Foreign Assistance: Multiple Challenges Hinder the Efficiency and Effectiveness of U.S. Food Aid
Released: 2007-10-02T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Countries Provide Food Aid through In-kind or Cash Donations, with the United States the Largest Donor

Countries provide food aid through either in-kind donations or cash donations. In-kind food aid is food procured and delivered to vulnerable populations, while cash donations are given to implementing organizations to purchase food in local, regional, or global markets. U.S. food aid programs are all in-kind, and no cash donations are allowed under current legislation. However, the administration has recently proposed legislation to allow up to 25 percent of appropriated food aid funds to purchase commodities in locations closer to where they are needed.

Other food aid donors have also recently moved from providing primarily in-kind aid to more or all cash donations for local procurement. Despite ongoing debates as to which form of assistance are more effective and efficient, the largest international food aid organization, the United Nations (UN) World Food Program (WFP), continues to accept both. The United States is both the largest overall and in-kind provider of food aid to WFP, supplying about 43 percent of WFP’s total contributions in 2006 and 70 percent of WFP’s in-kind contributions in 2005. Other major donors of in-kind food aid in 2005 included China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Canada.

Most U.S. Food Aid Goes to Africa, with Nonemergency Funding Declining

In fiscal year 2006, the United States delivered food aid through its largest program to over 50 countries, with about 80 percent of its funding allocations for in-kind food donations going to Africa, 12 percent to Asia and the Near East, 7 percent to Latin America, and 1 percent to Eurasia. Of the 80 percent of the food aid funding going to Africa, 30 percent went to Sudan, 27 percent to the Horn of Africa, 18 percent to southern Africa, 14 percent to West Africa, and 11 percent to Central Africa.

Over the last several years, funding for nonemergency U.S. food aid programs has declined. For example, in fiscal year 2001, the United States directed approximately $1.2 billion of funding for international food aid programs to nonemergencies. In contrast, in fiscal year 2006, the United States directed approximately $698 million for international food aid programs to nonemergencies.

U.S. Food Aid Is Delivered through Multiple Programs with Multiple Mandates

U.S. food aid is funded under four program authorities and delivered through six programs administered by USAID and USDA; these programs serve a range of objectives, including humanitarian goals, economic assistance, foreign policy, market development, and international trade. (For a summary of the six programs, see app. I.) The largest program, P.L. 480 Title II, is managed by USAID and represents approximately 74 percent of total in-kind food aid allocations over the past 4 years, mostly to fund emergency programs. The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, a reserve of up to 4 million metric tons of grain, can be used to fulfill P.L. 480 food aid commitments to meet unanticipated emergency needs in developing countries or when U.S. domestic supplies are short. U.S. food aid programs also have multiple legislative and regulatory mandates that affect their operations. One mandate that governs U.S. food aid transportation is cargo preference, which is designed to support a U.S.-flag commercial fleet for national defense purposes. Cargo preference requires that 75 percent of the gross tonnage of all government-generated cargo be transported on U.S.-flag vessels. A second transportation mandate, known as the Great Lakes Set-Aside, requires that up to 25 percent of Title II bagged food aid tonnage be allocated to Great Lakes ports each month.

Multiple Challenges Hinder the Efficiency of U.S. Food Aid Programs

Multiple challenges in logistics hinder the efficiency of U.S. food aid programs by reducing the amount, timeliness, and quality of food provided. While in some cases agencies have tried to expedite food aid delivery, most food aid program expenditures are for logistics, and the delivery of food from vendor to village is generally too time-consuming to be responsive in emergencies. Factors that increase logistical costs and lengthen time frames include uncertain funding processes and inadequate planning, ocean transportation contracting practices, legal requirements, and inadequate coordination in tracking and responding to food delivery problems. While U.S. agencies are pursuing initiatives to improve food aid logistics, such as prepositioning food commodities and using a new transportation bid process, their long-term cost-effectiveness has not yet been measured. In addition, the current practice of selling commodities to generate cash resources for development projects—monetization—is an inherently inefficient yet expanding use of food aid.

