Tag: food aid

A Tribute to Joel Montague

August 21, 2026      Joel Montague, a great and charming  food aid and public health worker has passed away.  A dedicated humanitarian and lifelong advocate for marginalized persons and communities, he died at age 94 on August 16th 2026 in Wellesley, Masschusetter, his long time residence.  Joel was a true “Renaissance man” with boundless empathy and intellectual curiosity. He dedicated over five decades of his life to advancing public health and international development, working in over 55 countries across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.  He was a particular specialist in Cambodia.

Joel pursued higher education with a clear focus on the world beyond his borders, earning his undergraduate degree from Oberlin College in 1959, an MA in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University, and a Master of Public Health from the University of North Carolina, which celebrated him for his enduring legacy in reproductive empowerment.

Joel’s remarkable and colorful career included extensive and  impactful overseas assignments with a range of world-renowned organizations, notably CARE, Partners for Devleopment, John Snow International (JSI), Management Sciences for Health, and the Aga Khan Health Services (where he managed a hospital in Tanzania).

After a Fulbright Fellowship in 1960 to Iran (studying Farsi and tribal relations in Baluchistan), he worked for CARE in three countries. He first visited Afghanistan while with CARE in 1962;.  He worked in both food aid and public health.   CARE’s Egypt operations, launched in 1954 (just after the 1952 revolution), centered on large-scale U.S. food aid under Public Law 480 (the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, later known as Food for Peace). CARE was a key private voluntary organization partner for Title II (and related) donations of U.S. surplus commodities, such as milk powder, cheese, butterfat, and other foods, distributed mainly through school feeding programs, hospitals, and social projects for children, tuberculosis patients, and other vulnerable groups. Early volumes were substantial (tens of thousands of tons annually in the mid-1950s, valued in the tens of millions of dollars).  This experience with food aid would help Joel downstream in his career.

Joel later directed CARE/Medico in Tunisia (focused on an orthopedic/rehabilitation facility, the largest of its kind in North Africa at the time) and was decorated by Iran (1964) and Tunisia (1968) for technical assistance.

He joined the Aga Khan aid network’s secretariat at Aiglemont (near Paris) as head of the Aga Khan Health and Hospital Programmes (in the Department of Health, Education and Housing). This was a coordinating/oversight role for expanding health activities across multiple countries, including Kenya.

He then worked in New York for the Population Council.  His Population Council responsibilities covered a region extending from Morocco toward Afghanistan and including his distinctive work in Iran.

Later in his career he served at John Snow International (JSI), a large global health aid organization.  Montague served as director of JSI’s USAID-funded “Enterprise Program,” apparently during the 1980s and possibly into the early 1990s. The program explored whether private organizations could provide good-quality family-planning services without depending indefinitely on government budgets or foreign aid.  Under Joel’s leadership, the Enterprise Program supported subprojects in 12 countries and provided technical assistance concerning self-financing, cost recovery and management systems in approximately 22 countries

In 1986, along with Jacques Lauriac, Joel co-founded the nonprofit, American Friends of AICF (Action Internationale Contre la Faim or International Action Against Hunger), the American sister agency to AICF/France.  By April 1997, American Friends of AICF had evolved into Partners for Development (PfD), with Joel serving as its first chair.  Joel remained a voting trustee for many years and then an active Advisory Member for many years after that.   From 2008-2010 Joel also served as chair of PfD’s then-local affiliate in Cambodia, PfDC.   Building on Joel’s efforts, PFD continued to work closely with community organizations to build sustainable infrastructure and improve public health in nations like Cambodia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Benin.  Based on his foundational efforts, PFD has programmed some $100 million in food aid overseas toward development among the poorest.  Joel helped shape these programs to achieve public health goals including malaria eradication.   On top of his routine trustee duties with PfD, Joel undertook many pro-bono field trips on behalf of the organization, including to Liberia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Nigeria, and Cambodia.  After each trip Joel provided a highly readable and insightful report, accompanied by many high-quality photographs.
Colleague Michael Chommie reflects:
“I had the pleasure of working with Joel while stationed in the Kingdom of Cambodia from 1996–2002. He was our Éminence Grise and brought charm, class, and gravitas to our little ragtag NGO. To this day, he remains the only white person I have ever seen who looked good in a safari suit.”

Fluent in English, French, and Arabic, Joel was beloved for his humility, mirth, cultural respect, and willingness to “do the dirty work.”  To Joel, every field worker was a dignified partner; he was known to painstakingly record the names of every malaria volunteer he met during his field visits, ensuring each was addressed with their proper honorifics. From launching a national contraceptive program in Cambodia to operating a hospital in Kenya, Joel’s direct contributions changed countless lives.

Colleague Sophal Ear remembers:  “What made Joel so extraordinary was his warmth and generosity. Whether it was sending thoughtful art postcards in the mail, spending his own miles and resources to visit community health workers across Cambodia, or checking in with wry, cheerful updates about raking leaves in Massachusetts, he led with gentle amiability. He was a mentor, a gentleman, and a devoted friend to the Cambodian people.”  Joel wrote the definitive guide to private health care facilities across Cambodia. 

According to PfD’s current Board Chair:  “Joel set a precedent as the model of a modern nonprofit trustee, creating our governance manual and leading by example and with his sense of humor.  His volunteer field trips resulted in state-of-the-art, extensive reports to the rest of the board and public that made visible what the field programs looked like.  His wry sense of humor remained a staple for PFD discussions.”

Former PfD Executive Director, Jack Marrkand, said: “I was very fortunate to count Joel first as a boss and mentor and then friend for 35 years and during that time he was rarely without a tattered but high-quality leather briefcase which when opened might tumble out numerous reports, manuscripts and photographs but also an extra shirt, a toothbrush, and perhaps pieces of jewelry that he had crafted as gifts for friends.  In a way that beloved briefcase — present also at my wedding in Massachusetts in 1993 — represented Joel in conversation and company: he was urbane, but practical too, always empathetic, and blessed with a constant and wry sense of humor.  [On turning 90 in 2022 Joel told me that Wellesley had ‘shut down’ to mark the occasion] ” 

After retiring from JSI in the 1990s Joel devoted much of his time to writing books and conducting lectures whether in Asia (mainly in Cambodia and China) or the Wellesley Public Library.

Beyond his global health career, Joel was a passionate historian and archivist.  Having first visited Cambodia in 1991, Joel began collecting cards, and art.  He amassed an extraordinary collection of historical global photography, ultimately donating over 55,000 images to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, establishing the Rheingold Historical Photograph Collection for future generations of scholars.

Through his work with DatASIA Press and collaborations with Jim Mizerski, Marie-Hélène Arnauld and others, Montague helped bring older French-language accounts, early photography and Cambodian stories into accessible English editions.  He co-authored a book on French colonial cartoons of Indochina.

He organized and interpreted the postcards in his major book: Picture Postcards of Cambodia, 1900–1950 (White Lotus Press, Bangkok, 2010; sometimes catalogued as 2011):  approximately 330 pages, with hundreds of reproductions, including a section of rare color postcards.  He arranged the images thematically, such as monarchy, the Royal Palace, Phnom Penh, the Mekong, ethnic communities, dance and music, religion, schools, prisons, the military, agriculture, commerce, provincial life, ceremonies, Angkor and international colonial exhibitions.

This utterly unique postcard book presents a brighter, colonial-era view of Cambodia drawn from roughly 650 black-and-white and color postcards (selected from his collection of about 1,700, which he believes is the world’s largest of its kind). These cards, produced mainly by the French in the early 1900s for domestic audiences in Indochina, depict people, culture, arts, architecture, the Mekong River, the monarchy, Khmer dance and music, Angkor Wat, and everyday life. Montague argues the postcards functioned as a marketing tool that portrayed Cambodia as an exotic paradise and justified France’s “civilizing mission.” They often show two separate worlds: French administrators building infrastructure and elegant homes versus Cambodians living in villages or posed in anthropological “types,” with little genuine interaction.

Also while working as an international public-health officer, Montague began collecting hand-painted Cambodian shop and business signs in 1991.

Chommie remembers:  “Joel was an avid collector of hand-painted signs advertising barbers, bicycle repairs, and other small Cambodian businesses. We spent countless hours scouring the streets of Phnom Penh, haggling with vendors, and prying the signs off of tree trunks.”

These metal signs advertised such things as: Tailoring and clothing, Food and beverages, Auto and motorcycle parts, Medical and beauty services and Musical performances. He published Cambodian Shop Signs: Free Market Signage in a Post-Marxist Society (DatASIA, 2013).

Micaela Arthur remembers Joel as a mentor: “Joel was always looking out for my future,” and,

“I spent many visits to his home in Wellesley discussing the future of development, his projects in Cambodia, and his forays globally. He would walk me through the exquisite collection that was his and Shahnaz’s home. He often mailed me books, news and magazine clippings, and a few pieces from his prized Preah Bot collection (old paintings from Buddhist temples throughout Cambodia that were removed during remodels. He would find them in dusty old cabinets at the back of antique shops. They depict the life of the Buddha.”

Joel leaves behind a legacy of bountiful compassion, reduction of tropical diseases, and a generation of public health workers trained, mentored, and inspired by his example.

He will be deeply missed by his family, his friends, and the countless individuals whose lives were bettered by his lifetime of service.

Joel leaves behind his wife of over 50 years, Shahnaz Montague, M.D., about whose primary care service over many decades to working and middle class families in central Massachusetts, he was immensely proud; daughter, Maryam, based in Morocco. international development professional, businesswoman, and founder of Project SOAR which works in Morocco and Uganda; and Jahan Montague, M.D., a kidney specialist and associate professor at the UMASS Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts; two grandchildren; and many other extended family members.

