Tag: India

U.S. Food Aid (Part 7): Lessons of Exit & Sustainability

July 21, 2026   This is the seventh part of a Hunger Notes series that review of lessons of U.S. food aid.

The ultimate goal of aid agencies’ food aid projects is to solve hunger problems in a lasting way.  Rarely, however, are aid agencies able to come back and see what improvements persisted after the project was over.

Unique and powerful research conducted by Beatrice Lorge Rogers and Jennifer Coates of Tufts University’s School of Nutrition (commissioned by the USG Food for Peace program) looked in-depth at what happens after food assistance projects ended. Their key conclusion was that project success at the moment of exit does not reliably predict long term sustainability.  (see:  synthesis report.)

The study found that many interventions that looked strong around the end of implementation weakened or collapsed once external aid resources and incentives disappeared.  As a result, the researchers argued that sustainability must be designed from the beginning of a project, not added late in the final year. They emphasized that sustained outcomes require three jointly necessary factors. These are:  1) a continuing source of resources, 2) technical and managerial capacity, and 3) motivation that does not depend on project inputs. A fourth factor, linkages to institutions, is often essential for phase over. The study stated that “endline achievement is not evidence of durability” and that “hope is not a strategy.”  In a series of reports produced by Tufts University, they demonstrated that sustainability is a trajectory that unfolds over years, not a status measured at a single point in time.

The research followed twelve NGO projects funded by the US Food for Peace program in four countries: Bolivia, Honduras, India, and Kenya. These projects had been deemed to have been generally successful at the time of their completion, and had documented sustainability plans.  Included in the study were ADRA, CARE, Save the Children, World Vision, Food for the Hungry, ACDI/VoCA, Counterpart International, and local sub-awardees.  The Tufts study used mixed methods and collected data at exit and again one to three years later. It examined whether services continued, whether practices were maintained, and whether outcomes persisted or changed. The findings challenged common assumptions in development programming.

One assumption they found NGOs too often make is that once people have been trained, they will continue the activity. But the study found that training alone was not enough. People also needed motivation, resources, linkages, and opportunities to refresh knowledge. Another assumption is that establishing contact between community actors and government services will create a durable relationship. The study found that linkages were sustainable only when responsibilities were explicit, the receiving institution valued the activity, and the institution had staff, authority, budget, and supplies.

The research also showed that abrupt exits often led to collapse, while gradual exits that allowed independent operation before departure were more promising.

Across countries, sustainability requires deliberate integration of resources, capacity, motivation, and linkages. These factors need to be built into program design from the start. The study found that the first three factors were jointly necessary. No project achieved lasting sustainability without all three functioning together. Resources refer to a continuing source of financial, material, or human capital. Capacity refers to technical and managerial skills. Motivation refers to incentives that do not rely on project inputs. Linkages refer to vertical connections to institutions that can provide supervision, supplies, or market access. The study found that projects often achieved high impact at exit because they were supplying resources and incentives; but, once those supports disappeared, outcomes could remain stable, improve, erode, or change in unexpected ways. The researchers warned that focusing exclusively on maximizing impact at exit, as is common, can undermine sustainability.

“Even evidence of continued impact at one point in time post-exit may not predict long-term sustainability.”

Case examples illustrate these findings.  In Bolivia, NGOs built piped water systems and established community water committees. Households paid monthly user fees. The systems were highly sustainable because they combined resources, capacity, and motivation. The user fees provided resources. The committees had strong managerial capacity. Households valued the benefit of piped water and were motivated to pay. In contrast, water quality testing and chlorination collapsed. NGOs had managed and paid for water testing until the final day. Committees had never practiced independent operation. Beneficiaries disliked the taste of chlorine and did not perceive the need for treatment. Motivation was absent.

“Impact and sustainability are distinct achievements, and an exclusive focus on impact at exit may jeopardize sustainability. For example, providing free resources up to the time of project exit may maximize project impact, but the withdrawal of those resources poses a bigger threat to sustainability than a gradual withdrawal with the development of substitute resources.”

In agriculture, NGOs relied on model farmers to teach improved techniques. They provided free inputs to incentivize the model farmers. When the free inputs ended, almost all model farmers stopped training others. In maternal and child health, NGOs provided free food rations to mothers as incentives to attend community growth monitoring sessions. When the free food stopped, mothers abandoned the sessions. Many volunteer community health workers lost motivation and felt their roles had diminished. Mothers shifted participation to government clinics where cash transfers and supplements were available.  See:  Bolivia synthesis.

