fully endorsed our matters for congressional consideration, and said the findings and matters should be of great use to the Congress as it debates the structure of U.S. food assistance. USAID observed that the pilot placed priority on getting the program up and running, with program designers believing that improvements could then be made that would address issues of cost, sustainability, and the need for complementary programs.

OMB commented that the draft report was balanced and generally accurate and would serve the Congress and the public in future deliberations about school feeding programs. OMB also said that the principal criticisms of the pilot program problems may be attributable to the urgency with which the program was generated. In addition, OMB said, greater emphasis was placed on the nutritional goals of the pilot rather than education objectives. One could expect that some of these problems could be addressed by a more deliberate approach to performance and evaluation, it said.

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional committees and the secretary of state; secretary of agriculture; and the administrator, USAID. Copies will also be made available to others upon request.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me on (202) 512-4347. Other GAO contacts and staff acknowledgments are listed in appendix XII.

Scope and Methodology

We obtained information on the Global Food for Education Initiative (GFEI) and pilot program from U.S. government officials at the Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and State, as well as officials from the Agency for International Development (USAID), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the White House. We also obtained information from officials of the World Food Program (WFP), foreign donor governments, and representatives of private voluntary organizations. In addition, we met with representatives of the European Commission and the World Bank, and experts from private research institutions. We conducted our review in Washington, D.C.; Rome, Italy; and Brussels, Belgium.

Our review addressed lessons learned from past international school feeding programs, the application of lessons learned to the pilot program, an assessment of the design and implementation phase of the pilot project, the impact of the GFEI on recipient country agricultural markets, and the commitment of other donor countries to the initiative. Our review did not address the in-country phase of the pilot program because projects were not operational during most of the time of our review. Our contact with PVOs was limited because most of their agreements were not finalized until we had completed most of our field work.

To examine the lessons learned about the effectiveness and cost of school feeding programs in promoting increased school enrollment, attendance, and performance, we reviewed studies completed by the U.S. government, international organizations, private voluntary organizations, and private research institutions. We also met with selected experts in international school feeding. We reviewed the studies in terms of past programs’ impact on enrollment, attendance, and learning. In reviewing studies and meeting with experts, we also identified key factors common to effective school feeding programs. Through our analysis of information from World Bank and WFP, we also compared estimated costs of various school feeding programs.

To examine the extent to which the U.S. pilot program has been built upon the lessons learned from previous school feeding programs, we met with senior officials of the USDA and State, USAID, the White House, and OMB, as well as representatives of private voluntary organizations, research institutions, and international organizations. We also reviewed program decisionmaking documents. We compared information obtained from these sources to key conclusions of past international school feeding studies and the views of various experts.

To determine whether the U.S. pilot program was designed and implemented to reasonably ensure that the food aid and monetized proceeds were used effectively and efficiently, we gathered information and met with officials from the USDA, USAID, the White House, and OMB. We also obtained information from private voluntary organizations and WFP. We reviewed pilot program guidance, proposals, and relevant laws and regulations governing the development and administration of the pilot project. We also gathered and analyzed a variety of key pilot project information to provide estimates of tonnage, project costs, and number of beneficiaries by cooperating sponsor. We assessed selected information in proposals for approved pilot projects and nonmeal program components of these projects, including the amount budgeted and number of project beneficiaries. We applied our governmentwide internal control standards in evaluating the pilot project’s management and financial controls.

To determine the views of other major food aid donors regarding support for a comprehensive, long-term global food for education initiative, we gathered information and met with officials from donor countries including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the European Commission. We developed an analytical framework to summarize their individual and collective views on how food aid should be provided in terms of emergencies, development, cash, or food-in-kind.

We conducted our review from November 2000 through December 2001 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Pilot Program Projects’ Implementing Partners, Countries, Agreement Status, Tonnage, Cost, and Beneficiaries

International Orthodox Christian Georgia Charities (IOCC)

Does not include a late fiscal year 2002 shipment of 2,350 metric tons.

Some projects involve multiple commitments. The United States approved 34 WFP proposals covering 27 WFP projects in 23 countries. Of the 34 proposals, 8 were for expansions of already existing school feeding projects. The United States approved two different projects each for Guinea, Kenya, Nicaragua, and Uganda. As of February 21, 2002, USDA and WFP were still negotiating the terms of the second project for Guinea, and no figures for this project are shown in the table.

The World Food Program’s Role in School Feeding and Food for Education

The World Food Program (WFP), set up in 1963, is a major U.N. agency in the fight against global hunger. In 2000, WFP fed 83 million people in 83 countries, including most of the world’s refugees and internally displaced people. It shipped 3.5 million tons of food; received $1.75 billion in donations; and had operational expenditures of $1.49 billion (provisional figures).

WFP provides three basic kinds of food aid: (1) emergency assistance to cope with the adverse food effects of natural disasters, civil conflict, and war; (2) protracted relief or rehabilitation aid to help people rebuild their lives and communities once the causes of emergencies recede; and (3) development assistance that aims to make communities food secure so they can devote time, attention, and work to escaping the poverty trap. When WFP was founded, its food assistance primarily focused on development, and for years development projects accounted for more than two-thirds of its expenditures. However, during the past 15 years, WFP has become increasingly involved in responding to humanitarian emergencies. According to WFP officials, WFP devoted 28 percent of its resources to development in 1997, 18 percent in 1999, and only 13 percent in 2000.

WFP relies entirely on voluntary contributions to finance its projects. Governments are the principal source of funding, but corporations, foundations, and individuals also contribute. Donations are made either as cash, food (such as grains, beans, oil, salt, and sugar), or the basic items necessary to grow, cook, and store food—kitchen utensils, agricultural tools, and warehouses. Since it has no independent source of funds, WFP’s Executive Board has mandated that all food donations, whether in cash or in-kind, must be accompanied by the cash needed to move, manage, and monitor the food aid.

WFP has been running school feeding programs for nearly 40 years. In 1999, it operated 76 school feeding projects in 48 developing countries. These included 33 emergency or protracted relief projects that had 5.28 million beneficiaries and 43 development projects that had 5.85 million beneficiaries. Thus, total beneficiaries were 11.13 million. In 2000, WFP operated 68 projects in 54 countries, with a total of 12.27 million beneficiaries. According to WFP, the total expenditure for its school feeding operations in 2000 was approximately $421 million. About $239 million was for development projects focused on school feeding, and the remainder was for school feeding components of emergency or protracted relief and recovery operations.

WFP welcomed President Clinton’s July 23, 2000, announcement of the $300 million pilot program to launch a universal school feeding program, noted that it had been working closely with the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Food Agencies in Rome to assist in the creation of such a program, and expressed the hope that the initiative would become a permanent feature of the global community of nations. A few days later, WFP’s executive director, in testimony before a U.S. Senate committee, said a global program needs to be managed by a global organization and WFP, as the food aid arm of the U.N., was uniquely qualified to manage the initiative.

Regarding its role in implementing a global program, WFP has said that much could be done to strengthen the education system in many developing countries.According to WFP, this a highly complex task, one for which food aid is not the most effective resource. WFP’s approach will be to use food aid where the food is needed. WFP does not propose to monetize food commodities to fund related educational support activities. WFP will monetize only to effect an exchange between donated commodities and locally grown foods when this is cost effective and does not have an adverse effect on local markets. At the same time, WFP recognizes that while school feeding can bring children to school and help them learn while they are there, school feeding does not ensure qualified teachers, books and supplies, or a suitable curriculum. According to WFP, this is the role of national governments, often supported by international organizations or Private Voluntary Organizations (PVO); and the relationship between improvements in an education system and a national system of school feeding is one that must be managed by governments.