 

– Contributed by WHES trustee, Steven Hansch

U.S. Food Aid (Part 10): To Monetize or Not to Monetize? A Review of Food Aid Monetization

July 30, 2026    by Mara Russell      The sale of U.S. food aid overseas, e.g., Title II monetization, has been  controversial for decades. Going back to the beginning of Public Law 480 in 1956, food aid was provided through a government-to-government program known as Title I in which recipient governments received large concessional loans of food aid, which were subsequently sold locally, to provide funding for government initiatives and inputs to local food industries.

In its recent Request for Information, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asked for advice about the monetization of food aid, i.e. when donated bulk food aid is sold after being transported to a target country, typically sold at wholesale markets.

The early Title I program has not been funded formally for many years, but using the Food for Progress program, USDA sometimes provides government-to-government grants consisting of food aid which is subsequently monetized. In FY2013, the Government of Mauritania received commodities worth $5.16 million, in FY 2014, the Government of Guatemala monetized commodities worth $30.5 million, in FY2017 the Government of Jordon monetized commodities worth $18.7 million, and in FY2021, the Government of Sudan received 300,000 metric tons (MT) of Hard Red Winter Wheat worth $120 million. Venezuela is also listed as having received $12,674,433 in FY 2019 as a “Provisional award contingent upon initiation of a democratic transition in Venezuela”. However, until its elimination last year, Title II food aid programs were always led by USAID. Now Title II programs are being managed by USDA because of an inter-office mechanism that transferred them to the latter agency.

Title II programs are, by definition, managed by partner organizations, such as World Food Programme and not-for-profit International Non-Governmental Organizations. These latter organizations became very interested in using Title II monetization during the 1980s to cover the costs involved in delivering food aid while addressing the underlying causes of food insecurity. While the logistics of monetization were complex and often difficult to manage, funding from monetization enabled implementation of programs that would not have been possible otherwise. Throughout the 1990s into the early 2000s, Title II monetization enabled introduction of programs that aimed to improve food security using technical interventions in food production, nutrition, and water, sanitation and health (WASH) in non-emergency programs. Many of these programs used 100% monetization in which food aid commodities were exclusively monetized and not distributed.

This led to a shift in the types of commodities used in Title II programs. Initially, commodities were developed with recipients in mind. Grains were most often milled and highly fortified. For instance, Corn Soy Blend (which until 1990 included Non-Fat Dried Milk, and was called “Corn Soy Milk”), was fortified with a blend of vitamins and minerals as well as including protein-rich soy flour. Bags were manufactured to reduce the potential for loss, spoilage and infestation, and such shipments were containerized. Vegetable Oil came in small metal tins that could be easily carried by recipients. Yet, as monetization involved the sale of commodities to private sector food industry traders and food processing companies in developing countries, it was much easier to sell bulk commodities to these industries. These buyers were much more interested in doing their own value addition and selling these commodities to the private sector. There was reduced attention among NGOs in distributing commodities to poor and malnourished recipients, and more attention to generating resources through monetization, which, several NGOs admitted, diverted organizational resources away from addressing the needs of hungry people and the underlying causes of food insecurity. Instead, commodities such as bulk wheat, rice, corn and soybeans were sold without the need for bags, and bulk crude, degummed, soy oil was pumped directly from tanker ships into processing plants. Instead of value being added in the U.S., value was added in the recipient countries. Bags and tins were not required. Containerization was not necessary. And, while there were hefty costs associated with monetization, with 100% monetization, there were no longer requirements for significant funding for internal transport storage and handling. Unfortunately, as a result, by the mid-1990s, the demand for processed and packaged commodities declined so much that they made up less than half of the non-emergency commodities shipped by Title II, despite a Congressionally mandated minimum of 75% use of processed and packaged commodities. Producers of processed and packaged commodities lost revenue as a result, and some went out of business. Relevant U.S. commodity organizations advocated for bulk commodities for monetization to be reduced in line with the processed and packaged mandate. It also became apparent after a certain point that import of bulk commodities had a negative impact in some countries on farmers and market systems by creating unfair competition.

In addition, after several years, concerns were raised that the costs involved in the purchase and shipment of commodities to developing countries were not being adequately recovered through sales. Although cost recovery varied widely depending on the country, time of purchase in the U.S. and timing of the sale in the receiving county, the buyer, and the method used for sales, overall, cost recovery on monetization sales overall was less than 100%. The GAO reported in 2011 that during the three prior years, USAID cost recovery was 76% and USDA cost recovery was 58%. At the time, the high cost of ocean shipment, heightened by a 75% preference for U.S. flag ships that limited competition for these cargoes further increased ocean freight to make up a third of the overall costs, and made cost recovery much more difficult. This resulted in concerns that the full value of the taxpayer dollar was not delivered to recipients as intended by Title II programs. However, most international NGOs were more interested in being able to provide agriculture and other technical and training services that could enable people to grow out of poverty, or to teach mothers how to improve the nutrition of their children without imported food aid, or how to develop water systems without the need for food distribution. While specialized Title II commodities did not disappear, NGOs often favored using cash to address the underlying causes of food insecurity to prevent hunger and malnutrition rather than simply distributing commodities to people.  Monetization provided a source of cash that would not be available otherwise to implement programs that sought to address not only short-term needs, but also long-term causes, thus eventually resulting in self-sufficiency with a focus on building sustainability. In 2003, David Tschirley and Julie Howard of Michigan State University reported that the U.S. share of official development assistance had declined during the past forty years, and that it had fallen by half between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s and continued to fall. Moreover, U.S. funding for agriculture declined to only 4.1% of  foreign assistance.

While American INGOs continued to actively advocate for monetization, European NGOs voiced many concerns about it. These included the fact that as the U.S. accepted less than 100% of the cost of food and freight from monetization, this amounted to a subsidy that created an uneven playing field for other commercial exporters. These concerns were raised at the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization and created some confounding issues for U.S. trade negotiations in the early 2000s. Also, many American INGOs had federation members based in donor countries, including many in Europe. These European federation members raised some of the strongest objections to monetization, and organizations that monetized either had to agree to disagree with these European brother and sister agencies or go along with them and stop monetizing.

It was European INGOs, who were largely focused on providing food aid for humanitarian assistance, who raised some of the strongest concerns about food aid that should have been used to help feed hungry and malnourished people being sold to the private sector, which then turned a profit and sold the food in commercial markets. Also, some views changed among staff of American NGOs who were concerned about the growth of hunger and malnutrition, and the fact that food aid being sold to support their programs was not being used to feed increasing populations of people impacted by disasters, conflict and chronic hunger and malnutrition. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the proportion of U.S. emergency food aid increased significantly in comparison with non-emergency food aid. This led U.S. NGOs to advocate strongly to establish a set aside “safe box” for non-emergency programs.

Added to this was growing evidence that monetization was likely resulting in negative market impacts,  including disincentives for local farmers and market actors. While NGOs implementing monetization were required to conduct market analyses to avoid these disincentives, there were concerns that these so-called “Bellmon Analyses” may not have been objective because the end-goal for the NGOs involved was to monetize and generate as much cash as possible.  Also, some NGOs began to import Title II commodities in consumer packaging and sell them to buyers outside of the large urban centers so that the commodities could reach people in rural areas, thus making these products more accessible to the people these programs were designed to support in Rwanda. However, there were also concerns about how  monetized commodities may create competition with local producers and vendors, which in turn resulted in dependency on these imported commodities.

As well, cost recovery can be very difficult to achieve. If something happens to a shipment or there are significant commodity losses, this can be a problem. If commodities are not sold by the time they are shipped, this can result in commodities going unsold, resulting in lower prices paid than projected. However, in some cases, the opposite was true if an auction methodology was used to sell commodities for which there was strong demand. Nonetheless, if commodity specifications fail to meet buyer expectations, this can also result in defaulted sales or lower prices. Commodity spoilage, theft or other loss can result in lost funding. Buyers have been known to collude to keep prices low, or to renege on contracts. Shipments carrying monetization cargoes have been known to catch fire or sink. Unsold commodities have been known to become unsafe for human consumption or be stolen. As noted above, NGOs that monetized often invested heavily in addressing monetization issues at the expense of fulfilling their mandates of meeting humanitarian among vulnerable populations.

In 2005, long-standing concerns about how to do food aid were explored in a book by Cornell University’s economist Chris Barrett and Dan Maxwell published Food Aid after Fifty Years: Recasting its Role. They recounted how the time needed for food aid to reach malnourished people, and the costs involved in commodity purchasing and ocean shipment were high, whereas, in theory, if food were purchased locally (or in a nearby country), the time needed to transport food could be reduced by six months or more. Also, commodity and transportation costs could be reduced.  There could be considerable benefits to local farmers and markets if instead of purchasing and shipping food from the U.S., food is purchased overseas, within the target region. Their book also proposed a global procurement system to obtain the  most competitive prices were being paid for food aid. Meanwhile, the World Food Programme uses similar processes to ensure the cost-effectiveness of many of its local, regional and international purchases.

In 2009, CARE changed its policy and took a stand against monetization, proclaiming that it would not monetize. In doing so, CARE  reported that it lost approximately $46 million per year by not monetizing. The INGO led an advocacy campaign against food aid monetization, and for increasing the use of cash to address underlying causes of food insecurity. It also advocated for the use of local and regional procurement, cash and vouchers for food assistance that would not only increase local food consumption and hence demand for local production and marketing, enabling people to have a choice about the food they consumed.

However, CARE made an exception by monetizing in Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi Government agreed to purchase Title II wheat for monetization and distribute this through the national food safety-net system, with the idea that people in need would receive this food. The GoB agreed to pay no less than an 80% cost recovery (usually around 82%) and continued to do so through 2020. This was incorporated into the CARE’s food aid policy, stating that it would not conduct “private sector” monetization. CARE also made an exception if it was working in a consortium with one or more organizations, it would use any cash resources that could be made available.