In Honduras, abrupt withdrawal of free food rations caused a sharp decline in mothers’ participation in health monitoring. Community health workers became demotivated. Interventions that established fee for service models and gradual transitions were more sustainable. Community managed piped water systems achieved high sustainability because they secured resources through user fees, built capacity, and maintained motivation. Linking farmers directly to commercial buyers was effective. Farmers continued agricultural practices and incomes because the linkage provided market access and motivation. Phase over to government programs struggled due to national resource constraints and a political crisis. Government health systems lacked resources to supervise volunteer health workers. Without supervision and supplies, the workers’ functionality declined.

In India, the government context shaped sustainability. The Indian Supreme Court ruled that food is a basic human right, and the government banned import of genetically modified corn soy blends. Food for Peace projects devoted their final phases to transitioning food aid responsibilities to government programs. CARE transitioned the food supply chain to the Integrated Child Development Service.  Many Anganwadi Centers maintained uninterrupted food supply for preschool children after exit. Take home rations were less reliable. In Orissa, distribution dropped dramatically due to irregular deliveries. In some states, beneficiaries reported that the quality of government rations had degraded so much that some fed it to animals. Mothers continued attending health days only to receive the rations. Catholic Relief Services attempted to transition school feeding programs to the Mid Day Meals program. This largely failed because the government lacked motivation to provide free food to private religious and boarding schools.

“The study findings demonstrate that it is critical to verify the validity of a project’s underlying theory of change at the project design stage and to reassess its validity throughout project implementation.”

The most sobering lesson from India was that the projects failed to reduce child malnutrition. The assumption that combining food supplementation with health education would reduce undernutrition was not supported by evidence.   See:  Synthesis of India study.

In Kenya, gradual exit was effective. CARE’s Community Savings Mobilization project organized savings groups and provided training. CARE provided no external seed capital. All loan funds came from members’ savings. CARE graduated the groups to independent operation after one year. For the remainder of the project, CARE served only as an on call technical resource. Three years after exit, the groups were thriving and multiplying. They had high motivation and solid organizational capacity. In agriculture, CARE required basmati rice farmers to assume the cost of premium seeds before exit. This resulted in independent producer associations. In contrast, abrupt exits led to collapse. NGOs managed water quality testing until the final day. Committees had never practiced budgeting or hiring services. Beneficiaries disliked chlorine. The practice was abandoned. In maternal and child health, NGOs distributed free food rations as incentives. When the free food ended, participation collapsed. Volunteer health workers lost motivation. In livestock health, community-based animal health workers charged fees from the beginning. Livestock owners valued the benefit and paid. The fees provided resources and motivation. This intervention was highly sustainable.

Across all four countries, the study found that free handouts pose severe risks to sustainability when no alternative local source is established. Free food rations, free agricultural inputs, and free services created expectations that could not be maintained. When the free resources ended, participation and service delivery collapsed. The study found that fee for service models were more sustainable when culturally appropriate and introduced early.

Charging fees established expectations and built market viability. Attempting to impose fees at the end of a previously free project almost always failed. The study also found that linkages to institutions were often necessary but not always viable. Linkages succeeded when the partner had resources, motivation, and capacity. Linkages failed when the partner lacked budget, staff, or political will. The study stated that “government will take over is not a strategy unless the government unit has both commitment and operational capacity.”

The research also emphasized the importance of designing for context and resilience. Projects operate within environments shaped by political, economic, and environmental shocks. In Kenya, droughts devastated yields and livestock herds shortly after exit. Farmers continued applying improved techniques, but the shock wiped out yields. They lacked resources to purchase inputs for the next season. In Honduras, a constitutional crisis reduced government resources and undermined planned phase over of health services. Sustainability plans must account for predictable shocks. Projects should integrate crop insurance, promote diversified income streams, and establish drought resistant infrastructure.