However, within the broad framework of government cooperation, WFP said, it is eager to work with other operational partners and experienced in doing so.

Underfunding of Projects

WFP told us that many of its school feeding projects have shortfalls.Funding for all components of approved projects, including current school feeding programs, depends on the level of contributions received. When and where possible, WFP will allocate unearmarked donations to underfunded projects, taking into consideration the urgency of the need and a need to comply with the executive board’s approved allocation formula.

According to WFP, it usually is not technically feasible to identify how many children were not fed due to under-resourcing. An unstable resourcing situation often compels project managers to temporarily adjust the on-site ration size or the number of food distribution days, rather than reducing the number of beneficiaries, it said. When under-resourcing is of a more permanent nature, the project plan is revised and a formal change in the beneficiaries occurs.

WFP’S Approach to Certain Key Factors Associated with Effective School Feeding Programs

WFP has developed several documents that describe its policies for establishing school feeding programs and which guide the project development and approval process for all WFP school feeding activities.The following is a brief summary of some of the points presented in these documents, or provided directly to us by WFP in response to questions that we provided to the agency, regarding certain key factors associated with their school feeding programs.

Targeting—The focus of WFP’s world school feeding initiative is on feeding preschool and primary school age children. On an exceptional basis, food aid activities designed to encourage girls to continue their education beyond primary school will be considered. Some fundamental issues to be examined in determining the problems to be addressed are (1) enrollment and dropout rates in primary education broken down by gender, region and sociocultural groups, to the extent possible, and factors explaining these rates; (2) extent of, and factors contributing to, short-term hunger; (3) average distances walked by the students, who will be covered in the school feeding activity, between their homes and their school; and (4) cultural practices affecting enrollment/attendance, especially of girls.

As a general rule, targeting within school feeding projects will be conducted at the level of geographic areas, with no selection of individual pupils within schools. The only exception for this may be when the effectiveness of an incentive for a particular category (e.g., girls) can be demonstrated. According to WFP, it requires at least 50 percent of its resources in education to be targeted for girls, and WFP has been very successful in achieving this requirement.

WFP has a vulnerability analysis and mapping unit (VAM) to identify people most vulnerable to hunger and to target their needs. According to WFP, VAM uses state of the art satellite imagery of rainfall and crop conditions, as well as monitoring of food prices in local markets. WFP has VAM sub-units in more than 50 developing countries. According to WFP, this system is also used in targeting its school feeding programs.

Facilitative learning environment—WFP told us that it does not require a facilitative learning environment to be in place or provided as part of its programs, but such an environment is highly desired and encouraged. According to WFP, the presence of school feeding in schools helps bring attention to other school conditions (e.g., classrooms, materials, sanitary facilities, teachers, curricula, and health conditions) and, in turn, helps WFP and its partners to bring attention to problems and attract other needed resources.

Safe water and sanitation—WFP guidelines say basic water supply and sanitation standards must be met if food is to be safely stored and prepared for school feeding, and safe water supply should be available on the school premises at all times. WFP provides detailed information on optimal and minimal standards for a safe water supply and sanitation at schools. However, WFP told us it does not require safe water and sanitation facilities to be in place in order to implement school feeding in a given school and, as a rule, does not provide water and sanitation facilities. However, WFP said, it does work with the national and local governments and with other U.N. agencies, donors, and nongovernmental organizations who have the appropriate skills and resources to “trigger” action where the lack of such facilities is a problem.

Deworming treatments—According to WFP guidelines, WFP will generally support deworming in a school feeding program when more than 50 percent of the children have intestinal parasites. Treatment is with a single dose of the proper medicine, up to three times a year, and should be combined with improved sanitation and safe water supply, as well as health education on prevention. In April 2001, WFP told us that it did not yet have complete information regarding which of its school feeding programs had already initiated deworming activities (due to decentralized decision-making and no prior requirements for reporting such information). However, WFP said it did know that most or all of its school feeding operations in Latin America and the Caribbean and two or more in Asia had at least implemented limited deworming activities. WFP estimated that by the end of 2001, it would have initiated deworming in its school feeding programs in 15 or more countries, in partnership with WHO and the World Bank, and assisted, in part, by a Canadian grant. WFP said that it hopes to achieve deworming activities in most or all GFEI, as well other WFP school feeding operations. WFP also noted that national, regional, or local governments may require deworming to be in place.

Micronutrient supplementation—WFP guidelines note that school feeding can be a vehicle for micronutrients in countries where school children are affected by and/or at high risk of developing micronutrient deficiencies. WFP provides information on micronutrient deficiencies that have been shown to affect school attendance and performance, recommended levels of intake of these micronutrients for 3- to 12-year old children, and guidance on how to use them in school meals. WFP told us that micronutrient supplementation is most often handled as an additive to the commodities that are distributed. In cases where the commodities that arrive are not fortified, WFP most often works locally to fortify the food or seeks other remedies. WFP collaborates with groups that have expertise and resources to bring to bear, especially UNICEF, WHO, a Canadian micronutrient initiative, and certain NGOs. WFP noted that national, regional, or local governments may require micronutrient supplementation to be in place.

Health and nutrition education—WFP told us that this is not strictly required in all WFP school feeding operations. However, such activities are highly encouraged, are frequently planned and implemented, and will be further strengthened through collaboration with appropriate partners and coworkers on the ground. WFP noted that national, regional, or local governments may require health and nutrition education to be in place.

Community and parental participation—WFP told us that community and parental participation are not strictly required in all WFP school feeding operations. However, WFP said, such activities are highly encouraged,are frequently planned and implemented, and are and will be further strengthened through collaboration with appropriate partners and coworkers on the ground. WFP noted that its data indicates that as girls’ enrollment and attendance increases, so does parental participation. WFP also noted that national, regional, or local governments may require parental involvement to be in place.

Education for All—WFP expects recipient governments to have demonstrated a commitment to Education for All.

Sustainability—WFP requires that plans be in place for eventual take- over of a feeding program by recipient countries. WFP generally insists that programs be supported by national governments and local communities and that resources and infrastructure be provided as counterpart contributions. However, WFP will consider providing school feeding activities in some emergency and protracted relief situations where full government support is not possible. In addition, for low income countries, it is probably necessary to provide most or all of the food commodities, technical assistance, and equipment.

According to a WFP official, sustainability depends on the economic status of the recipient country. There are countries where the national government has been able to take over a program. However, in the poorest, least developed countries, he said, sustainability is only possible where there is substantial community involvement. In many least developed countries, government expenditure on the education sector often represents up to 30 percent of the national budget; it is difficult enough for such countries to maintain the physical infrastructure and teachers. For least developed countries, sustainability is a long-term process. A realistic estimate is 10 to 15 years, he said.

Monitoring and Evaluation WFP officials told us that there had been some problems in the past, but WFP is working hard to overcome them for both the U.S. pilot program and its other school feeding activities. As an example of problems, collection of baseline date had varied, depending on the country, the specific goals of the school feeding activity, and the resources available. Principal performance indicators that WFP tended to use were increased enrollment and attendance, reduced dropout rates, and improved performance (such as number of students who had completed primary school the previous year and gone on to higher education). WFP had looked at these indicators, especially as they relate to girls’ education, and had been able to report some notable successes. However, WFP had only done that in isolated cases/countries. Therefore, WFP intends under GFEI to standardize the indicators and upgrade its monitoring and evaluation systems so as to be able to regularly collect and report comparable and up-to-date data for its school feeding operations. WFP also said that data collection and analysis in developing countries is challenging and requires additional resources and capacity building of national counterpart staff.