In the years that followed, some other NGOs shifted away from monetization. New other USAID initiatives began that provided cash to NGOs for agriculture, food security, food market growth and nutrition activities (Development Assistance funds). These were in response to an international “Food Price Crisis” that revealed vulnerability in global stocks that resulted in commodity price increases. These programs eventually came to be known as Feed the Future, which was signed into law in 2015. In 2014, funds from this program were first integrated into Title II and could be used in non-emergency programs. These funds were known as “Community Development Funds” or CDF and were finally available to be used in lieu of monetization. A total of $80 million per year was made available for this purpose and were in fact enshrined in Food for Peace legislation.  Moreover, while in the past, there was a 15% floor on the use of monetization in Title II programs, there is now a 15% (as of 2018) a ceiling, thus indicating a priority in the legislation to use cash and not monetization proceeds. When CDF funds became available, it became possible for organizations like CARE that do not monetize to implement these programs.

However, since the 2026 transfer of Food for Peace to USDA, it is not clear what funding will be available to provide technical and operational support to these programs. The Feed the Future program is no longer being implemented by the State Department and the recent Food for Peace Emergency Notice of Funding Opportunity stipulated that 50% of resources should be used for commodities and ocean freight, so other resources are needed to cover the costs of internal transport storage and handling to ensure the accountable, effective and secure management of food aid and to ensure that food aid quality is maintained until it is consumed. Funds will also be needed to cover the technical costs associated with addressing the underlying causes of food insecurity, such as increasing food production, building the capacity of people to earn sustainable incomes, adoption of critical health and nutrition behaviors, construction and maintenance of water and sanitation infrastructure, and ensuring communities are more able to address shocks and stresses that impact food security, and ensure that these outcomes outlast the end of these programs. It is not clear where these funds will come from without CDF, and thus monetization funds may be needed to support these programs to ensure that food aid is managed accountably, securely and food quality is maintained, and at the same time ensure that programs are effective in building and ensuring food security in the long run, thus avoiding dependency.

As international non-governmental organizations weigh whether to engage in food aid monetizations, a few questions are likely to be important in decision-making.  Since there are many potentially negative outcomes that could result from monetization, would it be an acceptable action in the short term? And, if so, how many years will these monetization programs continue? Will there be a future in which cash funds will cover the costs of internal transport  and other program costs? If so, when will that happen and what will it look like?

Will legislation that ensures the use of CDF be acted upon if Development Assistance funding becomes available for use in food security in the future? And, if so, when will that be and what will it look like? CARE and other INGOs advocated for at least a decade for cash funding for use in lieu of monetization. If INGOs such as CARE agree to monetize food aid under the current circumstances, will they continue to advocate effectively for availability and use of CDF funding? Moreover, American farmers and farmer associations that benefit from monetization will strongly push back on efforts to replace monetization funds with CDF or other cash. Will that make it more difficult to implement Food for Peace programs without monetization? As Food for Peace non-emergency programs are among the very few U.S. Government foreign assistance non-emergency food security and nutrition initiatives still operating since the elimination of USAID, would monetization be an acceptable short-term solution? Unfortunately, bringing cash back to these programs may take a long time and this could result in necessitating the use of large-scale monetization activities for years to come. Finally, not monetizing could be seen as not supporting farmers who have, in essence, ensured the continuation of the Food for Peace program.

Faced with a future in which monetization may need to happen, organizations may wish to consider options that support programmatic objectives. For instance, CARE and other U.S. INGOs implementing in Bangladesh negotiated an agreement with the Bangladeshi government in which it purchased wheat at a set rate of cost recovery (80% minimum) and then used the commodity in its food safety-net system. This may not work elsewhere, but it is a bit more predictable and at least ensures that poor people access this food. Other organizations have monetized food as a way of contributing to the manufacture of products that were ultimately distributed.

Land O’Lakes International Development monetized non-fat dried milk powder in several Asian countries, selling it to processors that developed nutritious, fortified, UHT milk snacks for distribution in schools. As mentioned above, monetization among small scale vendors outside of large urban centers could also ensure that monetization commodities create value for traders and households in rural areas. So, there may be options available to “mitigate” some of the downsides of monetization, by ensuring that the food used for monetization eventually provides food for those the program might target with food assistance. Unfortunately, as time and resources devoted to these options may add to the cost of monetization, it will ultimately reduce the ability of humanitarian organizations to fulfill their mandates of addressing the needs of food insecure populations.

Further Reading:

Gaibler, Floyd, Deputy Under Secretary, Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture, The Impact of the World Trade Organization on Food Aid Policies, Presentation at the USDA and USAID Export Food Aid Conference, Kansas City, Missouri, April 25, 2006.

EveryCRSreport.com, International Food Aid Provisions of the 2008 Farm Bill, July 10, 2008, https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RS22900.html#_Toc346816996, accessed July 28, 2026.

Government Accountability Office (GAO), Funding Development Projects through the Purchase, Shipment, and Sale of U.S. Commodities Is Inefficient and Can Cause Adverse Market Impacts, GAO-11-636, June 2011, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-11-636.pdf, accessed July 28, 2026.

Harrell, Eben, CARE Turns Down U.S. Food Aid, Time, August 15, 2007, https://time.com/archive/6922467/care-turns-down-u-s-food-aid/, accessed July 28, 2026.

CARE USA, White Paper on Food Aid Policy, June 6, 2006, https://www.care.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/CARE20monetization20farm20bill20white20paper5B35D.pdf, accessed July 28, 2026.

Mara Russell has led food aid programming for decades.

 

 

U.S. Food Aid (Part 6): A Timeline of U.S. Food Aid

July 20, 2026    This is the sixth posting in an effort to inform the public and USDA about Food For Peace lessons and directions.  Below is a timeline of selected milestones in the history of U.S. food aid sent overseas. World Hunger Education Service compiled this from a range of sources with inputs from various experts. It selects for different ways that the US has provided foods to other countries with a particular emphasis on Food for Peace, PL 480, Title II.