RECOMMENDATIONS

  • •  Post-project sustainability needs to be designed from the start of the project. NGOs should consider embedding lasting resources, build capacity, align with intrinsic motivation, and secure viable linkages.
  • •  Donors should extend timelines when there is evidence of progress. True capacity building and phase over often require more than five years.
  • •  Donors should fund post project evaluations five to ten years after exit. Sustainability is a trajectory, not a one time status.
  • •  Projects should avoid free handouts unless a local source of resources will exist after exit. Fee for service models and business approaches are more sustainable when introduced early.
  • •  Projects should cultivate multiple layers of government ownership. Continuity should not depend on a single political stakeholder. Commitments should be incorporated into municipal plans, budgets, administrative decisions, departmental responsibilities, and civil service job descriptions.
  • •  Projects should ensure that linkages are viable. Responsibilities must be explicit. The receiving institution needs to value the activity and have staff, authority, budget, and supplies. Mechanisms for communication, supervision, and accountability must remain active.
  • •  Projects should plan gradual exits. Communities and local organizations need time to operate independently while the NGO is still present. Abrupt exits often lead to collapse.
  • •   Projects should design for resilience. They should anticipate shocks and build systems that can withstand them.

The studies’ headline conclusion is that achieving high impact at exit does not guarantee long term sustainability.  The researchers found that “even evidence of continued impact at one point in time post exit may not predict long term sustainability.” They argued that sustainability requires resources, capacity, motivation, and linkages. These factors must be deliberately integrated into program design. The study influenced USAID’s Food Assistance and Food Security Strategy. Development awards came to require explicit sustainability plans and exit strategies. The four factor vocabulary entered mainstream guidance. The research provided a blueprint for designing programs that outlive their funding cycles. It showed that lasting development success depends not on short term statistical triumphs but on long term resilience and independent operation.

These studies had a profound influence on USG planning.  FFP’s decade strategy (released October 2016) explicitly reframed the agency’s development goal around sustaining gains; it “broadens the previous goal of reducing food insecurity to one that envisions improving food security and sustaining it,” and commits FFP and partners to “strive for greater impact with greater efficiency and sustainability.” Tufts and its collaborators state the connection directly. In a Tufts Now feature (Jan 2017):  “Food for Peace has already incorporated many of the recommendations from the Tufts study in its guidance to aid organizations.” Implementing partners echoed this; ACDI/VOCA (2021) described FFP as having “incorporated many of the recommendations that arose from Tufts University research into its 2016–2025 strategy, now requiring detailed sustainability plans for all DFSAs.”

Refer to:

https://www.fantaproject.org/research/exit-strategies-ffp

https://www.fantaproject.org/sites/default/files/resources/India-Exit-Strategies-Report-Jan2017.pdf

The past FANTA project (formerly, USAID) also continues to provide summaries and links.

y

 

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.

Strengthening Nutrition Action in “Field Exchange”

June 16, 2026   The latest (April 2026) edition of the “Field Exchange“ journal, by the Irish Emergency Nutrition Network, about combatting malnutrition in emergencies includes the following findings:

Relapse-inclusive costing of simplified CMAM protocols: Lessons from Mali (Original Article by Nina Firas et al.)  This non-randomized study in Gao, Mali, conducted a provider-perspective costing analysis of standard versus simplified community management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) protocols for uncomplicated severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in children aged 6–59 months, explicitly including costs of post-discharge relapses over an eight-month follow-up. Findings showed similar or slightly higher per-episode treatment costs for the simplified protocol due to longer length of stay, but substantially lower average cost per child treated when relapses were included (USD 139 vs. USD 169 for standard), driven by much lower relapse rates in the simplified arm; comorbidities strongly predicted relapse. The authors conclude that relapse-inclusive economic evaluations provide a more accurate measure of program efficiency and sustainability, and that investing in stronger post-discharge follow-up and relapse prevention yields both clinical and financial gains, even in fragile, insecure settings where pragmatic costing remains feasible and valuable.

 Keeping nutrition a priority in a constrained funding environment: A conversation with Lord Jonny Oates (Views)   Lord Jonny Oates, Chief Executive of United Against Malnutrition & Hunger, reflects on his early experiences with famine in Ethiopia that shaped his lifelong commitment to nutrition as foundational to human development, societal stability, and global security. He discusses the alliance’s efforts to rebuild UK leadership in nutrition advocacy amid aid cuts, stressing the need to link nutrition to high-priority government agendas (climate, migration, security, economic growth) and to balance immediate humanitarian response with long-term investments in food systems, health services, and climate resilience. Oates emphasizes that cutting nutrition funding is a false economy, advocates for fairer debt restructuring and innovation/research support, and advises nutrition professionals to communicate clear returns on investment while persistently aligning messages with policymakers’ priorities without giving up.