WFP’s guidelines for its new World School Feeding Initiative require a baseline monitoring study to establish the situation prior to the onset of the initiative, followed by periodic updates as a program is implemented. To this end, WFP developed a detailed survey instrument for collecting baseline information on its GFEI-funded projects. The survey was pilot- tested in August 2001, and WFP conducted the surveys in a sample of schools for all of the U.S. pilot program projects before the end of 2001 (details of the survey instrument are discussed in the letter).

In addition, according to WFP, during 2001, it developed and successfully pilot-tested a new system of collecting key monitoring data on a timely basis directly from the schools involved in its feeding programs. The system involves school staff entering key data directly into devices, installed at the schools, that transmit the data via satellite to a data collection center in France, using the ARGOS satellite system (that is jointly managed by the governments of France and the United States). Country data is then reported from the data collection center to the country’s relevant ministry of education and to WFP. WFP is seeking donors to fund implementation of the system.

WFP also conducted a major, global survey of national school feeding programs (not specific projects) between May and December 2001. The survey collected information on countries’ school feeding programs and related information on their demography; education system; nongovernmental program assistance; health-related education services at school; and evaluations, studies, and surveys about school feeding and related topics. According to WFP, the survey provides a focal point for school feeding information, which WFP will use to promote dialogue with governments and nongovernmental organizations concerning the use of food aid for education and related issues. WFP will also use the data to produce special reports and identify country specific needs and coordinate partnerships between countries with experience in school feeding and those in need. WFP is posting country-specific results on its Web site. WFP is seeking donors to fund installation of the system in its schools.

Regarding evaluations, WFP’s central evaluation office generally does not conduct separate evaluations of the school feeding projects that WFP assists. (Occasionally separate evaluations of school feeding projects are undertaken if specifically requested by the executive board.) WFP mandates that evaluations of its country programs be conducted about every 4 years, on average. The evaluations are submitted to WFP’s Executive Board for review. If a country has a school feeding project, the project’s role, relevance, and performance as an activity is to be included in the review.

Results from Review of Experts’ Findings and Views on School Feeding Programs

This appendix provides additional information on our review of experts’ findings and views concerning (1) the effect of school feeding programs on enrollment and attendance, (2) the effect of school feeding programs on educational performance or learning, and (3) key factors contributing to effective school feeding programs (see tables 4 and 5). It also provides further information on key factors associated with effective school feeding programs (see tables 6 through 10). (See also app. V, which discusses the costs and cost effectiveness of school feeding programs.)

Our review relied considerably on the views of two experts who have reviewed the results of many school feeding program studies; WFP, which has conducted school feeding programs for 4 decades and also reviewed the results of other studies; and the summary views of a meeting of experts and practitioners held at USAID in October 2000. We also conducted literature searches, reviewed the results of individual studies on school feeding programs, and spoke with experts and practitioners.

Table 4 summarizes the results of studies and expert views on the relationship between school feeding and school enrollment and attendance.

Table 5 summarizes the results of several studies and expert views on the relationship between school feeding and school performance.

Table 6 provides results and views on how targeting factors can affect school feeding program effectiveness. Ways to target programs include focusing on areas/communities that are (1) low-income and food insecure, (2) have relatively low levels of school enrollment and attendance, and (3) where girls’ enrollment and attendance are considerably lower than boys’.

Table 7 provides results and views on how learning environment factors can affect school feeding program effectiveness, including ensuring adequate numbers of teachers, teacher training, supplies of textbooks and other learning materials, and school infrastructure.

Table 8 provides results and views on how health and nutrition factors can affect school feeding program effectiveness, including through treating intestinal parasitic infections, ensuring clean water and adequate sanitation facilities, addressing micronutrient deficiencies, and ensuring health and nutrition education.

Table 9 provides results and views on how community and parental involvement can impact the effectiveness of school feeding programs.

Table 10 provides results and views on the effect of government commitment and sustainability on the effectiveness of school feeding programs. Among the factors addressed are national government commitment to broad, national school reform programs, resource commitments by national governments and local communities, and plans for program sustainability.

References

Agarwal, D.K.; Upadhyay, S.K.; Tripathi, A.M.; and Agarwal, K.N. Nutritional Status, Physical Work Capacity and Mental Function in School Children. Nutrition Foundation of India, Scientific Report 6 (1987). As cited in Del Rosso, 1999.

Ahmed, A.U. and Billah, K. Food for Education Program in Bangladesh: An Early Assessment. International Food Policy Research Institute, Bangladesh Food Policy Project. Dhaka, Pakistan: 1994.

Berg A. “School Daze,” New & Noteworthy in Nutrition 34 (1999).

Berkley, S. & Jamison D. A Conference on the Health of School Age Children. Sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme and the Rockefeller Foundation, held in Bellagio, Italy, August 12-16, 1991. As cited in Whitman et al, 2000.

Briefel, R; Murphy, J.; Kung, S.; & Devaney, B. Universal-Free School Breakfast Program Evaluation Design Project: Review of Literature on Breakfast and Reporting. Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Princeton, New Jersey (December 22, 1999).

Bundy, D.A.P., & Guyatt, H.L. Global Distribution of Parasitic Worm Infections. Paris: UNESCO (1989). As cited in Whitman et al, 2000.

Chambers, C.M. “An Evaluation of the World Food Program (WFP)/Jamaica 2727 School Feeding Program.” Cajunas 24(2)(1991) pp. 91-102. As cited in Del Rosso, 1999.

Del Rosso, J.M. & Marek, T. Class Action: Improving School Performance in the Developing World through Better Health and Nutrition. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank (1996).

Del Rosso, J.M. School Feeding Programs: Improving Effectiveness and Increasing the Benefit to Education: A Guide for Program Managers. The World Bank (August 1999).

Devadas, R.P. The Honorable Chief Minister’s Nutritious Meal Program for Children of Tamil Nadu. Ciombatore, India: 1983. As cited in Del Rosso, 1996.

Gopaldas, T., Gujral, S. “The Pre-Post Impact Evaluation of the Improved Mid-Day Meal Program, Gujarat (1994-continuing).” Tara Consultancy Services, Baroda, India (1996). As cited in Del Rosso, 1999.

Hubley, J. “School Health Promotion in Developing Countries: A literature review.” Leeds, U.K.: Self-published (1998). As cited in Whitman et al, 2000.

IFPRI. Feeding Minds While Fighting Poverty. Washington, D.C.: IFPRI (2001).

Janke, C. “SFPs and Education: Establishing the Context.” Catholic Relief Service (CRS) School Feeding/Education Companion Guidebook. 1996.

Jarousse, J.P., & Mingat, A. “Assistance a la formulation d’une politique nationale et d’un programme d’investiseement dans le secteur de l’education au Benin,” Project UNESCO/PNUD Benin/89/001. Paris: UNESCO (1991). As cited in Whitman et al, 2000.

Khan, A. “The sanitation gap: Development’s deadly menance,” The Progress of Nations 1997. New York: UNICEF (1997).

King, J. Evaluation of School Feeding in the Dominican Republic. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: CARE (1990). As cited in Whitman et al, 2000.

Levinger, B. School Feeding Programs in Developing Countries: An Analysis of Actual and Potential Impact. AID Evaluation Special Study No. 30. USAID (January 1986).

Levinger, B. Statement of Beryl Levinger before the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. U.S. Senate, July 27, 2000.