Notably, at the time of this publication the key food aid initiative is the same as the first, in 1812: aid to Venezuela in response to an earthquake. Contents in this table is meant to complement and not reiterate content published in other articles here at Hunger Notes.   Photo credit:  The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Timeframe U.S. Food Aid Milestones
1812 USG sends food aid to Venezuela after earthquake. President James Madison and Congress appropriate $50,000 for wheat flour aid.
1847 Choctaw nation in Oklahoma raises famine relief funds for Ireland.
1914-1919 Commission for Relief in Belgium during WWI channels U.S. wheat that fed 10 million people in Belgium and Northern France, daily. Future president Herbert Hoover organizes first large scale food logistics to combat famine.
1918-22 American Relief Administration provides 700,000 MT of famine-relief food aid to Russia, Poland, Austria.
1930 U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service posts agricultural attachés around the world, starting in South Africa, Sydney, Belgrade.
1943 Catholic Relief Services (CRS) channels food aid in war-torn Europe. U.S. foods for Europe went through the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization.
1944 Dutch famine (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague) led to US Operation Chowhound of B-17 Airdrops of flour, meat, eggs. Later US military trucked in food as Operation Faust.
1945 WWII famine relief. George McGovern in the 741st Bomb Squadron flew surplus food aid to Trieste in northeastern Italy. George McGovern later becomes first director of the Office of Food for Peace, and Democratic nominee for President.
1945-47 CARE Packages as WWII relief, using surplus US Army “10-in-1” rations stockpiled for the canceled invasion of Japan. CARE leaders negotiated with the Army to acquire nearly 3 million pre-packaged rations. Post-WWII US aid also flowed through multilateral channels like UNRRA, the Marshall Plan/GARIOA. CARE and CRS bridged U.S. surpluses through private networks.
1948-49 USG and UK airlift 296,000 tons of food (and coal) to West Berlin. CARE delivered 230,000 packages to Berlin on its own planes.
1948-51 American Friends Service Committee, CARE, and USG provide aid to famine threatened parts of India during the Partition that created India & Pakistan. US passed India Emergency Food Aid Act providing 2 million MT of grain.
1950s India looms large as major concern for large food shortages & famine. US provided large scale grain shipments under Title I and II.
1950s US holds large domestic reserves, including surplus dairy products. FFP framed as a benefit to US farmers as safety valve for purchasing surplus production.
1954 FFP assistance to Korea includes large quantities of wheat flour shipped under Title I, a total of $1.6 billion through 1974. Later in 1987, Korea became a food donor.
1954 Western Wheat Associates (U.S. wheat growers) used food aid for market development, teaching bakers in Japan and India how to use wheat flour.
1954 PL 480 signed into law by President Eisenhower with primarily Title 1 government to government food going to governments.
1954-59 Food aid to Pakistan, Japan, Taiwan, Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy, Spain.
1955 CARE’s Board of Directors votes to not dissolve, but to refocus the organization’s aid from Europe to other continents, hence the name changes from Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe to “Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere.” This passed by a single vote. CARE implements Title I and II food aid in Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, India and Dominican Republic.
1958 “Food and Fiber as a Force for Freedom” Senate report recommends food as a force for democracy and coins the phrase “food for peace”, written by Senator Hubert Humphrey, future nominee for US president.
1959 INCAP in Central America creates Incaparina weaning food to prevent malnutrition.
1961 President John F. Kennedy rebrands the initiative “Food for Peace” and consolidates U.S. overseas assistance under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Title III food aid created to incentivize agricultural modernization.
1961 WFP proposed by George McGovern, the first director of the U.S. Food for Peace program, as a three-year UN “experiment” to internationalize food aid.
1963 FFP fuels Operation Niños: Ag Secretary Orville Freeman claimed that U.S. food reached one in four Latin American children, that rural school-meal programs in Bolivia and Peru doubled school attendance. Food for Work also in S America.
1966 Egypt gets soft loans to purchase PL 480 food.
1966 Food aid in India peaked during the severe Indian famine of 1965–1966. During this time, the U.S. used food aid as a heavy diplomatic lever. CARE receives food aid for emergency food program in drought areas. President Johnson involved in every food aid decision related to India.
1966 The 1966 Food for Peace Act PL 89-808 reframes aid from surplus disposal to development conditionality and economic development. President Johnson transfers FFP direction from the White House to the State Department. Johnson emphasized agricultural reforms as a precondition for a country to receive food aid.
1966 Likuni Phala fortified weaning food is pioneered in Malawi.
1968 USAID offers Corn-Soy Milk (CSM) and Corn-Soy Blend (CSB) as fortified foods.
1968-69 U.S. C-97 Stratofreighters (Boeing) help deliver $50M of food aid to Biafra during war in Nigeria, via CRS, CARE, the ICRC and Joint Church Aid. First large scale deployment of new CSB. First live-televised famine; introduced kwashiorkor.
1972 World food crisis, Sahel famine.
1972-1974 Dan Shaughnessy directs Food for Peace and planning for the 1974 UN World Food Conference. Henry Kissinger plays central role in targeting countries for food aid.
1975 Integrated Child Development Services large child nutrition program in India. USG Corn Soya Milk and non-fat dried milk provided through South India Flour Mills for CARE’s “balahar” fortified food for school feeding, led by Tim Lavelle.
1976 World Hunger Education Service begins educating the public and USG about food aid issues and begins quarterly publication of the journal, Hunger Notes.
1977 Title III food aid revised to focus on barter for debt forgiveness and tying aid more explicitly to policy reforms and long-term development in recipient countries.
1979 Two key publications: Amartya Sen’s Poverty & Famines demonstrates that food insecurity is not only about food availability but also about access. Lincoln Chen demonstrates that risk of death increases non-linearly by degree of child wasting.
1979 U.S. donates polished (thiamine removed) white rice to anti-Khmer Rouge groups in Cambodia, resulting in epidemic beriberi (deficiency disease).
1980s Maternal Child Health (MCH) is main type of project supported by food aid, having grown during the 1970s. Food for Work also common for roads/infrastructure.
1983 Church World Service (CWS) stops taking USG FFP resources, following controversial episode of 60 Minutes on CBS about CWS programs in countries with communist governments. CWS goes overnight from being the largest food aid agency in the world to one of the smallest.
1984 Burma Border Consortium of NGOs formed, purchasing food locally for Burmese refugees in camps in Thailand, supported by the U.S. Department of State.
1985 Food for Progress Act explicitly references “Private Voluntary Organizations” or PVOs. Food for Progress authorized CCC financing for grants or credit sales to support agricultural development in developing countries and emerging democracies.
1985 6 million MT of food sent for African famine. Two supplemental appropriations made for Ethiopia famine. FFP manages $500M for Ethiopia alone, plus more for Sudan, and across 21 African countries.
1985 Farm Bill promotes PVO/NGO monetization, using Title II as an alternative revenue stream to direct-dollar grants. U.S. Dry Bean Council positioned pintos and black beans as shelf-stable, high-value food for NGOs to monetize. Initially monetization was to pay for internal transport, which was later funded by USAID in the 1990s.
1985 Ellen Levinson creates the Coalition for Food Aid of NGOs in Washington, DC to promote the roles of NGOs in food aid. Title II Enhancement Grant (later, Title II Strengthening Grant) for PVO headquarters capacity building.
1986 Famine Early Warning System Network (later named FEWS.NET), established on the advice of Tufts University’s President Jean Meyer. Credit also to John Field.
1989 Collapse of Soviet Union shifts emergency food aid gradually away from refugees fleeing regimes in host countries, instead to internally displaced persons.
1990 Food Aid Management funded by FFP with 5 original PVO members.
1990 Fred Cuny pioneers local purchase of food as a more appropriate response to food needs in Ethiopia.
1990s PVOs promote local village “grain reserves” with food aid for resilience.
1990-93 End of US food aid to Somalia leads to famine throughout 1992. President Bush directs US airlifts food via C-130s in late 1992. U.S. Food aid monetized to reduce retail prices across the country in 1993, but after famine has receded.
1990 “Partial monetization” turns into “100% monetization” for many NGOs.
1991 Famine Mitigation Project of experts convened by USAID to recommend best practices to prevention of famine. Including livestock, water, local food purchase.
1992 Food aid mobilization to former Soviet states where food insecurity tied to pensions lost from ruble devaluation. USG works through Red Cross movement. Operation Provide Hope channeled 25,000 MT to the Caucasus and Central Asian “Stans.” ADRA involved in Armenia and other states.
1992 Bosnia: Operation Provide Promise began July 2, 1992, becoming the longest-running humanitarian airlift in history. USG provided sorties into besieged Sarajevo, delivering food and other aid to civilians trapped by the Yugoslav war.
1992 Food Aid Management (FAM) publishes Generally Accepted Commodity Accountability Principles, GACAP, representing all NGOs working with US food aid.
1990s PVO/NGO “cooperating sponsors” include CRS, CARE, World Vision, Save the Children, ADRA, Land O Lakes, ACDI/VOCA, Food for the Hungry International, Project Concern, Africare, Technoserve, Partners for Development, World Relief, Mercy Corps, Lutheran World Relief, IOCC, UMCOR, and International Relief and Development. CARE is often lead food agency in refugee camps, while CRS is lead for IDPs.
1992-1994 FFP defines food security as: availability plus access plus bio-utilization.
1993-1996 FFP Director Robert Kramer rebalances food aid from entrenched USAID Mission projects to areas of greatest need (emergencies), and pushed WFP to recognize the greater priority in emergencies of food.
1993 FAM publishes NGO manual, Monetizing Food Aid, a Guide for PVOs.
1992 CRS’ Mike D’Adamo travels to Rome to strike a partnership with WFP, opening an era of WFP collaboration with NGOs.
1994 CARE and CRS account for roughly 72% of PVOs’ regular Title II programs.
1995 2 million refugees plus almost as many IDPs received some 240,000 MT of food in Rwanda and neighboring countries, following genocide and flight.
1995-97 North Korea’s famine received over 1.1 million metric tons.
1996 André Briend & Michel Lescanne create Plumpy’Nut, the first RUTF, at Nutriset.
1997 WFP strikes agreements partnering with NGOs for distribution activities.
1998 USG requires vegetable oil be fortified with vitamin A (and later, Vitamin D).
1997-2001 Asian financial crisis as currencies lost purchasing power. NGOs like IRD, and WFP used food aid as social protection safety nets.
1999 The majority of US food aid now channeled through WFP, not NGOs.
1999 USAID, FAM and the Canadian Govt convene food experts at a symposium at the American Red Cross to document feasibility of fortifying emergency food aid at the local level to mitigate micronutrient deficiency diseases widely seen among refugees.
2000 Global Food for Education Initiative $300 million, with CCC resources. Over next two decades, 5.5 billion meals for 31 million school children in 48 countries.
2000 Congress passes International Food Relief Partnership Act, amending Title II to authorized grants to US nonprofits to create shelf-stable food products for aid, such as Breedlove Foods in Texas.
2001 FFP Officer Tim Lavelle organizes long-term Bridge of Friendship pipeline from hub of Termez over the Amu Darya river from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan, facilitating hundreds of thousands of tons of famine-preventing food aid into Afghanistan.
2002 FFP nutritionist Tom Marchione promotes new formulations of CSB and nutrient-dense foods as part of commodity docket.
2002 CTC/CMAM modality for treating malnourished children with RUTF promoted.
2002 New McGovern-Dole Food for Education program passed in 2002 Farm Bill. This moves school feeding from Food for Peace to USDA.
2002 No more funding for Title III, a government-to-government program under PL 480 where the foreign government sold food for local currency proceeds.
2003 Large-scale U.S. emergency food aid rejected by five southern African famine-affected countries because US corn is genetically modified. Eventually the grain was milled in S. Africa before transporting to Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, etc.
2000s Food aid targets HIV/AIDS response primarily in sub-Sahara Africa. USAID Administrator Natsios pushes for more flexibility for local purchase of food.
2003 Dr. Patricia Wolff from Washington University, St Louis, founds “Meds & Foods for Kids” in Haiti and produces Medika Mamba.
2003 FANTA and FFP develop criteria for prioritization of non-emergency countries.
2004 Jeanie Markunas retires from long career overseeing Food for Peace.
2004 C-SAFE consortium (World Vision, CARE, CRS) manages food aid across southern Africa, with the World Food Programme as a sub-grantee.
2004 Globally, World Vision now channels food aid mostly as a sub-awardee under WFP whereas a few years earlier it was primarily a prime.
2005–2011 RUTF increasingly mainstreamed among NGOs, UNICEF & USAID as part of a shift from blended-flour to lipid-based products for targeted feeding of malnourished.
2006 SMART survey manual released, about measuring acute malnutrition and mortality, with the intent to standardize reliable data across agencies. In 2008, the Global Nutrition Cluster designated Action Against Hunger (ACF) as the global convener of SMART, including ongoing infrastructure, guidance, consultations. FAM hosts a workshop about SMART for monitoring malnutrition.
2008 Farm Bill Sec. 3206 created the pilot USDA Local and Regional Food Aid Procurement Program. The rule established grants for field-based projects consisting of local or regional procurement.
2007 USAID & IFRC plan food aid reserves for future pandemics that contract markets.
2008 Prices for corn and oil increased 125% over a short period, increasing malnutrition worldwide. The USG provided additional $2.8 billion across all international food aid programs, delivering 2.3 million metric tons for 43 million people.
2009 Decades of US food aid to India ends. Meanwhile, India donates food to WFP.
2009 Land O’Lakes International Development nonprofit pilots local purchase of food baskets in Zambia for people with HIV.
2009 Food Aid Quality Review research starts at Tufts University School of Nutrition.
2010 Congress approves The Emergency Food Security Program (EFSP) to allow cash and voucher assistance, instead of only in-kind commodities, using International Disaster Assistance funds.
2010 MSF launches “starved for attention” campaign criticizing the US for donating CSB instead of only procuring RUTF.
2010s Ongoing scale up of RUF production by MANA and Edesia (U.S. NGOs).
2010-2011 Despite early warnings, over 200,000 Somalis die when US cuts off food aid because of Patriot Act. Food aid reinstated only after hunger season ended in 2011.
2010s “Sequencing, layering, and integration” promoted in FFP program designs.
2012 International Food Assistance Improvement Act of 2012 (H.R. 4141) sought to enhance nutritional quality and cost-effectiveness of food aid
2014 Farm Bill expanded Section 202(e) flexibility. USAID increase in authorized 202(e) funding to provide cash transfers, food vouchers, & local purchase modalities.
2014 Charles Hanrahan retires from the Congressional Research Service, after 29 years researching international food aid.
2015 Resilience Food Security Activities (RFSAs) formally introduced as new design of FFP development programs.
Mid 2010s Multi-year, development cooperative agreements, “MYAPs”, replaced by “DFAPs” as main form of FFP projects implemented by NGOs.
2017 Food to four well-publicized man-made famines: S Sudan, Somalia, Yemen & Nigeria.
2018 89% of FFP resources for emergencies. Development food aid % at all time low.
RFSAs emphasize new “graduation model”, along with theories-of-change, learning, and ‘pause and reflect.’
2019 USAID funds Nawiri resilience (RFSA) program in Kenya for northern, arid lands.
2020 Top recipient countries of US food aid from 2015 to 2020 were Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, DRC, Sudan, Afghanistan, Kenya, and Nigeria.
2022 Response to Ukraine war leads to full draining of the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust. USG also provides $388 million for shipping/freight, totaling $670 million.
2023 USG and WFP shut down food pipelines to Ethiopia. USAID Administrator on June 8 suspended food aid across Ethiopia because of widespread, coordinated theft of U.S. food by multiple actors (including to military units and markets). This stopped aid for ~20 million people amid drought and post-conflict needs.
2024 First RFSA program in Somalia.
2025 DOGE terminates many FFP (RFSA) and Food for Progress programs, while authority for FFP and FEWS shifted to State Department. A few RFSAs are re-started: Mercy Corps in Kenya, ADRA in DRC, Food for the Hungry in Ethiopia, and CRS in Haiti.
2025 December: FFP transitions again, to US Department of Agriculture which in February commits $452 million to WFP and bids new emergency programs for DRC, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, & Rwanda.
2026 July: FFP announces $235 million to CRS for Ethiopia and Sudan.
2026 USG provides private and UN food aid in recovery from earthquake in Venezuela.

