For decades, the United States has been the world’s
leading provider of food aid to vulnerable and malnourished
populations. Food aid provided through U.S. government
programs combats the complex and intertwined problems of
famine, food insecurity, and malnutrition. The United States
and other donor countries have helped meet the need by
delivering millions of tons of food aid over the years. But the
number of chronically undernourished people—especially
in vulnerable groups such as women and small children—
remains unacceptably high.
their own people. In some Asian countries, population growth
strains efforts to feed everyone. Malnutrition persists even in
areas where foods are available because people cannot afford
to purchase them, particularly the variety of healthy foods
people need for a diet with adequate micronutrients.
Thus, high and volatile food prices coupled with
increasingly extreme weather conditions and more frequent
natural disasters mean that donors will need to increase
the amount of food aid they provide. Meanwhile, new
developments in food and nutrition science are fueling
discussions at policy and program levels about how to
improve the quality of food aid.8 Methods of accomplishing
this include fortifying foods with additional vitamins and
minerals, targeting specific food aid products to people
and regions where they are most effective, and planning
to distribute a wider range of the food aid products now
available. Donors are already using better food aid products
in pilot programs—where documented successes should
mean that these nutrition interventions are quickly brought
“to scale,” meaning that approaches that work should be
used with larger groups of people in need.
K. Burns/USAID
Food Aid Must Improve to Meet
Nutrition Challenges
Ugandan food aid recipients have their forms checked before distribution.
According to the World Food Program, in 2009—a year
when more than 1 billion people, the highest number ever,
were undernourished—emergency food aid funding fell by
12 percent and the total tonnage of food aid delivered was
the lowest since 1961.7 Only a year earlier, global food prices
had suddenly skyrocketed. Many poor people spend much of
their entire income on food, so they are simply unable to feed
themselves adequately when the prices of basic grains spike.
Tens of millions of people fell into hunger as families were
forced to skip one or more meals a day, while others still had
food but ate a less nourishing and diverse diet.
Natural disasters and extreme weather linked to climate
change increase the likelihood of food shortages, worsening
what is often already a chronic problem. Countries in the
Horn of Africa face extended periods of hunger as successive
years of drought mean near-total crop failure. In 2011, famine
conditions in Somalia were both the result of longstanding
civil conflict—many people were trapped in areas controlled
by warring factions—and the cause of its escalation. Hundreds
of thousands of severely malnourished people managed to
reach Somalia’s borders and crowded into chaotic refugee
camps in neighboring countries that were struggling to feed
4 Briefing Paper, February 2012
Food aid quality is important but only part of the overall
picture of helping hungry and malnourished people. How
food is transported and distributed, decisions made about
eating and meals within communities or households,
when and how best to provide treatment for moderately
and severely malnourished children—not to mention the
longer-term question of building food security to help end
“chronic emergencies”—are some of the other important
considerations that must be part of a more comprehensive
response to nutrition challenges.
Food aid is currently distributed according to the needs
of an entire area where people are hungry. Yet no single food
can meet the nutritional needs of all people and groups—
particularly vulnerable populations such as malnourished
children—and no one approach to targeting and distributing
food will work in all circumstances. Studies show that a
combination of different foods contributes more to overall
nutrition than do a combination of nutrients in a single food
aid product.9
Addressing the specific nutritional needs of all recipients
through large-scale feeding programs is not possible.
“General distribution” food aid, provided to meet the
needs of an entire food deficit population, is generally a dry
commodity of whole grains such as rice, corn, wheat, or
sorghum because of the large quantities required. Food aid
can be fortified with micronutrients at the production plant
or in the field prior to distribution, but it is usually blended