Levinger, B. GAO interview with Beryl Levinger, March 9, 2001.

Lopez I.; de Andraca, I.; Perales, C.G.; Heresi, M.; Castillo, M.; and Colombo, M. “Breakfast Omission and Cognitive Performance of Normal, Wasted and Stunted Schoolchildren.” European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 47 (1993).

Meme, M.M.; Kogi-Makau, W.; Muroki, N.M.; and Mwadime, R.K. “Energy and Protein Intake and Nutritional Status of Primary School Children 5 to 10 Years of Age in Schools with and without Feeding Programs in Nyambene District, Kenya, “Food & Nutrition Bulletin Vol. 19, Number 4, 1998.

Moore, E. & Kunze, L. Evaluation of Burkina Faso School Feeding Program. Catholic Relief Services, consultant report (February 1994) .

Nazaire, J. CRS Select Targeting and Design Guidelines for School Feeding and Other Food-Assisted Education Programs. Catholic Relief Services (2000).

Nokes, C.; Grantham-McGregor, S.M.; Sawyer, A.W.; Cooper, E.S.; Robinson, B.A.; & Bundy D.A. “Moderate to High Infections of Trichuris Trichura and Cognitive Function in Jamaican School Children” Parasitology Vol. 104, June 1992.

Pillai, N. “Food Aid for Development? A Review of the Evidence.” In Food Aid and Human Security, Clay, E., Stokke, O., eds. London, England: Frank Cass Publishers (2000).

Pollitt E. “Does Breakfast Make a Difference in School?” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 95, October 1995.

Pollitt, E. “Malnutrition and Infection in the Classroom: Summary and Conclusions,” Food and Nutrition Bulletin Vol. 12, No. 3, 1990.

Ponza, M.; Briefel, R; Corson, W.; Devaney, B.; Glazerman, S.; Gleason, P.; Heaviside, S.; Kung, S.; Meckstroth, A.; Murphy, J.; & Ohls, J. Universal- Free School Breakfast Program Evaluation Design Project: Final Evaluation Design. Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Princeton, New Jersey (December 20, 1999).

Rajan, S.I, Jayakumar, A. “Impact of Noon Meal Program on Primary Education: An Exploratory Study in Tamil Nadu.” Economic and Political Weekly (1992). As cited in Del Rosso, 1999.

Select Committee on Hunger, United States House of Representatives, Alleviating World Hunger: Literacy and School Feeding Programs. U.S. Government Printing Office (1987). As cited in Del Rosso, 1999.

Seshandri, S. & Gopaldas, T. “Impact of Iron Supplementation on Cognitive Functions in Pre-School and School-aged Children: The Indian Experience.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 50 (1989).

Shresta, R.M. “Effects of Iodine and Iron Supplementation on Physical, Psychomotor, and Mental Development in Primary School Children in Malawi.” Ph.D. thesis, University of Malawi, Wappeningen (1994). As cited in Whitman et al, 2000.

Simeon, D.T., & Grantham-McGregor, S. “Effects of Missing Breakfast on the Cognitive Functions of School Children of Differing Nutritional Status.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 49. (1989).

Stakeholders. “School Feeding/Food for Education Stakeholders’ Meeting.” Summary proceedings of a meeting at USAID of 50 practitioners and experts from USAID, USDA, the World Bank, UNICEF, the World Food Program, and other organizations that either administer or implement school feeding programs. October 3, 2000 (unpublished).

UNDP. Partnership for Child Development: An International Program to Improve the Health and Education of Children through School-Based Services. Project document, interregional project. New York (1992). As cited in Whitman et al, 2000.

UNESCO. Basic Learning Materials Initiative. www.unesco.org (downloaded Nov. 2001).

UNICEF. Focusing Resources on Effective School Health: A FRESH Start to Enhancing the Quality and Equity of Education (2000).

UNICEF. “Basic Education Fund Raising Kit.” www.unicef.org (downloaded March 12, 2001).

Whitman, C.V., Aldinger, C., Levinger, B., Birdthistle, I. Thematic Study on School Health and Nutrition. Education Development Center, Inc. (March 6, 2000).

World Bank. GAO interviews with World Bank officials, May 15 and August 9, 2001.

World Food Program (a). Implementation of Operational Guidelines for WFP Assistance to Education (1995).

World Food Program (b). “Project Pakistan 4185: Promotion of Primary Education for Girls in Baluchistan and NWFP,” (1995). As cited in Del Rosso, 1999.

World Food Program (c). Thematic Evaluation of Long-Term School Canteen Projects in West Africa. WFP Office of Evaluation, (1995).

World Food Program. “Report on Pilot School Feeding Programme,” Evaluation Report, WFP/MALAWI, (1996) (unpublished). As cited in Del Rosso, 1999.

World Food Program, UNESCO, and World Health Organization. School Feeding Handbook. Rome, Italy (1999).

World Food Program. “School Feeding/Food for Education.” World Food Program comments in Response to Oct. 3, 2000, Stakeholders’ Meeting” (2000) (unpublished).

Young, M.E. “Integrated Early Child Development: Challenges and Opportunities.” World Bank, 1995.

Costs of School Feeding Programs

This appendix discusses actual costs of school feeding programs as determined by two World Bank studies, as well as World Food Program (WFP) cost estimates of its programs and our own estimates of school feeding programs based on WFP guidelines and cost factors and other data. It also provides information on situations where school feeding programs may not be as cost-effective in promoting learning as certain other approaches.

Table 11 provides figures on the actual costs of more than 30 school feeding programs in 21 countries that were reported in two World Bank studies. Table 11 shows the annual cost of providing 1,000 calories per student on a daily basis for a 180-day school year; dollar values have been expressed in 2000 dollars. As the table shows, costs vary significantly, ranging from a low of $4.29 for one program to a high of $180.31 for another. All but four of the programs cost more than $23 per pupil, and the average cost for all programs was $58.66 per student. Cost differences can be due to a variety of factors, such as differing program objectives, type of food served, and costs in transporting the food to the country and, once there, to its final destination.

In April 2001, WFP officials told us they estimated the current average cost of WFP school feeding programs ranged between about $22 to $27 per student, for a 180-day school year. They said WFP did not have precise figures available on the average costs of its school feeding programs because it has not required data to be reported in the specific category of school feeding. Many large projects have a school feeding component, they noted, but are not entirely devoted to school feeding. Subsequently, in July 2001, WFP issued a paper that reported the average cost of its school feeding development projects in 2000 at 19 cents a day (or $34.20 for a 180 day program).

We prepared a separate estimate of the cost of school feeding programs using some WFP guidelines and cost factors and other data. According to WFP, the recommended daily school feeding ration for full-time primary school students can range between 600 to 2,000 calories, depending on whether schools are half day, full day, or boarding. For day school, the recommended acceptable range is between 1,200 to 1,500 calories (i.e., 60 to 75 percent of the daily energy requirements of school-age children). The guidelines also indicate that a minimum of 10 percent of calories should be obtained from consumption of edible fats. In addition, the guidelines for day schools recommend that school feeding programs provide 28 to 36 grams of protein; 13 to 17 grams of fat; and no more than 300 grams of cereals, 30 grams of pulses, and 15 grams of vegetable oil.