–  Contributed by WHES board members, edited by Steven Hansch

U.S. Food Aid (Part 1): Reflections about Food Aid by Long-Term Practitioner

July 7, 2026    by Mara Russell     This is the first in a series of articles by Hunger Notes about the U.S. Food for Peace (FFP) Program.  “Food for Peace Title II Non-Emergency Programs: What are they and Why are they needed?”

In the United States, government-funded “Food for Peace” (FFP) programs  transitioned from USAID to the State Department when the former agency was dissolved  in 2025. Several months later, the Food for Peace program was transferred to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), a large federal agency that had not managed this program previously. Soon after this transition, $452 million in FFP resources was awarded directly to the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) for food activities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya and Rwanda.[i]

Then, as recently reported in Hunger Notes, in 2026, USDA released a “Notice of Funding Opportunity” for nonprofits (NGOs) for new Emergency Food for Peace programs, naming the same set of countries that were eligible for food assistance.  These upcoming programs are scheduled to be worth $357 million in total.[ii]  Since a total of $1.2 billion was appropriated by Congress for Food for Peace in FY26,[iii], USDA is now considering how to implement the rest of the funding for “development” or non-emergency food programs, referred to during the past seven years as Resilience Food Security Activities or “RFSAs.”[iv].

One critical variable that non-emergency programs have leveraged during recent cycles of USG funding is timeframe. These NGO-administered programs are generally five years in length, while emergency programs only last for a maximum of two years. Emergency programs are designed to address the impacts of acute (wasting) malnutrition and severe food insecurity. Resources in emergency programs are provided to address short- to medium- term impacts of a severe shock. This can be due to a natural disaster such as an earthquake, a severe storm, drought, or  severe conflict. The spread of an epidemic or pandemic disease can also result in such impacts, either due to a breakdown of production and markets, or due to people being at greater risk of malnutrition due to the impacts of a disease. Or shocks can result from a combination of several things.

On the other hand, non-emergency programs focus on preventing emergencies.   They address the underlying causes of hunger that tend to become more serious when conditions are such that food supplies become limited, or people lose access to food due to the types of shocks outlined above. These underlying causes, such as poverty, cultivation practices that result in poor yields, inadequate services or limited safety-nets that result in food insecurity and malnutrition, lack of income earning opportunities, poor access to water for agriculture and for drinking and inadequate sanitation that can cause water-borne disease- a significant underlying cause of acute and chronic malnutrition, lack of attention to the special nutrition needs of women of childbearing age, pregnant women and young children, and lack of capacity to prepare for potential shocks that impact food security and nutrition. These are complex issues that call for a combination of access to goods and services, while adopting of behaviors and practices within households.  Programs also ensure that the food consumed meets the standards of a healthy diet, prevent water-borne disease, and build resilience to unexpected shocks.

This takes time. There is a limit to what can be done in only one or two years. This is especially the case because according to the 2026 USDA Emergency funding opportunity, it takes between 45 and 90 days from the award of a program until food aid from the Food for Peace program can be exported from the United States, and then up to another 6 months for commodities to arrive in the country where they will be distributed.[v]

A second factor has to do with geography.  Emergency food aid programs are in countries and locations where there is an active ongoing shock, and large concentrations of people, including refugees and internally displaced people, living in a situation of extreme food and nutrition insecurity that should be addressed immediately.  Identification of these locations is guided by early warning systems or methodologies that classify people based on the degree to which they are currently food insecure or malnourished. The system that tends to be most respected internationally is the U.N.’s Integrated Phase Classification or IPC system. During its existence, USAID utilized this system, and now USDA is using it also as a way of designating where and among whom an emergency program should be implemented. In its recent funding request, USDA stated that a minimum of 20% of the population to be targeted with food aid should be living at IPC 3 or higher. The IPC classifies populations at levels 1 through 5 based on the severity of food insecurity as follows: 1 = None/Minimal, 2 = Stressed, 3 = Crisis, 4 = Emergency and 5 = Famine. The “shorthand” clarification used for those populations needing immediate assistance are those at IPC 3+.[vi]

However, non-emergency programs aim to reduce the likelihood that people living in a particular geographic area will experience conditions at or above IPC 3. Countries prioritized for these programs may already have sizeable populations at IPC 3+, but there may not be significant active shock conditions causing this situation. Sometimes, populations may be at IPC 3+ due to a shock that has previously increased food insecurity and malnutrition. For instance, after the Haiti earthquake in 2010, there were emergency programs that addressed food insecurity, malnutrition, reconstruction and access to food for the people impacted by this shock.  However, by 2013, many of the immediate impacts of the quake, such as food insecurity and displacement were initially addressed, but there was a need to address long-term root causes of malnutrition and vulnerability.  At that time USAID implemented a non-emergency program that sought to address these underlying causes and increase the ability of the country to cope with severe shocks.[vii]

Many countries where non-emergency programs are implemented experience cyclical shocks that recur on a periodic basis. They do not always exist in shock situations but may be impacted by droughts or floods during serious weather events, such as El Niño or La Niña events. During the El Niño event in 2023-2024, most of the harvest of the country of Zimbabwe was ruined due to inadequate and poorly timed rainfall.[viii]  However, on-going non-emergency programs continued to increase yields, increase incomes and reduce malnutrition, while emergency programs supported households and communities as necessary with additional food and other emergency assistance. Most of these countries also experience an annual “hunger season”, which tends to occur anywhere from 3-6 months prior to the next harvest when food stocks and cash earned from the prior harvest have been depleted.  Thus, while non-emergency programs are not implemented in contexts where active shocks occur, they may be targeted within fragile environments where hunger seasons make life very tenuous for people living in those geographies.

Another important element in these programs are the participants who are targeted. In emergency programs, large portions of the population are highly vulnerable due to the impacts of a disaster, such as an earthquake, a hurricane or other cyclonic storm, or severe conflict. In these cases, those targeted for assistance may have been displaced, or otherwise lost everything – including their health. In such emergency situations, it does not matter whether people were rich or poor prior to such shocks.

However, Title II non-emergency program participants tend to be those who are poorest, receive the fewest services, and are at greatest risk of malnutrition and food insecurity.  Often the focus is on those who have the least to fall back on when shocks occur and tend to be those most impacted by annual hunger seasons and other severe shocks.  A case in point is the Ethiopia Productive Safety-Net Program (PSNP), which has been supported by Title II non-emergency food aid since its inception in 2005.[ix] The PSNP targets people who are impacted by the annual hunger season through a Cash or Food for Assets (FFA) activity that creates a safety-net during the period of greatest vulnerability in normal years while developing assets that communities can use during good years and fall back on in bad years. The PSNP is supported by the Ethiopian government as well as several other donors. During normal years, a certain number of households are targeted for the program based on their chronic food insecurity and malnutrition. However, during years when poor crop yields and impacts increase the number of households needing food assistance, the number of households targeted increases to also address the needs of those who would not normally be included in the PSNP program.