 Can artificial intelligence support infant feeding during conflict?  Lessons from Ukraine (Original Article by Olena Rozhenko et al.) In response to disrupted in-person breastfeeding support and rising misinformation during the Ukraine conflict, FHI360 implemented the Harmony of Parenthood initiative across four oblasts, integrating a closed-domain, Telegram-based AI chatbot for evidence-based IYCF-E and psychosocial support with facility-based counselling by trained health workers and a structured mentorship program. The chatbot reached over 2,000 unique users with high engagement and satisfaction (93–99% found information useful and clear), while combined services increased exclusive breastfeeding rates from 60% to 69% among mothers receiving repeated support and improved counselling quality and consistency through mentorship and feedback loops. The experience demonstrates that responsibly governed AI tools (with human oversight, pre-approved content, and clear referral pathways) can responsibly extend reach and reinforce messaging in humanitarian settings without replacing skilled human support, offering practical lessons for ethical digital innovation, content governance, and integration into national systems.

 Group relactation: Experiences from the Philippines (Original Article by Ines Avellana Fernandez et al.)  Arugaan, a women-led organization with decades of emergency experience in the typhoon-prone Philippines, supports group re-lactation in mother-baby areas during crises by helping mixed- or formula-fed mothers restart breastfeeding through culturally adapted techniques including cross-feeding (wet nursing), drip-drop feeding, full-body lactation massage, and peer support groups. Success stems from deliberately building breastfeeding self-efficacy by addressing misconceptions, educating mothers on lactation physiology (prolactin for supply and oxytocin for let-down), creating safe empowering environments, and leveraging existing cultural practices while providing practical skills and peer modelling. The approach has enabled thousands of mothers to successfully relactate, underscoring that intentional investment in community-based, gender-responsive support can protect breastfeeding as a safe, sustainable, life-saving feeding option in emergencies where formula feeding carries high risks.

 Private-public partnerships in action in India: Experiences from the Nand Ghar program (Original Article by Rohini Saran et al.)  The Nand Ghar initiative is a large-scale public-private partnership between Vedanta (through its CSR) and Indian government bodies to upgrade over 12,000 Anganwadi centers into modern “smart” centers providing enhanced early childhood development, nutrition, health, and women’s empowerment services across 17 states. It addresses systemic gaps in infrastructure, frontline capacity, service quality, dietary diversity (via nutri-gardens), and monitoring through upgraded child-friendly facilities, targeted training, digital tools/AI dashboards, community mobilization, and time-bound operational support, with government retaining ownership and scaling responsibility. Key lessons include the importance of early co-design with government, working within existing systems for legitimacy and scalability, combining infrastructure upgrades with capacity building and accountability mechanisms, and ensuring private support leads to sustainable institutionalization and community ownership rather than parallel structures.

Using Nutrition Impact and Positive Practice (NIPP) to address malnutrition: A decade of lessons (Original Article by Ellise Brennan et al.) NIPP is a grassroots, gender-responsive, positive-deviance-based approach implemented by GOAL over more than a decade in six countries that uses 12-week participatory learning circles (separate for men and women) featuring practical cooking demonstrations, micro-gardening, hygiene infrastructure, and behavior-change sessions to address underlying causes of malnutrition in households with moderate wasting or at risk. Program data from Sudan, Niger, Malawi, and Zimbabwe showed high cure rates at graduation (73–96% for children with moderate wasting) and very low relapse rates (<2% at 2–12 month follow-ups), alongside sustained improvements in dietary diversity, feeding practices, hygiene behaviors, and household food security, with the approach proving more cost-effective and sustainable than input-heavy interventions because it builds community capacity and self-reliance. NIPP has been successfully institutionalized within national systems in several countries, demonstrating its potential to complement treatment programs by reducing relapse and supporting long-term nutrition recovery through community-driven, low-input behavior change.