Monetization Is an Inefficient, Expanding Practice and Agencies’ Lack of Electronic Data Impedes Their Monitoring Ability

The current practice of selling commodities as a means to generate resources for development projects—monetization—is an inherently inefficient yet expanding use of food aid. Monetization entails not only the costs of procuring, shipping, and handling food, but also the costs of marketing and selling it in recipient countries. Furthermore, the time and expertise needed to market and sell food abroad requires NGOs to divert resources from their core missions. However, the permissible use of revenues generated from this practice and the minimum level of monetization allowed by the law have expanded. The monetization rate for Title II nonemergency food aid has far exceeded the minimum requirement of 15 percent, reaching close to 70 percent in 2001 but declining to about 50 percent in 2005.

Despite these inefficiencies, U.S. agencies do not collect or maintain data electronically on monetization revenues, and the lack of such data impedes the agencies’ ability to fully monitor the degree to which revenues can cover the costs related to monetization. USAID used to require that monetization revenues cover at least 80 percent of costs associated with delivering food to recipient countries, but this requirement no longer exists. Neither USDA nor USAID was able to provide us with data on the revenues generated through monetization. These agencies told us that the information should be in the results reports, which are in individual hard copies and not available in any electronic database.

Various Challenges Reduce the Effective Use of Food Aid

Various challenges to implementation, improving nutritional quality, and monitoring reduce the effectiveness of food aid programs in alleviating hunger. Since U.S. food aid assists only about 11 percent of the estimated hungry population worldwide, it is critical that donors and implementers use it effectively by ensuring that it reaches the most vulnerable populations and does not cause negative market impact. However, challenging operating environments and resource constraints limit implementation efforts in terms of developing reliable estimates of food needs and responding to crises in a timely manner with sufficient food and complementary assistance. Furthermore, some impediments to improving the nutritional quality of U.S. food aid, including lack of interagency coordination in updating food aid products and specifications, may prevent the most nutritious or appropriate food from reaching intended recipients. Despite these concerns, USAID and USDA do not sufficiently monitor food aid programs, particularly in recipient countries, as they have limited staff and competing priorities and face legal restrictions on the use of food aid resources.

Impediments to Improving Nutritional Quality Reduce the Benefits of Food Aid

Some impediments to improving nutritional quality further reduce the effectiveness of food aid. Although U.S. agencies have made efforts to improve the nutritional quality of food aid, the appropriate nutritional value of the food and the readiness of U.S. agencies to address nutrition- related quality issues remain uncertain. Further, existing interagency food aid working groups have not resolved coordination problems on nutrition issues. Moreover, USAID and USDA do not have a central interagency mechanism to update food aid products and their specifications. As a result, vulnerable populations may not be receiving the most nutritious or appropriate food from the agencies, and disputes may occur when either agency attempts to update the products.

U.S. Agencies Do Not Sufficiently Monitor Food Aid Programs

Although USAID and USDA require implementing organizations to regularly monitor and report on the use of food aid, these agencies have undertaken limited field-level monitoring of food aid programs. Agency inspectors general have reported that monitoring has not been regular and systematic, that in some cases intended recipients have not received food aid, or that the number of recipients could not be verified. Our audit work also indicates that monitoring has been insufficient due to various factors including limited staff, competing priorities, and legal restrictions on the use of food aid resources. In fiscal year 2006, although USAID had some non-Title II-funded staff assigned to monitoring, it had only 23 Title II- funded USAID staff assigned to missions and regional offices in 10 countries to monitor programs costing about $1.7 billion in 55 countries. USDA administers a smaller proportion of food aid programs than USAID and its field-level monitoring of food aid programs is more limited. Without adequate monitoring from U.S. agencies, food aid programs may not effectively direct limited food aid resources to those populations most in need. As a result, agencies may not be accomplishing their goal of getting the right food to the right people at the right time.