In addition to selecting participants based on their food insecurity, there is a difference between how emergency and non-emergency programs select participants when it comes to malnutrition. In the case of emergency programs, care is taken to address the needs of people who are acutely malnourished, mainly children under 5 and pregnant and lactating women. In the case of emergency programs, acute malnutrition, in which the body loses weight rapidly, becomes a major risk. Moderate acute malnutrition exists when body weight for height among children under 5 falls below 2 standard deviations from the global mean, and severe acute malnutrition exists when this falls to 3 standard deviations below the mean.  If the rate of wasting malnutrition in a population reaches or exceeds 10%, this is deemed a humanitarian emergency requiring immediate rehabilitation using ready to use therapeutic and supplementary foods  that provide concentrations of fat, calories, protein and other nutrients all aimed at ensuring survival and rapid weight gain. Women of childbearing age, including those who are pregnant or breastfeeding as well as men also benefit from rehabilitation with RUTF or ready to use supplementary foods (RUSF), designed to also rehabilitate people in these conditions. These products are available via Title II.

However, in the case of non-emergency programs, participants are targeted based on the rate of “Stunting”, or chronic malnutrition, which exists when height-for-age among children under the age of 5 falls below 2 standard deviations under the global mean. The logic behind this is that there are milestones for linear growth that children need to reach before the age of 2 to avoid being developmentally disabled and to ensure a healthy life. Infants and young children under age 2 in this condition can recover from this and their linear growth can catch up to normal levels before they reach age 2.  However, after these children reach age 2, it becomes extremely difficult for their growth to catch up.  It is possible for a child to be both chronically and acutely malnourished (also known as “wasted”). It is also possible for stunted children not to be wasted and wasted children not to be stunted. However, there are certainly connections between these different types of malnutrition.  Nonetheless, stunting and wasting are indicative of different situations based on how and when they occur within the population. High levels of acute malnutrition indicate the existence of an acute shock as it does not take long for children to become acutely malnourished. This occurs when children are deprived of the food they need for a period of days or weeks (at most). However, it can take a long time for a child to become stunted. Children become stunted because they lack sufficient nutrients in their diet (both macro- and micro-nutrients) to fulfill their daily requirements. It takes months for a child to become stunted, and it also takes a long time for them to overcome this problem. If there are a lot of stunted children in the population, this indicate that the population is chronically food insecure and poor.

Thus, non-emergency Title II programs target populations with high chronic malnutrition rates among children under 5 as this is a clear red flag that there is a significant poverty and food insecurity problem within these populations. Targeting participants from these areas indicates that while there may not an active shock situation, there may still be a lot of food insecurity – which left unaddressed – could lead to more serious problems.  People living in these contexts are on the edge, and one missed harvest due to a storm or drought or earthquake or locust swarm or violent attack could result in them becoming part of the emergency case load of Title II programs.

Non-emergency Title II programs focus on ensuring that infants are exclusively breastfed until they are six months old, and that beyond that time their diets consist of the types of diverse foods that children of their age need to meet their linear growth milestones by age two. At the same, these programs  also address the underlying causes of chronic malnutrition. They train mothers to feed their children properly, including exclusive breastfeeding, take care to prevent water-borne disease through handwashing and use of clean water. At the same time, these programs recognize that mothers will be unable to feed their children the types of food they need if they are not able to produce or purchase it throughout the year. Raising these issues among all community members can build support and solidarity to ensure that children’s and women’s dietary needs are met. In addition, creation of clean water access and sanitation – including installation of accessible working water points and household latrines – support practices such as frequent handwashing with soap, and reduction of open defecation. These practices in turn reduce water-borne disease from hindering the absorption of the nutritious food being consumed. And, integrating these practices into people’s lives takes a long time, thus the longer timeframe of these programs is critical.

Non-emergency programs also provide a few more benefits that make them important to reduce the emergency caseload of Title II. They target countries and regions that are fragile and shock prone. They can detect changes in conditions,  both positive and negative, which can reduce time lags on responses. If the number of acutely malnourished children begins to escalate – this could easily occur within the areas where populations are most food insecure. If harvests begin to fail due to weather impacts, many farmers in the geography where the program is implemented (they may or may not be participants) will experience these conditions first.  The presence of an implementer (NGO) in these areas can ensure the monitoring of IPC levels, levels of acute malnutrition, impacts on harvests and prevalence of diseases – including those that are water-borne.

At the same time, these programs seek to enable participants to anticipate and cope better with the types of shocks that normally impact these geographic areas. Reviewing the history of the targeted population, it is possible to learn more about the major shocks that typically impact them, and they are sometimes cyclical. For instance, locust swarms may occur every so often in parts of East Africa. Working with communities likely to be impacted by these swarms during years when they don’t occur to prepare for when the locusts return will help participants to cope more effectively when this happens. There are now many agricultural technologies that enable farmers to adapt to drought. This could range from water-harvesting, to irrigation, to use of drought-adopted seeds, to reorienting productive systems through methods such as Resilient Design and Perma-gardening.[x]  The last two types of systems prevented farmers from losing their crops during the El Niño drought event in Zimbabwe mentioned above.[xi] It was a non-emergency Title II programs that provided training to farmers to enable them to maintain their crops in the face of this severe drought.

Finally, one of the key underlying causes of food insecurity is poverty.  Farmers may depend on their crops for food, but they need cash to fall back on when their crops fail, and they need to purchase food from markets. Also, for farmers to maintain their land and plant crops, they need cash for inputs and often to pay for land,  either as the owner or as a renter or lease holder.  It also costs money for children to attend school, and it costs money to get to markets, visit health centers, buy fertilizers and crop-protection products. Maintaining water points and latrines can also cost money because spare parts and their installation is not free. And when the program is over after five years of investment, ensuring that people not only achieve but also sustain their food security will mean that people have a secure source of cash and savings to fall back on.  Otherwise, closing the program will be commensurate to a shock for those who have benefitted from it.

A methodology that has proven itself over the years, and within the past nine years in Title II non-emergency programs has been the Graduation Approach.[xii]  Developed and initiated by BRAC in Bangladesh, this approach has been tested throughout the world in fragile contexts where large numbers of poor and food insecure people live.[xiii] The approach targets extremely poor people, provides them with food assistance safety-nets  and then links them to a savings and loan group where they meet others in their situation and obtain peer group support. At the same time, they are provided training in a livelihood opportunity for which there is demand within their context. This livelihood training could be agricultural (crops or livestock) or non-agricultural in nature and offers people the opportunity to become employed or operate their own business. After their training is complete, participants  receive small grants or assets (such as equipment or animals) that enable them to start their activities until they become viable. During this time, they continue to receive coaching and mentoring so that they can be successful within their chosen livelihood. They also receive training and support with respect to nutrition, water and sanitation and learn to anticipate and respond effectively to shocks. The Graduation Approach has been shown to ensure a high return on investment and results are sustained over time after the end of the program.[xiv]

Now that the program has moved to USDA, the leadership is reviewing the program and will likely make changes that will increase the cost  of food and ocean freight versus what is provided to those in need.[xv]  The recent Emergency Program set of funding opportunities stipulated that at least 50% of program budgets must be devoted to commodities and ocean freight.[xvi] This reduced the funding that could be provided to internal transportation storage and handling to distribute commodities. It also reduced the funds that could be provided for technical interventions such as monitoring of severe food insecurity and levels of acute malnutrition, training mothers about how to monitor and refer their children, and enabling technical interventions that will help people to recover from emergency situations. It is possible that the same 50% requirement may be put in place by USDA for future Non-Emergency Programs, and this could reduce the resources available to enable the sustainable improvement of food security and nutrition in extremely poor and fragile contexts as described above.

Changes in the legislation over the years made it possible to integrate international disaster assistance funds  with emergency Food for Peace programs enabling the use of cash, vouchers and local, regional and international procurement  to ensure that the right resources were available at the right time to address peoples’ needs. This prevented the need to wait 6 – 8  months for U.S. commodities to arrive in country to begin addressing acute malnutrition.  As noted above, the impact of acute malnutrition is rapid and if not addressed quickly will lead to death.

Similarly, U.S. legislative changes enabled the coordinated use of Development Assistance funds with non-emergency Food for Peace programs, which covered the cost of the complex interventions discussed above. These resources also provided the opportunity for programs to transition people away from dependence on U.S. food aid and foreign assistance.  While food aid has been important for non-emergency programs to build stability for those suffering chronic food insecurity, we will not ultimately accomplish Title II’s objectives if people remain dependent on food aid at the end of each program.

As global conditions worsened around the turn of the century, the need for emergency food aid programs increased around the world.  These needs began to reduce the funds available to pay for non-emergency programs. Thus, in the 2008 U.S. Farm Bill, a Non-Emergency “Safe Box” was integrated into Title II legislation to establish minimum funding to ensure that these programs could continue to be implemented. Currently $365 million is designated for the implementation of these programs.  $700 million of USG  funding from FY26 and FY27 allocations may be made available soon for these programs.[xvii]

While much remains unclear about the future of U.S. Title II non-emergency food aid programs, the need for activities that reduce and prevent high levels of acute and chronic food insecurity and malnutrition has not diminished,  and perhaps has increased, during the 18 months since the 2025 Executive Order to pause foreign assistance was announced.[xviii] It is also clear that addressing the underlying causes of food and nutrition insecurity is still important. Hopefully, USDA will hold true to this fundamental mandate of these programs. This will entail implementing these programs over a 5-year timeframe, in fragile geographies where shocks are frequent, among participants who are chronically poor and/or malnourished, while increasing peoples’ ability to cope with shocks, and producing outcomes that are sustainable.  If these are not the Title II mandate’s parameters for non-emergency programs, they run the risk of violating legislation..