We analyzed the nutritional value of typical food aid commodities and determined that the least costly mix of commodities—consisting of corn and vegetable oil--that met the above requirements for primary day schools would cost 3.72 cents per child per day (based on USDA valuations of the commodities for 2001). If this diet were supplied for 180 days, the food alone would cost approximately $6.69 per child. On the basis of overall WFP costs for its various food aid programs in 1998 to 1999, we estimated that administrative, storage, and transportation costs would result in an additional cost per child (for a 180-day school meal program) of $7.70. The total average cost of this diet would be $14.39 per student. When factoring in the nutritional requirements of school-age children to include other essential elements, such as vitamins, micronutrients, and minerals, we found the lowest-cost, most nutritionally-complete recipe would cost $29.67 per child ($13.80 for the food and $15.87 for administrative and transportation costs.)

Situations Where Other Approaches May Be More Cost Effective

According to a number of experts, school feeding programs may be less cost effective than other possible approaches, such as establishing maternal child health and early childhood development programs and providing alternative nutritional or educational interventions.

According to a USAID official, if nutrition is the problem, maternal child health and preschool feeding programs are more cost effective than school feeding programs. If education is a major weakness, investments in educational reform, teacher training, and learning facilities are more cost effective.

In 2001, a USAID contracted evaluation of its school feeding program in Haiti, covering the period 1996 to 2000, was completed. (The program was primarily a school feeding only operation; however, some resources were devoted to food for education activities.) The report concluded there is no causal connection between school feeding and improved educational performance. Other factors such as school quality and parental variables, have a more direct influence on educational outcomes, it said. The report found the food for education approach to be very promising, provided that food is used as leverage to improve school quality. The report recommended USAID consider devoting all of the school feeding resources to food for education activities. However, USAID decided to phase out school feeding activities over a 3-year period. According to a USAID official, Haiti was loosing too many kids before they ever got to school. As a result, USAID concluded it would be more cost effective to employ the resources in a maternal and child health program. increase the likelihood that children will be healthy when they reach school age.

Table 12 provides an estimate of the cost effectiveness of nutrition-related interventions for a typical developing country, in terms of the return on each program dollar spent, as reported by the World Bank. (Impact is estimated in terms of wages rather than learning per se.) As shown in table 12, school feeding has one of the lowest return ($2.80) of the 11 interventions. Interventions with the highest returns on each program dollar spent are iron fortification of flour ($84.10), vitamin A supplementation for all children under age 5 ($50), nutrition education ($32.30), and iodized salt ($28).

In a study of the cost effectiveness of 40 educational interventions in Latin America, the authors surveyed a panel of 10 world experts on educational research and practical attempts at educational reform in the region, as well as 30 Latin American planner/practitioners working primarily in education ministries. Of the 40 interventions, 4 were variations on school feeding programs. None of the school feeding options were identified as being among the top 10 interventions for increasing learning, taking account of the estimated likelihood of adequate implementation (see table 13). The school feeding options were ranked between 23 and 34 in terms of increasing learning and between 34 and 40 when cost effectiveness was also considered.

According to Beryl Levinger, an expert on school feeding and food for education programs, there are children in developing countries that can effectively and efficiently benefit from school feeding programs. Short- term hunger is a genuine problem, and school feeding is one way to get and keep children enrolled in school, she said. At the same time, success in improving school enrollment, attendance, and learning is context driven, and many external factors can affect and interfere with these outcomes, she said. Therefore, according to Levinger, one needs to assess the total picture and identify the most important needs and best solutions for addressing them. For example, if the quality of education in a particular community is low and resources are limited, it is possible that resources could be better spent on improving education than addressing short-term hunger. As learning tasks become more interesting, she noted, learning goes up. Levinger estimated that providing motivational textbooks and other learning materials and training teachers in active learning methods would cost roughly about $5 per pupil per year. For an additional $2, she said, one could also provide some micronutrient supplementation and deworming treatments.

Multiple studies of treatments for intestinal parasite infections, through iron supplementation and regular deworming, have shown benefits of lower absenteeism and higher scores on tests of cognition or school achievement at a cost of about $1 per child per year. This is considerably less costly than school feeding programs that average $34 per child per year. However, we are not aware of any studies that assess and compare the relative impacts of programs that only treat for parasite infections to programs that provide a school meal.

In April 2000, the World Health Organization, the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, the U.N. Children’s Fund, and the World Bank proposed a strategy for Focusing Resources on Effective School Health (FRESH) to give a fresh start to improving the quality and equity of education and promoting the Education for All goal. They noted that poor health and malnutrition are important underlying factors for low school enrollment, absenteeism, poor classroom performance, and early school dropout. The agencies identified a core group of activities that they said captured the best practices from their programming experiences, were highly cost-effective, and a starting point to which other interventions might be added as appropriate. The agencies recommended that the following basic components of a school health program be made available together, in all schools: (1) health related school policies; provision of safe water and sanitation; (3) skills based health, hygiene, and nutrition education; and (4) school based health and nutrition services.

Regarding the latter component, the agencies said schools can effectively deliver some health and nutritional services provided that the services are simple, safe, and familiar and address problems that are prevalent and recognized as important within the community. For example, they said, micronutrient deficiencies and worm infections may be effectively dealt with by infrequent (6-monthly or annual) oral treatment. As another example, they said changing the timing of meals, or providing a snack to address short-term hunger during school—an important constraint on learning—can contribute to school performance.

In commenting on a draft of portions of this report, WFP officials said there has been no more cost-effective approach identified than school feeding for the combined objectives of increasing enrollment, attendance, and performance in developing countries--especially in areas of food insecurity. Further, when the key resource available is food, the case for school feeding to accomplish these objectives is indisputable, they said.

Process to Solicit, Evaluate, and Approve Proposals for the Pilot Program

USDA used a considerably different process to solicit, evaluate, and approve program proposals from interested cooperating sponsors and WFP. Cooperating sponsors, including Private Voluntary Organizations (PVO) and the government of the Dominican Republic, underwent an expedited two-stage qualification and proposal review process that either did not apply to or generally was different from that applied to WFP. Proposal formats and criteria applied to them by reviewers varied considerably. An interagency Food Assistance Policy Council (FAPC) made the final selection of project awards.

Proposal Process and Information Required

On September 6, 2000, USDA published a notice in the Federal Register requesting proposals from interested cooperating sponsors to carry out activities under GFEI. (See app. XI for key events under GFEI.) USDA said it would use section 416(b) of the Agricultural Act of 1949 to provide surplus agricultural commodities in support of an international school feeding program to improve student enrollment, attendance, and performance in poor countries. Proposals would be reviewed on an expedited basis. Given time constraints and the considerable effort and time involved in preparing and evaluating proposals, USDA invited interested sponsors to present an initial submission that contained only information intended to demonstrate, based on experience, the organizations’ administrative capabilities for implementing and managing school feeding or monetization of commodities for school feeding. USDA identified nine types of information that should or could be provided. The deadline for initial submissions was September 15, 2000.

USDA said that sponsors found to be most capable of successfully implementing school feeding activities under step one would then be invited to provide a supplemental submission addressing their specific proposed activities. The deadline for the step-two submission was September 29, 2000. USDA said the submissions should provide information that supported the goal of establishing a preschool or school feeding program to draw children into the school environment and improve access to basic education, especially for females. Priority consideration would be given to countries that had a commitment to universal free education but needed assistance in the short run; places where preschool or school feeding programs would promote significant improvements in nutrition, school enrollment, and attendance levels; projects involving existing food for education programs; and projects where the likelihood of support from other donors was high.

