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	Costly food opportunity to review aid responses by IRIN News South Africa - Johannesburg   April 2008   High food prices have brought social unrest but they have also provided an opportunity" to review global policies on the response to food insecurity, said a leading food aid analyst as experts and aid agencies began an unprecedented strategic re-think at a three-day meeting in Rome on 16 April.   Events in the past week have borne out the International Monetary Fund''s warning that the consequences of a 48 percent hike in food prices since 2006 "will be terrible".   This has created a sense of urgency even "if it has highlighted one element in policy debate of short-term response, such as food aid", according to Daniel Maxwell, associate professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Boston-based Tufts University.   High food and fuel prices have hit food aid hard. "In 2007, food aid represented 34 percent of global humanitarian contributions, down from almost 50 percent in 2000 ... For the 2008 CAP [Consolidated appeals Process] food as a sector represents 36 percent of the total appeal," said a policy document, Rethinking Food Security in Humanitarian Response.   "In other words, there is likely to be far less food aid available in 2008, and this continues a downward trend in this sector that started several years ago."   The document is being used as the basis for the three-day conference organised by the relief and development agencies, CARE and Oxfam, at the UN''s Food and Agriculture Organisation''s headquarters in Rome.   The authors - Maxwell, Patrick Webb, Jennifer Coates and James Wirth - have raised questions on the need for better analysis: assessment of need and measurement of impact; effectiveness of response; the need for greater attention to risk reduction; aid architecture - should agencies be structured to specialise in humanitarian or development issues; funding - should there be separate funding streams for the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) and Flash Appeals; and policy reforms - re-examining the mandates, roles and future of humanitarian agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).   The current crisis triggered by food prices has not only forced the aid community to look more closely at emergency aid distribution systems but also at development opportunities to find long-term solutions, said David Kauck, CARE''s senior policy analyst.   As the document pointed out, there is an overemphasis on response, which is "often too little too late", rather than on prevention, "a failure to sustainably alleviate suffering, and a steady erosion of many populations'' ability to cope with the twin threats of chronic suffering and repeat shocks".   However, some countries appear to be improving in their food security, with reduced emergency appeals, "some things are apparently being done right; what are those things, and are they replicable? Lessons need to be shared on how to leverage and maximise such gains-which in many cases remain very fragile,", said the authors.   New drivers   The document also warned that there were new drivers of humanitarian crises: the rising frequency of natural disasters, partly as a result of climate change; conflict-related deaths might have declined but the impact of conflicts - disease, displacement and trauma among other issues - would continue to unfold.   The number of people affected by disasters has continued to grow since the 1980s. Based on those upward trends, "by 2050 natural disasters could have a global cost of over US$300 billion a year, and will be a key element in the failure to meet the Millennium Development Goals," said the document.   The humanitarian crises triggered by natural disasters have been aggravated by the "rising concentration of people in vulnerable locations, and the growing vulnerability of people in poorest countries - particularly those exposed to eroded natural resources - as well as depletion of human capital due to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other debilitating diseases".   Climate change is likely to aggravate existing production and consumption constraints in food-insecure countries, besides the current food and fuel prices, which are also cause for concern, the authors point out.   Nearly one-third of the world''s extremely poor people - 27 percent - live in countries that are fragile or conflict-affected and will also be vulnerable to additional hazards, whether natural disasters or new forms of conflict such as "resource wars" - contested use of natural resources, including water, oil and even arable land - which, according to some analysts, will become increasingly likely.   "This suggests a need for more focus on linkages between governance failures (including breakdown in delivery of services), conflicts, and humanitarian outcomes (such as epidemics...)," the authors warn.   "The scale of the problem we face today [because of these new drivers] is daunting - we can be overwhelmed by the caseload - so coordination of a global response is needed," said Kauck.   The authors of the document said that "While there has been much lip service given to both social protection and disaster risk reduction as categories of programmes, they are still new categories - risk prevention does not show up in official ODA accounting until 2005, and then only in miniscule amount. Social protection isn''t accounted as a sector or programmatic category".   They cautioned that a lack of effective leadership and collaboration among so-called food agencies and their collaborating financial institutions has been posited as leaving a power vacuum that "will be filled by multinational agribusiness and the new philanthro-capitalists."   Maxwell told IRIN that the intention was not to advocate a top-down approach envisioning a "global bureaucracy", but the emphasis was rather on better collaboration between agencies.
	Real change for world’s poor requires greater efforts by all by Asha-Rose Migiro   27 March 2008   With the global scorecard for reaching the bold pledges world leaders made to halve poverty and other social ills by 2015 showing mixed progress among countries, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro today called for accelerated action to achieve real change for the world’s poor.   “Today, the world must refocus its attention, and its resources, on the places and people that are being left behind,” she said in a keynote address to Columbia University’s State of the Planet Conference.   In doing so, she stressed the need to view people living in poverty as agents of change. This requires encouraging national ownership of development strategies, citizens actively participating in policy-making, and governments becoming more accountable in their efforts to achieve development targets, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).   “Above all, it requires a true partnership for development where rich countries do their part in delivering resources and productive employment opportunities through market access,” Ms. Migiro said. “Tremendous gains are possible if the international community translates its commitments into results.”   She noted that the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day has fallen, and experts predict that the MDG target of halving extreme poverty may be met. “But this welcome progress is uneven with Africa lagging far behind in many of our grand promises,” she added.   At the same time, the systems, knowledge and tools needed to reach the MDGs, and thereby save millions of lives and empower African countries to achieve sustained growth, are in place.   “To finance these programmes, African countries need to mobilize domestic resources, and developed countries must provide the support they promised on an adequate, sustained and predictable basis.   “The facts on the ground in many poor countries are clear: with carefully designed programmes and sound policies, backed up by strong government leadership and support from the international community, real change can happen,” she stated.
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