The nutrition emergency situation in Pakistan: A call to action (Letter by Dr Abdul Baseer Khan Achakzai)   Dr. Abdul Baseer Khan Achakzai outlines Pakistan’s severe and worsening nutrition crisis, marked by high stunting (40%), wasting (18%), underweight (29%), and anemia rates among children under five, alongside a double burden of malnutrition and limited access to services, especially in rural areas. He attributes the crisis to structural factors including low health expenditure (<2% of GDP), climate shocks (floods, droughts, heatwaves), rapid population growth, weak governance, provincial disparities, and slow operationalization of the 2022 National Public Health Nutrition Strategy amid fiscal constraints and competing priorities. The letter calls for protected nutrition budget lines, integrated multi-sectoral responses, strengthened provincial capacity, accountability mechanisms, and sustained international support aligned with SDGs and the Global Action Plan on Child Wasting, positioning Pakistan as a case study of systemic vulnerability in a climate-stressed, resource-constrained setting.

A shorter article is about policy alignment analysis of the MAMI approach in Senegal (largely aligned with national strategies but with identified gaps in maternal mental health and support for vulnerable/disabled infants),  Also included were Research Snapshots and Report Summaries cover topics such as relapse economics, WHO wasting guideline gaps, anticipatory action, and ultra-processed foods but are concise overviews rather than full articles.

 

In Memoriam: Charlie Sykes, CARE Leader and Food Aid Advocate

May 16, 2026    Charlie Sykes, who defined a life well lived, passed away at 92 years of age, on May 8.   He is survived by his wife, Anya, two children who both pursued careers in international aid (his daughter, Agnieszka and Chris) and four grandchildren:  Sasha, Coline, Lazlo, and Marek.

Anya Sykes wrote Charlie “lived a rich and meaningful life.”

Charlie spent 34 years with the private volunteer organization, CARE USA.  After early postings in Greece (Field Representative) and Algeria (Deputy Director, 1961–63), he was Country Director successively for Poland, Pakistan, India, Egypt (1964–1980), and Dominican Republic (1978-1980).

In the 1960s, Charlie took on one of the largest aid programs in the world, in India where CARE (then the largest aid agency in the world) managed feeding programs for children in schools.  Dan Shaugnessy was with USAID in India at the time and remembers:  “He directed some amazing and very successful CARE programs there that were jointly funded, including the huge CARE midday meals program, Project Poshak, the Balahar blended foods project, and other innovative programs.”

Colleague Franesca Nelson reflects:  “Charlie’s unwavering commitment to nourish the hungry made perhaps the most significant contribution to the nutritional wellbeing of children in the twentieth century  through CARE’s school feeding programs around the world. He was a visionary, …and most of all a wonderful human being.”

After his years managing large CARE programs in India and Pakistan, Charlie shifted to Washington, DC, working in close coordination with CARE’s President, Dr. Philip Johnston (who passed away three years ago).  From 1980 to 1994 he served as CARE’s Vice President for Public Policy — the head of CARE’s Washington, DC office and its principal lobbyist on Capitol Hill.  As Executive Vice President of CARE, Charlie was one of the most influential proponents of aid, shaping how Congress framed assistance legislation and appropriations.  He was the lead voice among nonprofits in fighting for anti-hunger programs and food aid.

Former CARE Emergency Coordinator, Tom Alcedo writes:  “Charlie always took the time to check with the field to ensure their position and interest were being considered, thus resulted in many positive outcomes, especially related to USAID and other USG funding. …During my time in Peru,  Charlie was especially effective in getting our country office authorization to monetize excess farm commodities and program those funds to assist hundreds of thousands of people living in poverty.  Charlie will be missed.”

Interviewed by management guru, Peter Drucker, Charlie explained:  The most important thing in working with government is patience and cultural respect. Non-profits must be careful when working with other cultural groups. A leader must get to know an organization before collaborating with it

He collabrated closely with other NGOs in the Coalition for Food Aid.

Shaugnessy again:  “He was a major proponent of NGO’s working with national and local governments and not trying to do things on their own. He believed NGO food aid could only be successful if it was carried out as a partnership with the host government, and he proved it with those successful programs. He carried that belief into later assignments including Egypt, Care New York, Care Washington, DC and finally as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the 1990’s.”

Sykes was named a 1991 recipients of the Presidential End Hunger Award.

Ellen Levinson worked with him in the Coalition for Food Aid and remembers:  “Driven by his knowledge of hunger’s devastating and generational impact, Charlie was instrumental in building a broad-based, national constituency for global food aid. He was both my mentor and a colleague, beloved for his warmth, insights, and dedication.”

After serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, in the Refugee Bureau of the Department of State during the Bill Clinton presidency, which included travel to refugee camps in Africa, Charlie then accepted and served for over ten years from 2001-2011 – first as Treasurer, then Chair, and then as a regular Trustee of the international aid agency, Partners for Development (PFD).

Executive Director Jack Marrkand remembers:  “Charlie had a deft touch in avoiding micro-management on operational matters but still ensuring that PfD was staying true to its mission and its overarching strategic plan.    He was greatly respected by his colleagues on the board from whom he was able to elicit helpful input and advice.”

Fellow PFD board member and long-time friend, Wasiq Khan (sitting next to Charlie in the photo at right) remembers:  “Charlie had this saint-like beatific quality to him.  It was obvious when one was in his physical presence that he left his ego somewhere else and forgot to retrieve it.    ….  I think that quality of being above the fray, above self-dealing of any sort, was what gave Charlie the respect of his peers.  It was the way Charlie listened patiently and always with profound empathy and genuine positive interest that drew so many of us to seek his counsel and company…. Wherever he went, he wanted to know where people were from, what their lives were like, how history had shaped their journeys.  Charlie read voraciously  and liked nothing more than  chatting about a great book, a fascinating trip somewhere, or encounters he had had with interesting people.  The world never ceased to fascinate. … he was a very free person.  His mind could focus on the curious, the beautiful, the uncanny.”

Donna Ellis of PFD (shown with Charlie at right) says that he “was the kind of person who understood the balance between being a strong leader and remaining approachable. He was incredibly impactful holding a position of authority but still made a point to lead with warmth and a genuine smile.”

Armin Bušatlić, a Bosnian, ran the local Bosnia program implemented under Charlie’s tenure, and remembers how “dedicated he was in helping us handle the project crisis we faced; he clearly cared a lot about the work and did a lot of good for the region.”

PFD director William Graham recalls:  “I am glad I had a chance to work with him.   Charlie was easy going, well informed about the Bosnia program and I appreciated his guidance and feedback.”  When Graham needed help getting his Macedonian wife immigration status, Charlie and his wife provided the critical support.  “Tanja and I are forever grateful to Anya and Charlie for their support and guidance.”  Charlie was proud of his wife Anya ‘s legal work, usually on behalf of immigrants , with AYUDA for many years.

Charlie was always an athlete, playing basketball and, into his later years, tennis with his friends from the World Bank and PFD.  One of them, Stephen O’Brien, remembers:   “On the tennis courts at the Arlington YMCA….was where he dominated!  With his height and innate athletic ability he was virtually unbeatable by the rest of us. But we changed partners from set to set so at least once per match one could count on playing as Charlie’s partner and winning! 

Jack Marrkand again:  “Up until quite recently Charlie always stayed in touch with occasional calls and letters politely requesting updates about both work and family. At a lunch some years ago, Charlie gave me a copy of the book, “Black Ball Tales,” whose opening chapter profiles his father, Frank (Doc) Sykes.”

In 2025, a history of Doc Sykes was published, “Dream Merchant of the Perfect Game, the Life and Legacy of Frank Doc Sykes,”  by Bernard McKenna.  Doc Sykes does not appear in Major League Baseball statistics because African Americans were not allowed in that league at that time, despite the fact that his pitching record of 30 wins in a season with a no-hitter, which is better than Dizzy Dean who had 30 wins but not a no-hitter.  No other pitcher in the last 120 years has accomplished that.  One generation removed from slavery, Doc Sykes attended Atlanta Baptist College (now Morehouse College) and then earned his degree from Howard University’s dental/medical school, a rare feat of parallel excellence, since he was simultaneously a major-league-caliber pitcher. He effectively ran two demanding professional careers at once, athlete and physician, in an era when either was rare.

Charlie was deeply proud of his famous father, shown at right, one of the greatest American baseball pitchers of all time, who pitched a no-hitter playing for the Baltimore Black Sox, with a career 3.5 ERA over 15 competitive seasons.

Known as “Doc Sykes” he challenged the segregationist policies of the time. He fought for the integration of juries nationally beginning with the Scottsborro trial in Alabama where he testified for the  nine young African-American boys in 1931 facing an all-white jury.  Considered seminal in the advancement of U.S.  judicial equality, the Scottsboro trials were held after two white women, falsely accused nine boys, ages 12 to 20, of rape in order to justify their own whereabouts illegally onboard an interstate cargo train.  Doc Sykes’ testimony along with the whole trial experience later influenced novelist Harper Lee when she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, a best-seller, and which was rendered into one of the most important movies of all time, and won 8 Academy Awards including “best picture” in 1963.