USDA requested that sponsors provide, to the extent possible, information on (1) literacy rates for the target population; (2) percentage of children attending schools, with special emphasis on school-age girls; (3) public expenditure on primary education; (4) whether the country currently operated a school feeding initiative (either through USAID, with assistance from the World Bank, or through internal resources); (5) program impact on areas such as teacher training, community infrastructure (e.g., PTAs and community groups), health, and nutrition; and (6) other potential donors. USDA also referred interested parties to the Code of Federal Regulations, which describes the requirements for the standard 416(b) program. These regulations provide additional guidance on factors to address in preparing a proposal.

Twenty-nine PVOs submitted part one of the proposal application within the required time frame. On September 22, 2000, USDA announced that 20 PVOs had qualified for further consideration and invited them to submit the second part of the application on the specific projects they were proposing. In addition, USDA announced that the government of the Dominican Republic had submitted an application, which had been approved for further consideration, and that WFP was eligible to participate in the pilot program.

The September 6, 2000 Federal Register notice stated that the pilot program was also open to WFP. USDA did not require WFP to provide either the initial or supplemental submission. WFP had already submitted a set of proposals to USDA in August 2000, following consultations with USDA officials. These proposals (1) were abbreviated; (2) concerned already existing or approved WFP school feeding projects that had not been fully funded, as well as planned expansions of these or other projects; (3) and, in general, did not address many points that USDA had asked cooperating sponsors to address in the second-stage submission. The proposals typically contained a brief half-page description of the project, accompanied by a summary budget for the commodities requested. Some, but not all, U.S. agency officials charged with reviewing the proposals were told they could obtain additional information describing the projects on WFP’s Web site. However, some projects had been approved by WFP’s Executive Board in prior years. Information posted on the Web site was sometimes incomplete and/or out of date.

USDA officials noted that the United States is a member of the WFP Executive Board and as such has a vote on which WFP proposed projects should be approved. They also noted that a vote by a donor country to approve a project does not mean that the country intends to donate to that project. In addition, they noted that approved WFP projects submitted to the pilot program in August 2000 would have been approved by the executive board prior to the U.S. announcement of the pilot program and GFEI.

According to WFP officials, WFP is strongly committed to addressing the key factors associated with effective food for education programs discussed in this report. The U.S. government is well aware of this commitment, and as a result WFP did not deem it necessary to make repeated reference to this commitment in the country-specific information included in its proposals. WFP officials noted that proposals submitted to USDA for projects that had already been approved by WFP’s Executive Board had gone through a long vetting process, adding that approval of a WFP project requires unanimous consensus from all executive board members, including the United States. The officials also noted that written documentation on its projects had been provided to U.S. government representatives during previous WFP Executive Board sessions when the projects had been reviewed and approved, as well as in sessions to review projects that had been operational. As a result, WFP officials said, the U.S. government had plenty of documentation for evaluating WFP proposed projects apart from documentation available at WFP’s Web site.

However, USAID told us that when the United States concurs in an executive board decision to approve a project, the United States frequently states its concerns or reservations about the feasibility or sustainability of program activities and has done so in the case of school feeding programs. Therefore, the fact that a particular project had been approved by WFP’s Executive Board did not necessarily mean the project was a good candidate for the U.S. food for education pilot program. In addition, according to a USAID official, though in principle U.S. government personnel responsible for evaluating WFP proposals could have gone to WFP’s Web site to look up additional documentation, there was little time to do this because of the push to get the pilot program up and running so quickly. He added that he knew of no one who used the Web for this purpose. He also said the evaluation task force members did not receive hard copies of documentation beyond the abbreviated set of proposals provided by WFP to USDA.

Proposal Evaluation Process And Agencies’ Criteria

USDA/Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) staff evaluated the initial PVO submissions on the basis of criteria in USDA’s September 6, 2000, Federal Register notice. USDA/FAS assigned different weights to the criteria. PVOs that scored above a certain level were invited to submit the second part of the requested proposals. Of 20 PVOs invited to make a second submission, 19 responded and 1 declined, citing a lack of adequate time to prepare the type of careful proposal the organization wanted to submit.

The 19 PVOs submitted a total of 62 project proposals. The government of the Dominican Republic also responded with a proposal.

For the second part of the proposal process, which covered the actual programs sponsors proposed to implement in various developing countries, USDA/FAS employed a more elaborate review procedure. The Food Assistance Policy Council (FAPC)was designated to make the final project selections. An FAPC working group was established to evaluate the PVO, government of the Dominican Republic, and WFP proposals and make recommendations on which ones to approve. The working group consisted of staff from FAS and its Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), the Department of State, USAID, OMB, and the White House.

USDA/FAS provided the other members of the working group with copies of all of the second-stage as well as WFP set of proposals. USDA/FNS assigned a nutritionist to review all of the proposals from a nutrition perspective. The Department of State assigned two staff to review the proposals. Four offices within USAID were involved in evaluating the proposals: a country backstop officer, the appropriate regional bureau, a nutritionist analyst from the Bureau of Humanitarian Response, and an education specialist from USAID’s Global Bureau, Field Support and Research. USAID’s Food for Peace Office within the Bureau of Humanitarian Response coordinated the process within USAID. The Food for Peace Office is responsible for USAID’s food aid programs, including any programs that have funded school feeding or food for education programs. Each member of the working group conducted an evaluation of the proposals separately during October 2000 and met in early November to discuss their results and reach consensus on which proposals to submit to the FAPC for final approval.

USDA/FAS did not score but recommended approval of WFP proposals for all 27 countries in which WFP had established, but unmet, food aid requirements. However, USDA scored and divided the non-WFP proposals into three distinct categories (i.e., strongly recommended, recommend approval, or not recommended). In conducting its second-stage evaluation of the non-WFP proposals, USDA/FAS employed a considerable number of written criteria, nearly all of which were taken from its standard approach to evaluating 416(b) programs. The standard criteria do not focus on school feeding or food for education programs. Apart from the standard criteria, USDA’s evaluation included some criteria that related to school feeding/food for education. (All of USDA’s second-stage criteria were weighted.) USDA considered whether:

Objectives supporting the goal of establishing preschool or school feeding programs to draw children into the school environment and improve basic education for females were clearly stated.

The proposal targeted a country with existing food for education programs in the host country’s development plan.

The method for choosing beneficiaries (whether for preschool or school feeding) activities was clear and justifiable; emphasis on females.

The cooperating sponsor provided indicators to measure program impact, including baselines and expected outcomes. Potential indicators might include literacy rates for target populations, percentage of school-age children attending school (emphasis on females), and public expenditure on primary education.

The cooperating sponsor included specific performance targets as part of its proposal, such as magnitude of change in number of meals served; enrollment levels, specifically female enrollment; attendance levels; capacity building in areas necessary to sustain the feeding program, such as development of PTAs and other community groups; or infrastructure development for delivery of service.

Agriculture officials told us they did not have time and adequate staff to study lessons learned from past school feeding/food for education programs given the short lead time they had to get the program up and running. Instead, they said, USDA relied considerably upon USAID for this aspect of the evaluation, since USAID had extensive experience with school feeding programs.

Most of USAID’s written criteria did not focus specifically on food for education. Evaluators in the Regional Bureaus were asked to review how the proposals fit with the bureau priorities for the country and how a proposed project might affect (positively and/or negatively) USAID programs in the country. The bureaus were also responsible for providing each country proposal to the respective cognizant field mission and for incorporating mission responses and concerns into their review. Field missions were also responsible for providing input regarding the Bellmon analysis. Country backstop officers were asked to review each country proposal regarding commodities, monetization, and logistics and how these issues might affect (positively and/or negatively) USAID’s Title II food aid programs in country. The USAID nutritionist was asked to review the nutritional components of the proposal and their adequacy. USAID’s Global Bureau was asked to review the educational components of the proposals and their adequacy, as well as host country policies and commitment to basic education. All of the USAID evaluators were instructed to indicate briefly whether they approved or disapproved of a proposal and, if they approved, to indicate the priority they thought the proposed program should have (low, medium, high, very high).

