The award of the Nobel Peace prize to the World Food Programme (WFP) is a remarkable achievement for an organisation now 57 years old and active in many of the world’s most troublesome hotspots. IDS can take some pride in the contributions it has made over many years to the evolution of WFP – especially through the work of Sir Hans Singer and his many collaborators at IDS. Edward Clay, co-editor with Sir Hans Singer on the IDS Bulletin ‘Food Aid: Food for thought’, also deserves particular mention.
Those of us who worked on food aid at IDS demonstrated an important feature of the Institute’s approach to development praxis: engaged in research and writing, yes, but also working with policy-makers to make the case for change and support reform. For example, an annual food aid seminar in the 1980s, for senior donors and recipient countries, provided the platform which eventually led to WFP becoming independent of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Modernising food aid
We contributed to big policy changes: buying food from one developing country to distribute in another (so-called triangular transactions); the modernisation of the Food Aid Convention; and early debates about using cash rather than commodities. Hans Singer was always at the heart of these debates, and a major draw for Government representatives. He knew so much about food aid and had done so much: people were always amazed to learn that this had not been his only preoccupation in a lifetime of work on development!
The Nobel citation describes WFP as the world’s largest humanitarian organisation addressing hunger and promoting food insecurity. That has not always been so. The idea of a multilateral food aid was seeded by Senator George McGovern in early 1961, with the details entrusted to a report commissioned by the Director General of FAO, and led by Hans Singer, then with the UN in New York.
Food aid in humanitarian emergencies
Re-reading the report today, it is extraordinary that it makes no mention of emergency or humanitarian aid. Instead, the case for food aid is based on a macro-economic calculation about the contribution of food imports to growth – with a minor role for social programmes in health and education. The recommended modality is project food aid, for example food for work: ‘programme food aid’, provided to Governments for sale, is to be left to the big bilateral donors, especially the US.
So, the Americans were not to have their noses put out of joint by facing competition from a UN agency. Nevertheless, the creation of WFP was a win for the UN. Hans Singer was always keen to emphasise that this was compensation for having lost the International Development Association to the World Bank. In his Preface to the history of WFP by John Shaw (who, by the way, was a Founding Fellow of IDS, and for over thirty years the policy lead for WFP), Hans Singer says that the creation of a UN food agency was acceptable to the Republican administration of President Eisenhower, as well as forming part of President Kennedy’s Democratic platform. It was typical of Hans to see the political possibility inherent in cross-party consensus.
Responding to changing needs and reforming for the future
WFP has changed a great deal in 60 years, partly responding to changing needs, and partly to new politics and institutional formations. The humanitarian caseload has increased exponentially, especially in conflict areas – and humanitarian relief is now WFP’s main function. At the same time the forms of aid have evolved – building markets by buying food in developing countries, and, more recently, by exploiting the opportunity to use digital technology like mobile phones to transfer credits and help build long-lasting social protection programmes. In the early days, WFP had almost no thematic professional staff, and was entirely dependent on FAO for technical advice. In the early 1990s, after an exhausting fight, it became operationally independent. Today it works in 88 countries, with a budget of $US 8bn, and reaches nearly 100 million people.
Reform is ongoing and still needed – of WFP, of the entire humanitarian system, of the UN, of multilateralism more generally, and of North-South relations in all dimensions. IDS has been undertaking valuable work on these topics – for example in its work on protracted crises, food systems, nutrition, and social protection.
Hans Singer would be the first to say that our work is never done. Nevertheless, we can celebrate the award of the Nobel prize to WFP. And also recognise the contribution made by sustained research and policy engagement by IDS.
Simon Maxwell CBE
Emeritus Fellow (and Fellow 1981-1997)