In the Scottsboro trials, the accused’s collective guilt was pre-judged by the public, with newspaper headlines assuming their responsibility before all-white juries tried, convicted and sentenced to death all but one defendant in a matter of a day.   Doc (in fact he was a dentist) Sykes testified about the qualifications of Black residents to serve on juries, presenting a list of around 200 qualified Black potential jurors in the area.  In doing so he challenged the systematic exclusion of Black citizens from jury pools (and thus the all-white juries), which violated fair trial rights. His testimony helped highlight pervasive racial discrimination in jury selection.  Very soon thereafter, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (e.g., Powell v. Alabama in 1932 and Norris v. Alabama in 1935) that defendants were entitled to fair jury selection processes, advancing equal protection under the law.

The Scotssboro cases exposed the deep-seated racial biases of the Southern legal system to the world. Seeing how the machinery of justice could be entirely subverted by racial prejudice left a permanent impression on novelist Lee. When she set out to write her masterpiece in the late 1950s, the Scottsboro trials served as her historical blueprint for the systemic injustice she wanted to critique in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The model of Doc Sykes standing up for racial justice influenced Charlie to fight for humanitarian themes around the world, a life of service in and out of government. During his years with CARE, the nonprofit distributed some 12 million metric tons of food aid to some 150 million people, mostly children.

Jack Marrkand again:  “It was a privilege to know Charlie Sykes for many years and to be guided and inspired by his commitment, unfailing optimism, and wisdom.”

Wasiq Khan, again, sums up the views of many, “We were drawn to Charlie because we wanted to be just a little bit more like him: handsome and athletic into his eighties, great conversation on almost any topic, and the feeling that you were heard and understood by someone you trusted deeply.”

India’s Conquest of Famine

April 19, 2026     In the weeks since Paul Ehrlich’s passing away, there have been many articles about the change that have occurred since his publication of the Population Bomb, where he warned about trends in risk of famine in India.

Indeed, one of the greatest stories in human history of overcoming food insecurity and famine has been India over the last 50 years. Not only has India grown in terms of food production, but it has diversified its economy, built infrastructure, and increased its GNP, which also supports improvements in long-term resilience.  In the 1990s, India turned away the food assistance provided in large quantities by the US Government’s Food for Peace, and India became itself a food aid donor to other countries.

In the late 1960s, India began intensively experimenting with ways to improve yields of key food crops, particularly wheat.  A few Indian scientists played an historic, important role in feeding this country which today has more people than any other.  The most important was M.S. Swaminathan, an unassuming man who, in his own gentle way, revolutionized India’s agricultural sector.

Swaminathan started out in 1947 working on plant breeding at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi. Swaminathan collaborated with US plant breeder Norman Borlaug touring India, breeding Mexican wheat with Japanese varieties. This new crop produced high yields of good quality.  In 1964 he earned funds to plant demonstration plots which convinced Indian farmers to experiment with its use.  Further experimentation led to wheat varieties which by 1968 increased wheat production to 17 million tons.

Swaminathan’s lifelong commitment to transparency pushed him to establish various systems of accountability of the institutions he headed; therefore, he placed the entire international rice collection under the supervision of an international rice board even though it was already a part of IRRI.  Swaminathan never tired of crediting that the seeds of the green revolution in India were actually sown far back in 1949 in the fields of the Central Rice Research Institute in Cuttack, India long before Norman Borlaug came to India.  Working with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, he established a commission for plant-based genetic resources to address issues related to the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources for food and agriculture. This included plants, animals, and aquatic organisms.  The commission’s focus was on the management of biodiversity.  In the 1980s, Swaminathan led, as Director General, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Here he shone as a brilliant and dedicated scientist, an excellent leader, and kind-hearted.  Despite occasional setbacks, he persevered in promoting international cooperation in the utilization and conservation of genetic resources.  His vision extended beyond yield per hectare. He was a prophet of sustainability long before it became a buzzword of the 21st century. From championing greater participation of women in agriculture to espousing ecological balance, from advancing research in Russian attics to promoting sustainable coastal farming, from advocating for tribal food security to establishing gene banks for endangered crops, his canvas was vast, and his brush precise. Swami Nathan was generous and humane, embodying the best and noblest of the India into which he was born and by which he was shaped.

