Food for Peace, Pub. L. 480 Title II

Description

Food for Peace (FFP) programs provide emergency and development food assistance to combat hunger and malnutrition around the globe. Emergency food assistance is delivered primarily to communities affected by recurrent crises such as droughts, conflict, natural disasters, and chronic food insecurity. Development food assistance is a complement to emergency food assistance, working where communities require agricultural system strengthening, improved nutrition services, or household livelihood diversification to cope with yearly droughts. Development programming is multiyear and multisectoral and targets the most vulnerable communities to address the root causes of hunger and malnutrition.

What does it buy?

FFP provides emergency in-kind food donations from the U.S., locally purchased food, food vouchers, and cash transfers to communities in need, as well as multiyear investments in nutrition, agricultural productivity, and diversification of household incomes.

Why is it important?

• The number of undernourished people increased to more than 820 million in 2018, up from 811 million in 2017. FFP programs help more than 60 million hungry people in more than 50 countries every year.
• In 2018, FFP operated in 59 countries, reached more than 76 million people, and provided 68 million people with emergency assistance. Active nonemergency programming reached 8 million people with development assistance in 15 countries—most of whom were in sub-Saharan Africa.
• The Famine Early Warning System forecasts that in 2020, 88 million people will need emergency food assistance across 46 countries, including the threat of famine for South Sudan, Yemen, and northeast Nigeria.
• After Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas in September 2019, Food for Peace provided $1 million for emergency food assistance, supporting approximately 39,000 people for three months.
• After Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti in 2016, FFP partnered with the World Food Program (WFP) and NGOs to provide life-saving food assistance. Post-storm funding supported the training of 40 community and faithbased organizations on how to effectively respond to emergencies. Food for Peace donated 2,860 metric tons of emergency food assistance to WFP contingency stocks, enough to feed 150,000 people for one month.

Why should Americans care?

• American farmers support FFP. FFP purchases food from U.S. farmers through a competitive process and uses the commodities for in-kind food donations, predominately in humanitarian settings.
• Alleviating global hunger is critical to U.S. national security. Where hunger endures, instability grows. By supporting the world’s most vulnerable, FFP is building a more stable world and working to ensure that people have the opportunity to lead healthy, productive lives.

What more could be done?

• After decades of steady decline, global hunger has been increasing since 2015. While Food for Peace resources help support the estimated 167.6 million people in humanitarian crises worldwide, additional investment is needed to reverse this trend and support countries and communities to build resilience.
• Additional investment could allow the U.S. to provide a robust response when there is a high likelihood of famine. In 2016, when 20 million people in Somalia were at risk of starvation, Food for Peace’s rapid mobilization of financial and expert resources helped avert such a disaster.