The UK Overseas Development Admi- nistration (ODA) administers a bilateral food aid programme of approximately 115 000 tonnes of cereals annually, which formed an important component of the UK’s response to the African emergency. The way this programme operated during the period is examined, including a review of the respective roles of non-governmental organira- tions, the World Food Programme and agencies of recipient governments. The ODA attempted to provide appropriate commodities through triangular trans- actions. Some implications for emergency aid are considered.

The author is Senior Research Officer at the Relief and Development Institute, 1 Ferdinand Place, London, NW1 8EE, UK.

The assistance of Edward Clay, Director of RDI, in the preparation of the paper is gratefully acknowledged. An earlier ver- sion of this paper was originally presented at the UK African Studies Association Conference, Newnham College, Cam- bridge University, UK, 14-l 6 September 1988.

‘World Food Programme, Review of food Aid Policies and Programmes, WFPICFA 25/P/5, WFP, Rome, Italy, 1988. ‘Overseas Development Administration, British Aid Statistics 1982-86, ODA. Lon- don, UK, 1987. 3J. Borton, R. Stephenson and C. Morris, ODA Emergency Aid to Africa 1983-86, Evaluation Report EV 425, ODA, London, UK, 1988. 41bid. %ee also Overseas Development Admin- istration, ‘Food aid: the involvement of the United Kingdom’, IDS Bulletin, Vol 14, No 2, 1983.

UK food aid and the African emergency 1983-86

John Borton

The UK Bilateral Food Aid Programme administered by the Overseas Development Administration (ODA) annually provides approximately 115 000 tonnes of food aid to countries in Africa and Asia at a cost of around f20 million. The programme is comparatively small, accounting for between 1% and 1.5% of total OECD members’ food aid flows (measured in grain equivalents) between 1983/84 and 1987/88.’ In recent years it has accounted for between 1% and 2% of the British aid programme.’ Nevertheless, bilateral food aid was an important compo- nent of the UK Government’s response to the African food crisis of 1983-86, accounting for 25% of the &89 million of assistance classified as ‘drought related’ that was provided by ODA to African countries during the 1984-85 financial year.j

This article describes the operation and performance of the UK bilateral food aid programme between 1983 and 1986, focusing in particular on the bilateral food aid provided to Ethiopia, Mozambique and Sudan. It draws on a recent evaluation of the ODA’s provision of emergency aid to Africa during that period.’

Obligations under the Food Aid Convention

Under the Food Aid Convention (FAC) the European Community as a whole is obligated to provide a minimum contribution of approximately 1 660 000 tonnes of cereals annually. This amount is divided into ‘Community Actions’ (of 930 000 tonnes) which are managed by the Commission and paid for out of the Community budget, and ‘National Actions’ (of 730 000 tonnes) which are managed by the member states and paid for out of national budgets. As part of these National Actions the UK has an obligation to provide bilateral food aid. From 1981-83 the minimum obligation was set at 117 300 tonnes from 1984-86 at 110 734 tonnes. Since 1987 it has been set at 110 700 tonnes.’ In addition to meeting the cost of the Bilateral Food Aid Programme, the ODA also meets the cost of Britain’s share (equivalent to some 20%) of the total cost of the Community Actions, which are accounted by the Treasury to the aid programme. The European Community and Food Aid Department within the ODA is responsible for administering the bilateral food aid programme and monitoring the Community’s food aid programme.

232 0306-9192/89/030232-09$3.00 0 1989 Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd

UK food aid and the African enwgrncy 198.3-M

British governments have consistently regarded food aid as a less effective form of development assistance than financial assistance. Thus Britain chose not to renew its initial participation in the FAC when the original 1967 Convention was replaced by a new Convention in 1971. However, Britain became involved again in 1973 on accession to the European Community.6 The policy pursued by the ODA is that the tonnages programmed under the bilateral food aid programme should not be allowed to exceed the minimum obligation under the FAC by more than a small margin. Consequently in most years the tonnages provided through the bilateral food aid programme fluctuate within a narrow range between a ‘floor’ represented by the FAC minimum obligation and a ‘ceiling’ represented by a budgetary provision designed to enable the minimum obligation to be met within anticipated fluctuations in cereal prices.

