world day of interconnectedness

This paper first considers food security, setting the context in which food aid should operate. The paper next briefly reviews the mechanics of food aid: who gives what, in what ways, to whom, looking primarily at the U.S. but using other donor states and multilateral institutions for comparison. The paper then looks at sub-Saharan Africa, where food deficits and food related crises are most heavily concentrated, to understand how food aid interacts with the wider context of food security and agriculture development. The paper then reviews some of the main criticisms of U.S. food aid, related specifically to the dominance of domestic interests -especially commercial shipping and food processing firms, but also the role of PVO's-in defending the current design and implementation of food aid. The paper also considers the international and local market problems that poorly planned and implemented food aid programs cause. The paper concludes with recommendations for fundamental charges to U.S. food aid practices and for a stronger rule-based approach to food aid in the multilateral system.