In USAID’s weighting scheme, the Global Bureau’s assessment of the educational component could have accounted for about 25 percent of a proposal’s total score. However, for several reasons, its analysis did not contribute to USAID’s evaluation of which proposals were the best. The USAID staff person assigned to rate this dimension of the proposals told us that although he had expertise in the education area, he was not an expert on school feeding programs. In addition, he said that nearly all of the proposals did not provide adequate information to judge the quality of the educational component. He told us it might have been possible to obtain this information if discussions could have been held with the sponsors. However, the evaluation process did not provide for such interaction. As a result, he assigned the same score to all but one of the proposals. Since virtually all proposals were scored exactly the same, education was not a discriminating factor in the Global Bureau’s overall ranking of the proposals.

No formal record was kept of the interagency working group’s deliberations, but a summary of its consensus recommendations was forwarded to the FAPC for action. This summary contained a brief description of the proposed food aid to be delivered to each country, its cost and rationale, economic assessments, and prior aid. In the end, the FAPC approved 34 WFP proposals covering 23 countries. Of the 34, 26 were for approved WFP projects with unmet food aid needs and 8 were for expansion projects. FAPC approved 25 PVO projects and the only proposal submitted by a government entity (the Dominican Republic). FAPC allocated almost equal program value to WFP (about $138 million) and the other sponsors (about $150 million), with instructions that the remainder be first offered in support of additional WFP proposals. However, cost estimates that FAPC used in its award determinations were too high and have since been reduced by USDA in implementing agreements. The total cost of WFP agreements was recently estimated by USDA at about $92.5 million; cooperating sponsors’ agreements were estimated at about $135 million.

Selected Information Contained in Proposals for Approved School Feeding Programs

This appendix discusses selected information in school feeding program proposals approved by USDA, including proposed nonmeal components of the program, proposed funding of nonmeal components, and comments on other donor assistance.

In its request for proposals, USDA indicated that PVOs could monetize some of the food to cover certain other elements important to food for education programs. Table 14 provides information on the PVOs that proposed funding for nonmeal components, including the specific components and the overall proposed funding amount for these components. As the table shows, for 17 of the 25 approved proposals, PVOs proposed to include a variety of nonmeal components. Examples include repairs to school buildings, investments in teacher training and school supplies, treatments for parasite infections, and health and nutrition education. Ten of the 17 proposals included a budget amount for some or all of these components.

According to information from USDA, it provided little funding for nonmeal components of WFP projects. WFP requested funding for the underfunded school meals of already existing projects or for meals for expansion of existing projects or start-up of new projects. These requests included funding for the commodities and related costs, including ocean freight and overland transportation costs to the recipient countries; internal transportation, storage and handling costs for the commodities within the recipient countries; direct support costs; and administrative costs.

According to WFP, its projects often include funding for nonmeal components, which can be obtained through donor countries, partnership arrangements with other international donors, or by recipient country governments. WFP officials told us they are working to develop more partnerships with other donor agencies to address nonmeal aspects of their food for education projects. Table 15 provides information on planned funding of nonmeal components for the pilot program approved WFP projects, based on WFP documentation that was available at WFP’s Web site. Nonfood components typically involve training, construction or rehabilitation of school facilities, or health related activities (such as deworming).

Although USDA said that priority would be given to proposals where the likelihood of other donor support was high, neither USDA nor USAID included this factor in written criteria for evaluating the proposals. We reviewed the PVO proposals to assess whether sponsors in fact provided such information in their proposals. As table 16 shows, only five of the approved proposals indicated that other donors might support the project. Of the five, two proposals said other donors would support the project and identified the expected amount of support.

Donor Views on Uses of Food Aid And How It Is Provided

This appendix discusses the views of food aid donating countries other than the United States regarding the use of food aid and how it is provided.

Table 17 lists donor countries’ views on whether food aid should be used for emergencies, development, or both and whether food aid should be provided as cash or food-in-kind.

Sources USDA Uses to Finance Its Implementing Partners’ GFEI Project Costs

USDA uses three funding sources to pay for implementing partners’ (PVO/government cooperating sponsors and WFP) operating costs under the GFEI pilot program. These costs cover the distribution of surplus commodities acquired under Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act (CCC) authority and donated under Section 416(b) authority to friendly and developing countries. The funding sources are (1) local currency proceeds derived from monetization (sale) of the commodities, (2) direct cash payments made by CCC under commodity surplus removal (CCC Charter Act 5(d)) authority, and (3) direct cash payments made by CCC pursuant to specific limited appropriations authority granted to sponsors in July 2001.

Section 416(b) of the Agricultural Act of 1949, as amended, is the authority that CCC uses to pay for most of the cost of removing and disposing of donated surplus commodities in connection with the GFEI pilot program. This authority allows CCC to directly pay freight forwarders selected by implementing partners for the cost of ocean transportation and reasonably related expenses of moving the commodities to a designated discharge port or point within the country’s border where the food aid is to be distributed. This cost is the largest except for the commodities themselves and is estimated to be roughly one-third of the overall pilot program. In the case of urgent and extraordinary relief requirements, CCC may also pay the partners for internal transportation, storage, and handling (ITSH) expenses but not for nonemergency development assistance, which is the principal type of aid provided by the pilot. In addition, under section 416(b) authority, CCC funds cannot be used to pay partners’ direct administrative headquarters costs of running the program.

In lieu of getting CCC funding to recover their ITSH expenses for nonemergency programs and administrative costs, partners are permitted to monetize (i.e., sell) all or a portion of the commodities in the country or region. Local currency proceeds generated from the sale of section 416(b) commodities can be used to finance most of the sponsors’ operating costs—as long as they are specifically approved by USDA in program agreements. Monetization is generally how the PVOs and government sponsors recover their operating costs. Furthermore, these sponsors’ budgets and provisions for financial statement and monetization reporting as well as limitations on budget adjustments without prior USDA approval are incorporated into the program agreements.

USDA’s treatment of WFP on these matters differs from that of PVOs and a government sponsor. USDA pays cash to WFP for all of these costs, including headquarters’ administrative expenses. In doing so, it relies on section 5(d) of the CCC Act. This section provides authority for CCC to expend funds in connection with disposal of surplus commodities if such expenditure is required to aid in removing the surplus. WFP’s general policy, as approved by its executive board, is not to monetize commodities. Thus WFP requires cash to cover its expenses. In addition, WFP operates under a “full cost recovery” policy, which requires that the country making a donation cover its full cost. According to USDA’s Office of General Counsel, if USDA wants to dispose of surplus commodities through WFP, it may pay associated costs using section 5(d) authority.

Specifically, USDA costs incurred in connection with providing commodities to WFP under the GFEI program are governed by an agreement between CCC and WFP that covers matters related to donation of commodities furnished under section 416(b) during calendar years 2001 and 2002. Under this agreement, CCC agreed to pay WFP not only ocean transportation but other authorized expenses incurred by WFP in connection with distribution of commodities donated to it. Collectively, these other authorized expenses include internal transportation, storage and handling, direct support costs, other direct operational costs, and indirect support costs, up to the maximum amount approved by CCC.For the GFEI program, these costs amounted to about $35 million.

