Future Directions for Development and Relief with Food Aid

Poverty alleviation and food security are two prominent features on the international agenda. The provision of sustainable employment is seen as a major factor in the attainment of those goals. Access by the poor to food and work, combined with the construction of essential infrastructure and accumulation of assets, has long been seen both in economic theory and practice to be an effective approach to poverty alleviation and the attainment of food security. This model is appealingly simple. Getting adequate food dominates the lives of poor, food-insecure people. Promoting the productive use of the most abundant resource that poor people have—their labor—in order to increase their income and assets can lead to self-reliance and to equitable and sustainable social and economic development. Constructing and maintaining basic infrastructure is an essential requirement for an economy's growth. Labor-intensive works programs that provide food and employment for the poor are therefore the cement that holds the model together (Gaude and Watzlawick 1992). This chapter focuses on the use of food aid and the directions it might take both in development and in the provision of relief by contributing to poverty alleviation and food security. It concentrates on the direct uses of food aid in employment programs, while recognizing that there are other important benefits to be gained from this form of aid resource—particularly through the development of human resources—that have important indirect effects. The chapter begins with an analysis of current food aid uses and with the international policy context within which discussion and decisions are taking place. It notes the important global and regional