Auditors critical of Union’s food aid efforts

Date: 27/03/03

By David Cronin

EU EFFORTS to guarantee the secure supply of food to poor countries are badly coordinated and inadequately monitored, the European Court of Auditors has found.

More than €464 million was paid from the EU budget long-term food security schemes for the benefit of 51 countries in 1997-2001. Much of the sum, which does not include emergency food aid, was spent as part of a drive to meet the objective set by world leaders in 1996 of cutting the number of malnourished people from 800 million to 400m by 2015.

The UN World Food Summit in Rome defined food security as a situation in which all people have "physical and economic access" to enough nutrition to lead active and healthy lives.

A 1996 EU aid regulation commits the Union to boosting food security by improving local production in poor states and raising the incomes of their people.

But a new study by the Luxembourg-based auditors finds EU-funded efforts have been hampered by problems, such as:

• Long delays - while the European Commission issued a call for proposals for charities seeking EU food security funds in September 2000, the first contracts were not signed until months later;
• substandard controls - "the Commission's central services do not have a complete or up-to-date picture of the audits carried out" of EU-funded schemes, and;
• poor coordination with national aid efforts by EU countries - the Union's ambassadors in Georgia complained they did not receive any feedback on EU food security policies from the member states' foreign or development ministries.

The auditors' report was based on studies in Ethiopia, Niger, Madagascar, Yemen, Bolivia and the former Soviet state of Georgia. Between them, the six countries have 47.4 million malnourished people or 43% of their combined populations.

Some of the auditors' harshest criticisms concern Ethiopia, where a devastating drought has fuelled fears of a famine comparable to that witnessed in the mid 1980s.

Their report says that the authorities in Addis Ababa were too focused on food aid, effectively ignoring land reform, women's rights and environment issues which impinge on food security.

According to the auditors, Ethiopia's massive reliance on food aid is not an answer "to structural food insecurity" and has "negative effects on prices on the local food market and thereby on local production and income".

Another major problem identified was the Commission's decision to suspend support for Georgia - because it did not fulfil the macroeconomic criteria for receiving it - and to Madagascar due to a sluggish civil service reform.

"Although the decisions to suspend the payments were entirely justified by the non-fulfilment of conditions," says the report, "they led to severe interruptions of the implementation of food security programmes".

Replying to the report, the Commission states it is planning to conduct an overall evaluation of its food security activities in 2004.

It says that since the auditors visited the six countries, "Ethiopia, Niger and soon Georgia will be incorporating the elements of food security policy into their poverty reduction strategy papers" - which are drawn up in conjunction with the Union's executive.

The Commission adds that the aim of the food security policies it follows is to "bridge the gap" between emergency aid and long-term development: "Food security, as the most basic dimension of poverty, is primarily a development objective. Accordingly, food security needs to be addressed by all the available instruments in the short, medium and long term."

European Union efforts to guarantee the secure supply of food to poor countries are badly coordinated and inadequately monitored, the European Court of Auditors has found.