6J.H. Parotte, ‘The Food Aid Convention: its history and scope’, IDS Bulletin, Vol 14, No 2, 1983. ‘The ODA is organized around two geo- graphical divisions, which are responsible for coordinating policy and administrative matters on all types of assistance provided to a particular country. One division covers Africa and the other a grouping termed ‘Asia and the Oceans’. Each division is divided into geographical departments, of which the Africa division has three.

Allocations to the World Food Programme

Under a sequence of voluntary biennial pledges, 50 000 tonnes of bilateral food aid are committed each year to the World Food Programmes’s (WFP’s) regular programme. Responsibility for allocat- ing, purchasing and shipping this food and monitoring its use rests with the WFP. However, the ODA does have the right to question proposed allocations. In addition, the ODA normally provides approximately 5000 tonnes a year to the International Emergency Food Reserve (IEFR), which is also administered by the WFP. Thus approximately half of the UK bilateral food aid programme (55 000 tonnes) is managed by the WFP. In early 1984 there was some consideration within the ODA of channelling the entire UK bilateral food aid programme through the WFP in order to reduce the administrative burden on the ODA of a small programme, but the proposal was dropped when it became more important to maintain an identifiable British and ODA programmed contribution to the relief operations in Africa.

These commitments to the WFP leave the ODA with approximately 55 000 tonnes a year to administer directly. In view of the division of the bilateral food aid programme between that which is allocated to the WFP operating as a multilateral agency and that which is administered directly by the ODA, care is needed in the terminology used, particularly with the word ‘bilateral’. For the sake of clarity the term ‘purely bilateral’ is used here to describe that portion of the bilateral food aid programme administered directly by the ODA on which the rest of this paper is focused.

The allocation process for ‘purely bilateral’ food aid

In most years the geographical departments’ within the ODA are asked to submit ‘bids’ early in the calendar year to the European Community and Food Aid Department for a proportion of the amount available. In order to hold some food aid in reserve in case of emergencies arising later in the year, only 40 000-45 000 tonnes are allocated in the first round. The bids are reviewed by European Community and Food Aid Department in consultation with the heads of the geographical departments.

A wide range of factors is taken into account during the process of reviewing the various bids. Within this process, however, it is ODA

FOOD POLICY August 1989 233

UK food aid and the African emergency 198.346

8The UK provided approximately f240 million in drought-related assistance to Africa between January 1983 and Septem- ber 1986. Of this amount all but f 13 million was expenditure from the aid programme, the f13 million being the contribution by the Ministry of Defence to the airlift opera- tions in Ethiopia by the Royal Air Force. See Borton et al, op cit. Ref 3.

234

policy to give priority to bids for countries experiencing a ‘food emergency , ’ ie having extraordinary or temporary rather than structural food import problems. Once the successful bids have been agreed upon, the tonnage levels are established. On completion of the allocation process a submission is made for ministerial approval.

The 10 000-15 000 tonne ‘reserve’ is allocated subsequently by a similar, though less formal, process. If new emergencies arise as the year progresses allocations may be made from the reserve, which may be used up by November. Otherwise the European Community and Food Aid Department may call for another round of bids during October/November. It is practice to have made all allocations by November so that purchase and shipping have been completed and paid for by the end of the financial year, ie the end of March.

During 1985, at the height of the international response to the African emergency, the normal allocative process of one or two rounds of bids was effectively replaced by a less formal system of judging requests for assistance as they were received. This improved the ability of the European Community and Food Aid Department to respond to the dynamic situation.

The African emergency

The size of the UK bilateral food aid programme remained at the FAC minimum obligation level during the period 1982-86, except for 1984 and 1985. During these two years the tonnages provided were respectively 23% and 18% above the FAC minimum obligation, which as noted earlier had been reduced from 117 300 tonnes in 1983 to 110 734 tonnes in 1984. These increases were funded by drawing on the Contingency Reserve within the ODA’s budget and savings resulting from the low cereal prices during late 1984 and throughout 1985. The increased tonnages during these two years reveal a small degree of flexibility, during a period of unprecedented demands for food aid for relief purposes, towards the policy of not exceeding the FAC obligation by a significant margin.