Conclusions

U.S. international food aid programs have helped hundreds of millions of people around the world survive and recover from crises since the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act (P.L. 480) was signed into law in 1954. Nevertheless, in an environment of increasing emergencies, tight budget constraints, and rising transportation and business costs, U.S. agencies must explore ways to optimize the delivery and use of food aid. U.S. agencies have taken some measures to enhance their ability to respond to emergencies and streamline the myriad processes involved in delivering food aid. However, opportunities for further improvement remain to ensure that limited resources for U.S. food aid are not vulnerable to waste, are put to their most effective use, and reach the most vulnerable populations on a timely basis.

To improve the efficiency of U.S. food aid—in terms of its amount, timeliness, and quality—we recommended in our previous report that the Administrator of USAID and the Secretaries of Agriculture and Transportation (1) improve food aid logistical planning through cost- benefit analysis of supply-management options; (2) work together and with stakeholders to modernize ocean transportation and contracting practices; (3) seek to minimize the cost impact of cargo preference regulations on food aid transportation expenditures by updating implementation and reimbursement methodologies to account for new supply practices; (4) establish a coordinated system for tracking and resolving food quality complaints; and (5) develop an information collection system to track monetization transactions.

To improve the effective use of food aid, we recommended that the Administrator of USAID and the Secretary of Agriculture (1) enhance the reliability and use of needs assessments for new and existing food aid programs through better coordination among implementing organizations, make assessments a priority in informing funding decisions, and more effectively build on lessons from past targeting experiences; (2) determine ways to provide adequate nonfood resources in situations where there is sufficient evidence that such assistance will enhance the effectiveness of food aid; (3) develop a coordinated interagency mechanism to update food aid specifications and products to improve food quality and nutritional standards; and (4) improve monitoring of food aid programs to ensure proper management and implementation.

DOT, USAID, and USDA—the three U.S. agencies to whom we directed our recommendations—have submitted written statements to congressional committees, as required by law, to report actions they have taken or begun to take to address our recommendations. In May 2007, these agencies established an interagency Executive Working Group to identify ways to respond to several of our recommendations. DOT stated that it strongly supported the transportation-related initiatives we recommended, noting that they offer the potential to help U.S. agencies achieve efficiencies and reduce ocean transportation costs while supporting the U.S. merchant fleet. USAID outlined actions it is considering, has initiated, or intends to take to address each of our nine recommendations. USDA stated that in general it found our recommendations to be helpful and cited some of its ongoing efforts to improve its food aid programs. However, USDA questioned some of our conclusions that it believed were the result of weaknesses in our methodology. For example, USDA does not agree that the current practice of monetization as a means to generate cash for development projects is an inherently inefficient use of resources. We maintain that it is an inherently inefficient use of resources because it requires food to be procured, shipped, and eventually sold, and the revenues from monetization may not recover shipping, handling, and other costs. Furthermore, U.S. agencies do not electronically collect data on monetization revenues, without which their ability to adequately monitor the degree to which revenues cover costs is impeded. We stand by our conclusions and recommendations, which are based on a rigorous and systematic review of multiple sources of evidence, including procurement and budget data, site visits, previous audits, agency studies, economic literature, and testimonial evidence collected in both structured and unstructured formats.

Madam Chair and Members of the Subcommittee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

Should you have any questions about this testimony, please contact Thomas Melito, Director, at (202) 512-9601 or MelitoT@gao.gov. Other major contributors to this testimony were Phillip Thomas (Assistant Director), Carol Bray, Ming Chen, Debbie Chung, Martin De Alteriis, Leah DeWolf, Mark Dowling, Etana Finkler, Kristy Kennedy, Joy Labez, Kendall Schaefer, and Mona Sehgal.

Appendix I: Program Authorities

The United States has principally employed six programs to deliver food aid: Public Law (P.L.) 480 Titles I, II, and III; Food for Progress; the McGovern-Dole Food for Education and Child Nutrition; and Section 416(b). Table 1 provides a summary of these food aid programs.