ABSTRACT
Over the years, food aid has been deployed in an extraordinary array of uses, everything from general distribution to emergency-affected populations and direct feeding of severely malnourished children in famines to maternal and child health projects with a nutrition focus; as an incentive to education and school attendance; food for work in environmental protection, agricultural production, and infrastructure development; market development; as a tool for the mitigation and care of HIV/AIDS; general balance of payments assistance, and a variety of other indirect, programmatic uses. Historically, food aid has been subdivided into “program,” “project,” and “emergency” uses (see Chapter 1). From recipients’ perspective, program food aid has been almost entirely for balance of payments and local currency budgetary support. In many instances, the line between the project and emergency categories is blurred, although some of the most potentially innovative uses may exist in the blurry area. The current language of operational agencies and donors reclassifies what used to be the categories of project and emergency food aid into three broad applications: (1) acute humanitarian emergencies; (2) safety nets, vulnerability reduction, and asset protection; and (3) “development.” These uses of food aid, as presently employed, are briefly reviewed below. Chapter 10 will go into greater detail on the untapped potential of food aid uses at the blurry intersection of project and emergency applications.