It is not clear whether it was pressure on the ODA’s limited financial resources during the period or whether it was the belief in the relative merits of financial assistance compared to food aid that prevented any larger increases in the size of the bilateral food aid programme. The fact that the ODA’s entire response to the African emergency was funded from within its existing budget has been criticized by many observers including the Foreign Affairs Committee (1985) of the House of Commons.s Had additional resources in fact been made available to the ODA, it is uncertain whether the bilateral food aid programme would have benefited, or whether all the funds would have been used on other forms of emergency assistance.

The combination of a programme of limited size and the policy of giving priority to countries experiencing extraordinary food shortages meant that, as the number of countries in Africa facing extraordinary food shortages increased between 1983 and 1985, so there was an increasing emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa in the allocation of ‘purely bilateral’ food aid and a corresponding reduction in the amount provided to other countries. Thus Table 1 shows a steady increase in both the ‘purely bilateral’ tonnages and in the proportion of the ‘purely bilateral’ food aid available to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. From accounting for just over half of the ‘purely bilateral’ food aid in 1982

FOOD POLICY August 1989

Notes ‘SSA = sub-Saharan Africa. bathe lower tonnage available in 1986 resulted from an arrangement agreed with the WFP in 1985 for the ODA to postpone part of its biennial commitment to the WFP’s regular programme contributing 15 000 tonnes in 1985 and 85 000 tonnes in 1986. This enabled the ODA to increase its emergency aid to Africa by way of an increase in contributions to the IEFR from 5000 tonnes to 20 000 tonnes and by increasing the amount available for ‘purely bilateral’ emergency allocations during 1985.

9ihe interruption in the steady increase in the proportion of purely bilateral food aid donated to countries in sub-Saharan Africa in 1984 was primarily the result of a large donation to Bangladesh following the flood

disaster of that year. “‘WFP, op cif, Ref 1. “Barton et al, op tit, Ref 3.

UK food aid and the African emergency 198336

Table 1. UK bilateral food aid programme 1982-88 and proportions allocated to sub-Saharan Africa (‘000 tonnes wheat equivalent).

Year Total bilateral

1982 117.3 1983 117.3 1984 136.5 1985 130.1 1986 110.7

Total ‘purely bilateral’

62.3 62.3 81.5 95.1 20.7b

‘Purely bilateral’ to SSA’

34.0 53.8 55.0 95.1 20.7

Percentage of total ‘purely bilateral’

55 86 68

100 100

countries in sub-Saharan Africa accounted for all such food aid in 1985.’ Within sub-Saharan Africa there was also an increasing emphasis on programmes involving free distribution rather than food for work or budgetary support schemes. Again it must be emphasized that UK food aid accounted for only a small proportion of the total food aid provided to African countries during the emergency. From 2.54 million tonnes in 1982/83 the total provided increased to 4.98 million tonnes in 1984/85.‘”

‘Purely bilateral’ emergency food aid actions

As part of the evaluation study, ” 17 ‘purely bilateral’ actions to Ethiopia, Sudan and Mozambique between 1983 and 1986 were studied in detail. Of these nine were to Ethiopia, three to Sudan and five to Mozambique (see Table 2). These represented 17 out of the 20 actions to those three countries and of the total 26 actions to countries in sub-Saharan Africa during the period. The study therefore provides quite a full picture of how the programme was managed and how effective it was in providing appropriate and timely assistance during the

emergency.

Programming

Type of commodity and source country: Eight actions involved wheat purchased in Britain, two involved wheat flour purchased in Europe, one involved wheat purchased in Europe, five involved white maize purchased in Africa (three in Kenya and two in Zimbabwe), and two rice purchased in China and Thailand. The ODA, along with a few other small food aid donors such as the Netherlands, did not see itself committed to using British or European commodities and was prepared,

Table 2. Summary information on UK bilateral food aid actions to Ethiopia, Sudan and Mozambique.