When USDA requested sponsor proposals for the GFEI pilot program in September 2000, it said CCC cash funds might also be available to cover expenses related to implementing activities supported with commodities acquired under section 5(d) of the CCC Charter Act. USDA delivered the same message in a meeting with PVOs to discuss the planned pilot program. As a result, most PVOs submitted proposals that were based on receiving cash to cover some of their expenses. However, in January 2001, USDA informed PVOs with approved proposals that cash would not be available to them. Although USDA said it was prepared to adjust approved sponsors’ proposals to permit greater monetization of commodities to cover costs, the USDA reversal posed a few problems. First, monetized commodities cannot be used to cover the sponsors’ direct U.S. headquarters’ administrative expenses. Second, depending on the situation in a recipient country, additional monetization of commodities might risk disrupting commercial sales. Representatives of one PVO told us the organization had submitted proposals for two countries where it was not possible to monetize commodities; therefore, without cash to cover its expenses, the PVO could not go forward. Several PVOs were also upset because they felt that USDA was providing preferential treatment to WFP.

USDA noted that its long-standing policy for section 416(b) projects was not to provide cash to PVOs unless the country is deemed urgent and extraordinary. It further said that PVOs and WFP were treated differently because they were fundamentally different in nature and in how they acquired their funding. USDA said that whereas PVOs are operated privately and have access to other funding sources, WFP is governed and funded only by its donor nations and thus not subject to or constrained by the limitations of the section 416(b) regulations. These reasons notwithstanding, USDA did not explain why it had earlier indicated an intention to provide cash to the sponsors.

USDA’s policy reversal led to delays in USDA’s negotiating agreements for implementing approved proposals for a number of PVO projects. Some PVOs were not satisfied with the policy change and made their views known to members of Congress. Subsequently, in July 2001, the Congress approved legislation (P. L. 107-20) that included a provision authorizing USDA to approve use of CCC funds up to about $22.9 million for financial assistance to sponsors participating in the pilot program. Funds could be used for internal transportation, storage, and handling of commodities, as well administrative expenses deemed appropriate by the secretary of agriculture. As a result of the congressional action, USDA agreed to consider renegotiating agreements that it had already concluded with some of the PVOs if they so desired.

Top Food Aid Donating Countries

This appendix provides details on the top food aid donating countries in recent years. Table 18 lists the top 20 food aid donors based on shipments for the period 1995 through 1999. Apart from the United States, which supplied more than half of all deliveries, the other 19 donors provided about 43 percent of the food assistance during this period.

Key GFEI Events from Announcement of Concept to Notification of Project Approvals

This appendix outlines key events related to the GFEI pilot from the time the program was announced until early January 2001, when USDA notified proposal winners.

As table 19 shows, USDA’s expedited schedule allowed interested cooperating sponsors at most 8 business days to prepare and submit the first part of the proposal. Sponsors who began preparing for the second part of the proposal at the earliest possible time (i.e., without waiting to learn whether they qualified to do so), had a maximum of 18 business days to complete and submit it to USDA.

Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture

GAO Comments

1.

USDA noted that GFEI has three purposes – to improve student enrollment, attendance, and performance, but indicated it is not possible to improve learning in a 1-year pilot program. According to USDA, GAO evaluated USDA against an unrealistic standard— performance—rather than the objectives of enrollment and attendance. In addition, USDA said, a much longer time frame would be required to address all of the factors mentioned in the report (examples cited include teacher training, infrastructure, learning materials, health and nutrition programs, and community involvement). We disagree with USDA’s statements for two reasons. First, our conclusion is that school feeding programs are more likely to improve enrollment and attendance, as well as learning, if they are carefully integrated with other key factors and interventions. Second, we conclude that the pilot program could have been improved by determining in advance which proposals were for communities where key factors were already in place or would be addressed during the projects themselves.

2.

USDA disagreed with our statement that USDA lacked expertise in managing development and humanitarian assistance such as food aid. We have revised that statement to specify expertise in food for education development programs. At the same time we note that a recent USDA study of its food aid monetization programs cited difficulty evaluating the programs’ impacts because of limited personnel resources, high staff turnover, and increasing demands to implement large food aid programs. In addition, the limited presence of overseas agricultural attaches has adversely affected USDA’s ability to oversee some of its sponsors’ monetization projects, the study said. USDA’s Inspector General has also expressed concern about this matter.

3.

USDA said it believes that GAO’s comparisons between the proposals and the recommended program elements understate the quality of the GFEI programs, since the proposal is only the beginning text of a negotiated contractual process. We focused on the proposal process to determine to what extent USDA secured information for judging and selecting proposals that offered greater promise of improving school enrollment, attendance, and learning.

4. Regarding differences in the treatment of PVOs and WFP, USDA reiterated (as discussed in our draft report) that the United States sits on the WFP Executive Board, which approves all projects. However, executive board approval does not mean that the United States may not have concerns about a particular project. As USAID advised, even when the United States concurs with an executive board decision to approve a project, the United States frequently states its concerns or reservations about the feasibility or sustainability of program activities and, according to USAID, has done so in the case of school feeding projects. USDA also said it is confident that the information submitted by WFP contains the required information listed in the Federal Register notice or the regulations governing USDA food assistance programs. However, WFP did not have to address requirements of the Federal Register notice; the notice did not require as much information as we believe would have been useful for evaluating proposals; and USDA’s 416(b) regulations did not include specific information requirements for assessing food for education programs. 5. USDA indicated agreement with our finding that analysis of the disincentive effects of food aid projects should include the impact of commodity donations on alternative food commodities. USDA said doing so could improve analyses and be a goal for future projects. At the same time, USDA said it stands by the pilot project assessments that significant market disruptions will not occur—even though such analysis was not conducted.

Our report notes that cooperating sponsors are responsible for analyzing the potential disincentive effects of their projects and that USDA does not independently verify the results of such analyses. In addition, we noted that USDA officials acknowledged that because PVOs want to provide the food aid, these organizations may not be completely unbiased in preparing analyses of disincentive effects. In its letter, USDA said the latter statement is correct but in the opposite direction suggested by GAO. According to USDA, PVOs are going to more rigorously analyze the food needs of an area, because program success depends upon community support, which is not going to occur if markets are disrupted. We agree that the latter is one possible interpretation of the statement and therefore removed the statement from the letter.

Comments from the U.S. Agency for International Development

Comments from the Office of Management and Budget

GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contacts

Acknowledgments

In addition to those named above, Gezahegne Bekele, Janey Cohen, Stacy Edwards, Mary Moutsos, and Rolf Nilsson made key contributions to this report.

GAO’s Mission

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and accountability of the federal government for the American people. GAO examines the use of public funds; evaluates federal programs and policies; and provides analyses, recommendations, and other assistance to help Congress make informed oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO’s commitment to good government is reflected in its core values of accountability, integrity, and reliability.

Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony

The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents is through the Internet. GAO’s Web site (www.gao.gov) contains abstracts and full-text files of current reports and testimony and an expanding archive of older products. The Web site features a search engine to help you locate documents using key words and phrases. You can print these documents in their entirety, including charts and other graphics.

Each day, GAO issues a list of newly released reports, testimony, and correspondence. GAO posts this list, known as “Today’s Reports,” on its Web site daily. The list contains links to the full-text document files. To have GAO E-mail this list to you every afternoon, go to www.gao.gov and select “Subscribe to daily e-mail alert for newly released products” under the GAO Reports heading.

Order by Mail or Phone

Visit GAO’s Document Distribution Center

To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs

Web site: www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm, E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov, or 1-800-424-5454 or (202) 512-7470 (automated answering system).

Public Affairs