As shown in the graph at right, food production in India has more than kept pace with population growth due to ongoing improvements in applications of scientific methods. In these same last fifty years, India’s population hasalmost tripled, from 520,000,000 to about 1.5 billion today.

India’s agricultural geography has shifted from a northwest “Green Revolution core” (1970s) to a much more broad-based and increasingly central/eastern growth pattern (last decade).  In the 1970s, increases in production were largely in the Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh.   More recently, Indian States with the strongest increases in food production:

    • * Madhya Pradesh – often cited as India’s fastest-growing agricultural state in the 2010s
    • * Chhattisgarh – rapid expansion in rice production and procurement
    • * Jharkhand – gains from irrigation and diversification
    • * Bihar & Eastern Uttar Pradesh – improvements in rice, maize, and horticulture.

The elimination of famine has not meant that there is no malnutrition in India.  Fifty years ago half of children were stunted (low height per age) from undernutrition, while today 1 in three are.

Meanwhile, rate of wasting malnutrition (as measured by weight for height) has remained stubbornly high over the last 50% years, by many estimates stuck in the range of 17-18%.

The government’s most current estimate for the national prevalence of wasting (low weight for height) among children under five in India for 2025 is estimated the 5.4% though estimates from prior years are closer to 18% among children.  Wasting malnutrition also varies across different areas.  For instance, the Union Territory of Lakshadweep reported the highest wasting rate at 11.6%, followed by Bihar (9.31%) and Madhya Pradesh (8.2%).

Much of the growth of production in India has been facilitated by increases in application of synthetic fertilizers. This is relevant today because, as reported yesterday, India’s food economy is seriously dependent upon fertilizers from the Middle East that are now blockaded and will be increasingly expensive, which may challenge food production in India this year.

Read more:   M.S. Swaminathan in conversation with Nitya Rao: The Ethics and Politics of Science, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation Centre for Research on Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development, 2014.

Charles C. Mann, The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 2018).

Priyambada Jayakumar, M S Swaminathan: The Man Who Fed India,  HarperCollins India, September 10, 2025

Debate over Child Malnutrition in Gujarat, India

In his book Development as Freedom, Nobel-prize winning scholar Amartya Sen wrote that “no famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy,” tying that claim to the presence of elections, opposition parties, and a relatively free press.

The press in Gujarat, India is giving a current example of how politicians are being held accountable to metrics of child malnutrition.

As reported in Indian news, quoting the independent, population-based National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), the opposition party in Gujarat is criticizing the government for a 41% rate of stunting in Gujarat state (or some 260,000 children), whereas the government is quoting a lower rate based on self-selected clinic-based screening of children.  The NFHS also reports 19% of children under age 5 were wasted (acutely malnourished).

The opposition has claimed, “Despite this BJP government with more than 150 seats and 28 years of rule, only one figure comes on record, that 40 out of 100 children are malnourished. A very large section of them are tribals.”    In districts like Panchmahal and Banaskantha, the numbers are objectively worse than the state average, which is why they were the focus of the March 12th debate.

Over roughly the last two decades, Gujarat’s child malnutrition record has improved, but unevenly.  But wasting moved the wrong way for a long stretch: about 19% in 2005–06, 27% in 2015–16, and still about 25% in 2019–20/21; severe wasting also rose from about 7% to 11% and then stayed around 11%.  Several underlying determinants improved substantially over time in NFHS: by NFHS-5, Gujarat had higher coverage of improved sanitation (74.0% vs 63.6% in NFHS-4), clean cooking fuel (66.9% vs 52.6%), improved drinking water (97.2% vs 95.9%), and continued high use of iodized salt (95.6%).  Those changes usually point in the right direction for nutrition security.

Reference about the recent controversy:

https://www.thehindu.com/data/fact-check-are-40-out-of-100-children-malnourished-in-gujarat/article70744284.ece

How Blockchain Can Be Used to Address Food Security in India

Every night, 200 million people in India go to sleep with hungry stomachs. Ranked 105th on the 2018 hunger index, India is home to the largest undernourished population in the world. These grim statistics are counter intuitive in light of India’s significant gains in agriculture production, which have advanced the country from famines to food surplus, the paradox being hungry people and food surplus in the same place.