No Country Year

1 Ethiopia 2 Ethiopia 3 Ethiopia 4 Ethiopia 5 Ethiopia 6 Ethiopia 7 Ethiopia 8 Ethiopia 9 Ethiopia

1984 Wheat 4 000 1964 Wheat 6 500 1984 Wheat 5 000 1985 Wheat 8 000 1985 Wheat 5 000 1985 Wheat 2 500 1985 Wheat 7 500 1986 White maize 7 000 1986 White maize 6 700

IO Sudan 11 Sudan 12 Sudan

1985 Wheat 17 000 1985 Wheat flour 9 852 1986 Wheat flour 16 500

13 Mozambique 1982 14 Mozambique 1983 15 Mozambique 1964 16 Mozambique 1985 17 Mozambique 1986

Commodity Volume (tonnes)

White maize 3 000 Rice 8 000 Rice 9 200 White maize 14 500 White maize 7 000

Source country

UK UK UK UK UK UK UK Kenya Kenya

France Italy Belgium

Kenya China Thailand Zimbabwe Zimbabwe

Agency arranging procurement

Oxfam ODAIIBAP ODA/IBAP Oxfam Christian Aid Oxfam Oxfam WFP CARE

ODAIIBAP ODAIIBAP ODAIIBAP

WFP WFP WFP WFP WFP

Recipient agency

Weeks from inftiation lo arrival

Weeks from approval lo arrival

OxfamlRRC 7 4 RRC 9 9 RRC 10 IO OxfamlRRC 7 7 Christian Aid 31 21 OxfamlRRC 6 6 OxfamIRRC 7 4 WFP/CARE 32 17 CARE 31 7

WFPlNGOs 11 8 UNHCR 20 16 UNHCR 18 16

Min Commerce 34 32 Min Commerce 54 53 Min Commerce 56 42 DPCCN 46 33 DPCCN 56 28

FOOD POLICY August 1989 235

pragmatically, to purchase commodities in developing countries where the commodities were suitable and available.

Category of use: Twelve actions involved free distribution to popula- tions experiencing severe food shortages. These included all nine of the shipments to Ethiopia,” action no 10 through the WFP in Sudan, and actions nos 16 and 17 through the Department of Prevention and Control of Natural Calamities (DPCCN) in Mozambique.

The other five actions involved some form of ‘monetization’ whereby the food was sold with the further objective being to use the funds raised for some other purpose. In actions nos 11 and 12 wheat flour was sold to the Sudanese government and the proceeds given to UNHClUSudan to help fund its operations with the large refugee population in that country. In actions nos 13, 14 and 15 in Mozambique the food was sold at heavily subsidized prices through the state marketing network of the Ministry of Commerce and the counterpart funds used to fund various development projects.

Resporlsihilities for procurement und shipping: Responsibility for arranging procurement and shipping of the ‘purely bilateral’ donations varied considerably. Procurement was carried out in six cases by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in six by the WFP and in five by the ODA itself using the Intervention Board of Agricultural Produce to obtain tenders and assist in the adjudication. Each of the six actions in which the WFP acted as the procurement agency on behalf of the ODA involved ‘triangular transactions’ in which the food was procured in a developing ‘source’ country (see below). In the six actions arranged by NGOs they approached the ODA with proposals for the ODA to support.

In terms of procurement the overall picture is therefore one of flexibility, within a quite small programme, in responding to internally generated and NGO proposals for emergency assistance.

Responsibilities for implementation and monitoring: In 11 of the 17 actions the implementing agency was an arm of the recipient govern- ment - the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) in Ethiopia and either the Ministry of Commerce or the DPCCN in Mozambique. In four of the actions NGOs were responsible and in the two actions involving monetization in the Sudan the UNHCR was responsible.

Responsibility for monitoring and reporting lay solely with a recipient government agency in only two of the 17 actions (actions nos 14 and 15). The UNHCR was responsible for reporting on the two monetization actions in the Sudan. Of the 13 remaining actions, responsibility for monitoring rested primarily with the WFP (seven) and NGOs (six). In practice both the WFP and the NGOs relied upon the distributing agency to provide basic information on the distribution area, the timing and the approximate number of beneficiaries.