Further Reading:

Food for Peace / U.S. Food Aid

Global Hunger, IPC, and Malnutrition

Country-specific articles relevant to your examples (Haiti, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, DRC, etc.)

REFERENCES:

[i] Miolene, Elissa, USDA takes over Food for Peace with $452M World Food Programme deal, 29 January 2026.

[ii] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food for Peace Notice of Funding Opportunity, Fiscal Year 2025, May 13, 2026

[iii] Miolene, Elissa, House locks Food for Peace into USDA with 50% commodity requirement,1 May 2026,

[iv]  These progras were known variously as Development Activity Programs (DAPs), Multi-Year Activity Programs (MYAPs), Development Food Assistance Programs (DFAPs), Development Food Security Activities (DFSAs) and Resilience Food Security Activities (RFSAs). There were differences between these programs, but those differences were not necessarily associated with the names given to them.

[v] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food for Peace Notice of Funding Opportunity, Fiscal Year 2025, May 13, 2026, https://grants.gov/search-results-detail/362375.

[vi] Integrated Phase Classification, https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/ipc-overview-and-classification-system/en/?__cf_chl_f_tk=vmmArOlbSf51oWrK_G0UqCVyP0w6jSuy9SVydqdsIlk-1783098737-1.0.1.1-XKb_PsSY1mVf1b2u8K3Udd85lbGsjDgfDcO0yyY9UrE,

[vii] https://borgenproject.org/kore-lavi-provides-food-security-in-haiti/; accessed July 3, 2026.

[viii] United Nations, UN News, Zimbabwe faces worsening food crisis due to El Niño droughts, 7 August 2024, https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152936.

[ix] IFPRI, Productive Safety-Net Program, https://essp.ifpri.info/productive-safety-net-program-psnp/, accessed July 3, 2026

[x] FANRPAN, Scaling up Resilience Design in Zimbabwe: Position Paper, https://fanrpan.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Takunda_CareSlideDeck-1.pdf.

[xi] Chitsa, Tanaka, Growing Hope: Community gardens flourish amidst El Nino challenges, 27 August 2024, https://www.carezimbabwe.org/growing-hope-community-gardens-flourish-amidst-el-nino-challenges/.

[xii] AVSI, Graduating to Resilience, https://www.avsi.org/en/graduating-to-resilience

[xiii] BRAC, Graduation Out of Ultra Poverty, https://www.brac.net/solutions/development/ending-poverty/ultra-poor-graduation/

[xiv] Abrams, William, Joshua Goldstein, Larry Reed, Carine Roenen, and Jean Francois Tardif, The Business Case for Investing in Graduation, September 2017, ultra-poverty.org, https://www.ultra-poverty.org/blog-post/the-business-case-for-investing-in-graduation/#.

[xv] Miolene, Elissa, House locks Food for Peace into USDA with 50% commodity requirement, 1 May 2026,

[xvi] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food for Peace Notice of Funding Opportunity, Fiscal Year 2025, May 13, 2026,

[xvii] Miolene, Elissa, US Dept of Agriculture to reboot Food for Peace’s ‘safe box’ programs,

[xviii] The White House, Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid, January 20, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reevaluating-and-realigning-united-states-foreign-aid/.

Mara Russell is a career programmer of Food for Peace Title II food aid including leading Food Aid Management, and spearheading CARE’s food aid for decades.

New Lancet Commission Report about Health, Conflict & Forced Displacement

May 21, 2026     The new study, Health in a World of Crises and Impunity, by the Johns Hopkins – Lancet Commission about Health, Conflict & Forced Displacement, was published this week in the Lancet Journal, with two dozen main authors (commission members), led by Dr. Paul Spiegel.  It critiques the current ways that humanitarian aid flows as “unfit for purpose” because it relies on politicized funding models that ration survival rather than saving lives.

The “Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health-Lancet Commission” worked for almost three years in leading up to the publication on May 19, 2026 on the Lancet journal’s website, accompanied this week by a launch event in Geneva.  The Commission comprises 42 authors from 20 countries, nearly all academics from universities, some with prior field experience. It includes no representatives from private industry, governments, digital health or technology companies, the military, or financial institutions.

Their 76-page report also notes “Conflict disrupts food production, markets, livelihoods, and humanitarian access, undermining household coping mechanisms and leading to acute and chronic undernutrition among displaced populations and host communities alike.”  Hunger follows from economic harms and job loss:  “Most conflict-affected populations have unstable or no income, affecting 78% of IDPs in Afghanistan and 70% in Iraq in 2022. In Sudan, unemployment in urban households increased by more than ten-fold after the conflict began.”  For example, refugees often lack access to legal employment in countries of asylum.

While the study addresses food and nutrition, it does so only to a limited degree, placing hunger and malnutrition within a broader public health context. In its historical review, it highlights high malnutrition rates in Sudan, Yemen, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The report notes: “Undernutrition is a central pathway through which conflict increases mortality, contributing to more than half of infectious disease deaths globally in children.” Malnutrition significantly raises the likelihood of dying from communicable diseases such as malaria or measles.

Poor nutritional status, the Commission finds, “weakens immune responses, reduces vaccine effectiveness, and prolongs recovery from infection and injury.” It adds: “Recurrent displacement and prolonged food insecurity contribute to wasting, stunting, and micronutrient deficiencies, with long-term consequences for physical growth, cognitive development, and future health.”

The Commission report has many recommendations about reforming the aid system overall, but few that are specifically about food systems, resilience, agriculture, supply chains of recovery foods (such as RUTF), food fortification, school feeding, or other anti-famine programs.  The report largely ignores food aid except to criticize its availability in Gaza, and to diminish it in comparison with cash hand-outs, though the report notes the World Food Programme’s large role in humanitarian aid.

In an accompanying editorial in the same issue of the Lancet (shown above), the editors summarize the findings, including a call to “invert power by shifting resources and decision making to affected populations, making external leadership exceptional, and strengthening nationally led health and social protection systems.”  And then concludes: “Creating an effective community-centred humanitarian system that provides a more just, robust, and sustainable future needs to be managed carefully and responsibly. “

The Commission names climate as both driver and amplifier:

  • * Droughts, dust storms, and floods drive food insecurity, resource competition, and erosion of coping strategies in Somalia, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and the Sahel
  • *  Climate impacts “interact with pre-existing political, economic, and social vulnerabilities, pushing fragile contexts beyond critical thresholds”
  • *  Women particularly affected where they “have limited access to material, social, and institutional resources to cope with, absorb, and recover from climate-related shocks”

Most of the report talks at a higher level. A key finding and recommendation:  “Humanitarian health action remains overly focused on short-term service delivery rather than sustaining health systems across crisis cycles. Fragmentation, disrupted financing, workforce losses, weak integration, and weak digital foundations undermine continuity, quality, and resilience, especially in protracted crises. Emerging technologies and artificial intelligence offer important opportunities to improve early warning, triage, supply chains, clinical decision support, and system planning, but without equitable access, regulation, and accountability they may also deepen exclusion and risk. The way forward is to prioritise health systems protection, ensure continuity and quality of care, integrate humanitarian and national systems where feasible, and invest in preparedness, workforce capacity, climate-resilient services, and ethically governed digital and artificial intelligence capacities that support more resilient, adaptive, and accountable health systems.”

Many readers of the report were pleased to see a vision for a “humanitarian reset.”

The authors try to be bold and do not shy away from controversy.  For example, they call for one big UN agency for humanitarian aid, not the many independent agencies with distinctive mandates seen now.  Repeatedly the report refers to “global health governance and “humanitarian architecture” as if there is now one coordinated system in place that is ill-conceived, as opposed to an ecosystem of independent actors each pushing progress in distinct ways.  While acknowledging the history of humanitarian aid, and in particular groups like UNHCR, World Heath Organization, and the Red Cross, it gives little attention to the thousands of initiatives pioneered by individuals or independent nonprofit or voluntary organizations, directly helping communities in need.

The Commission lumps a lot of “humanitarian” assistance into one concept but does not discriminate between natural disasters and conflict-related crises.  The authors argue that all aid should conform to national policies, even if the government in question are at war with groups of their own citizens.

The report’s strong push for massively expanded multipurpose cash assistance does not address funding sources or potential trade-offs with service provision, vaccination campaigns, food aid to fight famine, shelter materials, etc.

Some readers found the tone strident.  For example the word “must” appears 86 times, giving the impression that the authors are issuing commands without specifying to whom they are directed.

Other launch events are scheduled in other cities.

Supplementary appendix includes

The New Humanitarian reviews the report here.

Numerous podcasts feature the study.  Johns Hopkins’ 20 minute podcast about this can be found here.   

 

 

Book Classic: The Challenge of Famine, Recent Experience and Lessons Learned by John Osgood Field

The anthology edited by John Osgood Field, The Challenge of Famine, Recent Experience Lessons Learned” remains one of the premier books about predicting and measuring famine ever published.  Field, until his retirement a professor of food studies at Tufts University School of Nutrition, published this in 1993 with Kumarian Press, arrayed a dozen key scholars of famine who including Joel Charney, Mary Anderson, Dirk Stryker, Peter Cutler, Jack Shepard and others.  Field wrote the introduction, the first chapter, and the final summary chapter.  The book is as appropriate to read today as when it was published as it hones in on the ambiguity of when to say that there is a famine.

Field writes that when in full bloom, famine is dramatically clear to the naked eye.  However, he writes, how to recognize famine before it becomes obvious is the dilemma around which much of the book revolves. This is relevant at a time when there are hot debates over which parts of Sudan may or may not be in famine, which parts of Gaza may or may not be in famine with data sets pointing in different directions as to the answer.