Speed of response

“Part of action no 10 was used as There has been criticism of dilatory emergency aid that arrives too late ‘payment’ rations in CARE food-for-work to meet the original needs and then has a negative impact on farmers programmes in Hararge province. 13Eg T. Jackson and D. Eade, Against the

and producer incentives in the post-crisis response period.i3 The speed

Grain: The Dilemma of Project Food Aid, of response is also an important measure of efficient performance in the Oxfam, Oxford, UK, 1982. evaluation of emergency assistance, which by definition is a response to

236 FOOD POLICY August 1989

UK food aid and the Africun emergency 198.3-86

an abnormal, temporary situation. In using speed of response as a measure of effectiveness, consideration should be given not only to the overall time from initiation to arrival but elapsed time within the separate activities such as programming, shipping and distribution.

The time lapse between receipt of request and approval by the ODA and from approval to arrival at the port of entry was measured for the 17 actions. The results are shown in weeks for each action in Table 2. Unfortunately the information available on file did not allow an assessment of the time taken from the port of entry to the point of final distribution. Final distribution may on occasion not have taken place for a further several months. Another point that should be borne in mind is that coordinating agencies such as the WFP may sometimes encourage donors to delay shipments which have been approved in order to avoid congestion at ports. Such considerations, however, did not affect the shipment dates of the actions involved in this study.

Determining the time lapse between approval (the date on which the Minister gave his approval) and arrival (the date a shipment arrived at the port of entry) presented few problems. But determining the date on which the action was initiated was less straightforward. A need can be translated into a specific proposal in a number of ways. For the purposes of the evaluation the date of initiation was taken to be either: when a specific request was submitted to the ODA by the recipient government or an NGO; when a specific bid was made by the ODA geographical division; when an appeal was made by an international agency; or when the Minister decided to pledge a specific amount. The arbitrary choice of these dates indicates that the elasped time from initiation to approval should only be regarded as illustrating the range of response times involved. In contrast, the recorded dates of approval and arrival provide unambiguous evidence. The average time from initiation to arrival for all 17 actions was 26 weeks, ranging from only six weeks for the most rapid shipment to Ethiopia to 56 weeks for the most delayed of the shipments to Mozambique (see Table 3).

Several factors explain this wide and country-related variation in timings. Four of the nine actions to Ethiopia involved Oxfam approaching the ODA for a contribution to ships already being loaded and for which distribution plans had been drawn up. Thus the ODA was able to avoid several steps in the programming and procurement process, by effectively buying into Oxfam’s own well-advanced activi- ties. However, some of the most rapid responses were associated with implementation problems once they had arrived in-country which served to reduce the effectiveness of the action. The likelihood of such problems occurring appears to have been increased by the very rapid response and the lack of sufficient preparation.

The ODA also appeared to be flexible, in the case of actions to

Table 3. The ODA’s ‘purely bilateral’ food aid actions: average response times (weeks).

Initiation to approval Mean (range)

All actions

Ethiopia

Sudan

Mozambique

Approval to arrival Mean (range)

Initiation to arrival Mean (range)

(&I?,

$32)

(L,

&xi,

FOOD POLICY August 1989 237

UK food aid and the African emergency 198346

Ethiopia, in its attitude to the standard practice that ships carrying government-to-government donations should not sail before the Ex- change of Letters had taken place. Thus an action initiated on 2.5 October 1984 (ie just two days after the showing of the BuerWAmin film of the situation at the Korem feeding centre by the BBC) had been unloaded before the Exchange of Letters had been completed.

In the case of Mozambique care has to be taken in using speed of response as an indicator of efficient performance, as the chronic, structural nature of the ‘continuing’ emergency may have served to reduce the importance attached to speed of response in considering the form and manner of assistance to be provided.

The process of determining, procuring and shipping ‘emergency aid’ for Mozambique differed substantially from that for Ethiopia and Sudan. For three of the five actions bids were made by the Geographical Department at the beginning of the year (when there was a chronic, continuing food problem); they were given tentative approval and ‘earmarked’ for activation later in the year. Hence the much longer average time from initiation to approval. Final approval was postponed because the harvest results were not available until the middle of the year. In effect Britain, as well as other donors, was providing programme assistance for humanitarian rather than developmental purposes, ie not limited to any particular ‘project’ use of the food or specific developmental use of the counterpart funds resulting from monetization.

Several factors contributed to the much longer average time from approval to arrival of emergency aid in Mozambique. Firstly, the ODA has been committed to both provide the preferred staple of white maize, and promote regional trade by making purchases in East or Southern Africa. As a result the five actions to Mozambique were ‘triangular’, that is the ‘source’ country was a developing country and in most instances a ‘non-regular’ exporter.14 Whilst the concern to promote development and make food aid ‘appropriate’ was commendable, certain costs were involved. The main disadvantages were the slower speed and uncertainty over time of delivery.

The countries in the region having maize available for export during the period under review (Zimbabwe, Malawi and Kenya) rely on rainfed production and experienced drought-related production short- falls at some point during the period. In more than one case exports were stopped just as an ODA consignment was due to depart for Mozambique. In two cases the commodity had to be changed to rice for consumption in urban areas after efforts to procure white maize failed.

Second, the war in Mozambique also had a major impact on deliveries. Principally, it forced changes in import routes from Zim- babwe and changed the areas where relief distributions could take place within Mozambique.

A third delaying factor has been procedural. In contrast to some of the actions for Ethiopia, the ODA’s practice with food aid to Mozambique was not to allow a shipment to proceed until the formal Exchange of Letters involved in a government-to-government donation had been completed. A possible reason for this might have been the involvement of a third nartv. namelv the WFP. as the orocurement I , I

“‘Relief and Development Institute, Lon- don, A Study of Triangular Transactions

agency and the consequent increase in legal difficulties shomd a dispute

and Local Purchases in Food Aid, Occa- have arisen. The practice of including a distribution plan in the

sional Paper 11, WFP, Rome, Italy, 1987. Exchange of Letters, detailing the amounts to be distributed in given

238 FOOD POLICY August 1989

UK food aid and rhe African emergency 108346

provinces, also reduced flexibility in implementation. Any subsequent alteration in the distribution plan as a result of the fluid security situ- ation required a time-consuming revision of the Exchange of Letters.

A fourth delaying factor was the often lengthy discussions between the ODA, represented by the British Embassy in Maputo, and the Mozambique government over whether food aid should be distributed free or sold through the state marketing system. In these discussions the ODA was anxious for food aid provided for emergency purposes to be distributed free to those in need, whereas the Mozambique government felt that the assistance provided would be more appropriately utilized in coping with the chronic, structural nature of its food problems. Similar problems occurred in programming emergency assistance to Mozambi- que by a number of donors. This is in part because of a mismatch between the ‘problem’ and the procedural requirements for emergency food aid which is intended to be directed to specific, temporary relief requirements.

Triangular transactions

Seven of the 17 actions studied (five actions to Mozambique and two to Ethiopia) were triangular. The other 10 involved procurement within Europe. The average elapsed time between approval and arrival was some 30 weeks for the triangular transactions, a result which compares poorly with the average of only 10 weeks for the actions involving procurement in Europe. These results might suggest that triangular transactions, even when possible, may sometimes be less appropriate than actions involving procurement in Europe for use in classic emergency situations where many lives are dependent on rapid delivery. However, there is a need for caution on this point as the results were felt to be heavily influenced by the Mozambique case where a very special set of circumstances prevailed. The average time from approval to arrival for the five triangular transactions in Mozambique was 38 weeks; the average for the two involving Kenya and Ethiopia was 12 weeks.”

Comparing the ODA's performance with other donors’

The small size of the programme makes comparison difficult. In addition the ODA drew much more on developing country sources for supplies than did major food aid donors. The paucity of information also hampers comparison. Nevertheless, it is possible on the basis of partial data to make some comparison in terms of the speed of response.