Field clarifies that famine is a slow onset disaster, which does not happen suddenly, but has a lengthy gestation. He makes the key point that notwithstanding the complexity of famine and the multiple factors underlying it, the principal indicators are few and manageable. In other words, famine may be caused by different processes, but there are fewer cases, but the data for recognizing famine are fewer. The dilemma facing early warning is that it is very difficult, perhaps impossible to be definitive, clear and compelling about something that does not yet exist. Ambiguity is inherent in famine prediction.

This means that political decision making will come into play. Early warning does not eliminate the role of politics. Both political early warning and administrative early warning have better track records in inducing early decision making and response than early warning systems that are purely technical.

Writing about the famine codes in India, Field dissects detection and response with responsibility of the same individuals who typically were district level officials.

Contributor William Torrey reflects on community famine surveillance in Sudan, which is very timely in 2025.  Torrey dives into Darfur, including about participation by locals in Al-Fasher who were also involved in relief work, early warning, and famine response.

In his chapter about Oxfam America’s disaster response, Joel Charney mentions that honest reflection and self-evaluation are not exactly hallmarks of the voluntary agency community.  “According to their own public relations pieces, it seems that the agencies always do well regardless of the grave mistakes in judgment that journalists and other independent investigators continually uncover.”  He reviews the 1978 famine in Cambodia.

Mary B. Anderson and Peter Woodrow draw on their extensive case studies of disasters in many countries for key lessons, such as how disaster victims have important capacities which are not destroyed in disaster and therefore should be built on.  They argue that outside aid to these victims must be provided in ways that recognize and support these capacities.

In his chapter, Jack Shepard summarizes his research into American assistance to Ethiopia during the 1981-1985 famine period.  He recounts hos U.S. food aid became an important part of foreign policy in the 1970s and 1980s at a time of increasing American food production and increasing malnutrition around the world.  Shepherd recounts the evolution of aid policies including destabilizing Marxist regimes.  “Nowhere is the Reagan policy more clear than in its treatment of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the official relief and development agency of the American Roman Catholic Community.  From 1982 through 1984 the administration deliberately delayed its response to emergency food aid requests for Ethiopia by CRS.”  In time, US food aid ramped up largely cross-border through Sudan into Tigray and Eritrea (fighting against the government of Ethiopia).

The most distinctive chapter was by Peter Cutler:  “Responses to Famine and Why They Are Allowed to Happen.”   Among Cutler’s observations is that rural famine victims are likely to become a political issue only if their case is taken up by influential urban elites, such as university students or the press.  He catalogs various contradictions in our aid system.

For instance, NGOs are in a contradictory position with regard to famine control.  On the one hand, their field staff are among the best informed of all actors operating in a famine zone, yet at the same time they are the least likely to challenge the system or influence governments. This is because NGOs are highly vulnerable. Cutler concludes the professional relief and development agencies will avoid the risks of challenging donors and the host governments when famine breaks out among unpopular groups of victims.

Publisher:  Kumarian Press, West Hartford Connecticut.  ISBN:  1-56549-019-3

Hunger Notes Co-sponsors Basic Education Roundtable

World Hunger Education Service (WHES) is co-hosting a roundtable of experts on June 12, 2025, a Thursday, to discuss American experiences and capabilities for supporting basic education overseas, including recommendations for how U.S. official foreign aid could re-incorporate early grade education, literacy, numeracy and inclusion again.

In 2025, aid to basic education through USAID and the Department of State’s Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration were almost entirely terminated by the Administration, despite Congressional appropriations for education.

WHES joins with other groups including the nonprofit networks such as the Basic Education Coalition, the Global Campaign for Education/U.S., the University of Massachusetts Amherst  Center for International Education, and George Washington University in holding this June 12 roundtable online.

It includes experts from American NGOs working around the world, research institutes, associations, foundations, commervial providers, UNHCR, USAID, and other organizations.  It will discuss what unique or distinctive comparative advantages does the U.S. have in technical, financial or other assistance to basic education in lower-income countries?  It will cover how NGOs have been assisting curricula, IT technology solutions, teachers, administrators, PTAs, textbooks, and education management systems.

It will also look at lessons from past U.S. support via the McGovern-Dole program which provides school feeding to encourage attendance by girls in primary schools in dozens of countries (which were also cancelled in 2025 by the government).

Part of the discussion will look at inclusion of children with disabilities, and education in emergencies and conflicts, which had been a priority for both USAID and the Department of State, until this year.

This is one of a series of comparable roundtable meetings of experts, including discussions about food/nutrition, health/migration, environmental conservation, global health, technology, the roles of faith-based organizations, and the roles of Universities.

Questions and interest can be directed to ForeignAidRoundtable@gmail.com, and/or WorldhungerEd@gmail.com

 

Status of McGovern-Dole School Feeding Unclear

In May 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cancelled most of its existing foreign assistance programs, including those involving overseas school feedings.  These projects are referred to as “McGovern-Dole” that were projected for the future.

The overall program, named after former senators George McGovern and Bob Dole, has provided life-saving meals in a school setting to over 31 million of the world’s most vulnerable children and has been one of America’s signature child nutrition and food security programs.  In 2022, the program fed nutritious school meals to more than 2.7 million food-insecure children during the school year, while training teachers and rehabilitating schools, in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

All of these school feeding projects were implemented by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and/or the World Food Programme.  The recent, May 2025 cancellations occured abruptly, as NGOs were preparing to design and compete for new awards in more countries.  No rationale from the U.S. Administration was given, despite Congressional questions to USDA.  The Trump Administration has further deleted the program from its FY2026 budget request.  Currently, American NGOs, such as World Vision, Save the Children, Project Concern and Counterpart International are challenged by the loss sudden and unexpected loss of support.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS), one such NGO, announced how these terminations leave school-age children in the lurch:  “Beginning in July, more than 780,000 children across 11 countries will be left without their school meal, as 11 out of CRS’ 13 projects have been terminated—deepening the crises of hunger, malnutrition and poverty that already threaten their ability to learn, grow and thrive. …. In 2024, evaluations of our work highlighted increased literacy rates, economic growth and reduced absences due to hunger and illness. … A recent study in Guatemala and Honduras revealed that 76% of respondents cited three major benefits of USDA’s McGovern Dole School Feeding program that reduce migration: increased access to education, improved agricultural production and a stronger local economy.”

Civileats reports that “the canceled grants will mean less demand for U.S. farmer commodities, even as other trade policies are pinching growers.  And it will contribute to shrinking the United States’ soft-power influence around the world.”

McGovern-Dole school feeding programs have been seen as a way to encourage young girls to attend schools in settings where many girls find it difficult.

Evaluations of school feeding programs are common, such as by WFP, USDA, and NGOs.  A meta-analysis commissioned by the U.S. government in 2020 found that the effect of take-home rations on school participation is positive for all school children and is the same for girls as for boys, while the effect of in-school meals on school attendance is larger for girls than for boys.

Globally, an estimated 350-400 million children receive school feeding each year.  In years past, reviews by the World Bank and the respected International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) recognized the benefits of school feeding in terms of nutrition, educational gains, women’s empowerment, and long-term development.  In 2009, the World Bank published Rethinking School Feeding: Social Safety Nets, Child Development, and the Education Sector, cast school feeding as part of safety nets and as long-term investments.  In 2021, the World Bank and WFP launched an initiative that evaluated the efficacy of school feeding programs via experimental impact evaluations in countries like Burundi, Guatemala, Jordan, Malawi, and The Gambia.  Results from 2024 found that school meals, benefited an estimated 418 million children globally, enhanced educational outcomes (e.g., enrollment and retention) and acted as social safety nets during shocks.

Senators Bob Dole (Republican) and George McGovern (Democrat), who sponsored the enabling legislation for this school feeding aid, were both nominees of their respective parties for U.S. President, and both served in Europe during World War II.  Senator McGovern flew 35 precarious missions as a pilot during 1944-1945 from Italy over Germany and after the war flew food aid for the recovery of Europe.

Senator Dole championed humanitarian causes abroad.  He played a key role in mobilizing Senate support for Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1996, pressuring the Clinton administration and NATO to address the Bosnian War.  Senator McGovern served as the first Director of the U.S. Food for Peace Program before becoming a Senator.  During that time, he worked with the White House to create the U.N. World Food Programme, which was approved by the U.N. General Assembly in 1961 and launched in 1963.

Update: However, on May 12, 2025 USDA announced a call for Fiscal Year 2025 applications for McGovern Dole programming.  The priority countries listed are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Honduras, Mozambique, Pakistan, Senegal, and Sierra Leone.

– S. Hansch, WHES Board

 

This article was updated and corrected on Nov 11, 2025 to note the status of this program remains unclear and that a new funding opportunity was announced. This is a developing issue.

 

2nd Annual International Food Aid Showcase, June 10 in Washington, D.C.

George Washington University (GW), in Washington, D.C. will host a gathering of NGO and food experts on June 10, 2025, to share lessons about overseas food aid and look ahead.  It is co-sponsored by Counterpart International (an international NGO), the Alliance to End Hunger, and GW’s Global Food Institute.   It will be held at the Milken Institute School of Public Health in Northwest D.C.

The day will include representatives from commodity associations, researchers in nutrition innovations and a gallery walk of tables and presentations.  This year’s showcase will convene a diverse group of stakeholders to exchange knowledge, spark collaboration, and explore the future of global food assistance.  The event comes at a time when American food assistance is undergoing turbulent change, with most food projects through NGOs and WFP cancelled.

Online access to this event will be available.

For more information see Counterpart International’s site:  https://www.counterpart.org/events/

To register, see:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScRsZuFRNu0dm2o7ES1kxyQfw9QJXcFgJ0qGAvEQyh5M_eVMA/viewform