The WFP, when analysing 114 of its emergency operations worldwide during 1983-84, found it took on average 6.3 weeks from receipt of a request in Rome to approval by the Director General of the FAO; and 8.6 weeks from approval to arrival of the first commodity. This gives an overall time from request to arrival of 14.9 weeks.lh This compares favourably with the ODA’s overall performance. But the result may

15A larger RDI study of 83 triangular shipments commissioned by the WFP

reflect differences in the scale of operations. In some of the WFP

(RDI, ibid) concluded that the degree of operations commodities were borrowed from in-country stocks desig-

uncertainty over delivery times associated nated for regular programme activities, and in other cases shipments on with triangular transactions from non- the high seas were diverted. Neither of these ‘short-cut’ outions was regular exporting sources does reduce the

1

appropriateness of such operations in open to the ODA. Moreover, the ODA’s performance was strongly

meeting critical emergency needs. skewed by the Mozambique operations. “World Food Programme, Measures for Ensuring Speedy Delivery of Emergency

The US General Accounting Office has reviewed the time taken for

Food Aid, WFPICFA 19111, WFP, Rome, 24 USAID shipments, none of which was triangular, to reach five

Italy, 1985. countries in Africa during 1984 (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania,

FOOD POLICY August 1989 239

“General Accounting Office, Famine in Africa: Improving Emergency Food Relief Programs, GAOLJSAID-E&25, Washing- ton, DC, USA, 1986. “The result cannot be compared with the results of the 1985 analysis of WFP ship- ments as some triangular transactions were included in the WFP analysis.

240

Senegal and Somalia). It found that the average time from receipt in Washington of a USAID country mission request and arrival of the shipment was 6.6 months (29 weeks) with a range of 4 to 9 months.” This performance appears to be similar to that of the ODA but not when one takes into account a number of factors.

Generally USAID shipments are significantly larger and they often involve processed and blended foods. Moreover, America is approx- imately two weeks further sailing time from Africa. However, USAID did not undertake any triangular operations in the period under review. The ODA’s overall figures are considerably influenced by the Mozambi- que shipments and the significant proportion of allocations (seven out of 17) which were triangular transactions. If the triangular transactions are excluded (thus automatically excluding all the Mozambique actions), the average elapsed time from initiation to arrival for ODA actions is reduced to 13 weeks.lx When allowan ce is made for the different sailing time, ODA response times for food transported from Europe are only half the USAID average.

However, these comparisons underscore the difficulties of trying to assess the relative performance of different agencies without examining identical types of assistance, for the same destination, at the same time.

Conclusions

A combination of government policy towards food aid, the system by which the ‘purely bilateral’ food aid is allocated, combined possibly with resource constraints, led to a greater concentration of the ‘purely bilateral’ allocations on Africa as the food crisis deepened, with a corresponding reduction in the amount provided to other countries.

Within the ‘purely bilateral’ portion of the programme, there was a heavy reliance on NGOs and the WFP to arrange the procurement, shipment and monitoring of distributions.

The ODA showed a commendable commitment to ‘triangular transactions’ as a way of promoting regional trade in Africa and providing commodities which were more appropriate than those available from Europe. This probably resulted in slower speed of delivery and greater uncertainty over delivery time than if the ODA had used only European or more regular developing country export sources such as Thailand. But the special circumstances of the Mozambique case do not allow one to conclude that ‘triangular transactions’ are necessarily an inappropriate method of providing food aid.

These experiences do not invalidate the attempt to shift food aid resources to triangular transactions but show how the pursuit of multiple objectives may involve trade-offs. The objective of promoting trade implies that there will be infant industry costs and teething problems. Ideally great care is required with the management of triangular transactions in the case of a true emergency.

The ODA’s performance as measured by the indicator of speed of response in providing food aid was generally good and compares well with other donors who have reviewed their experience. Of the three case study countries, the performance was best in Ethiopia and worst in Mozambique. The good performance in Ethiopia was largely due to the ODA being able to buy into the well-advanced plans of NGOs. The poorer performance in Mozambique was, subsequent to the decision to procure an appropriate commodity from non-regular exporters within the region, for reasons largely outside the ODA’s control.

FOOD POLICY August 1989