World Food Programme

The World Food Programme (WFP), the world's largest humanitarian organization, is the United Nations’ (UN) food aid branch. Headquartered in Rome, with national offices in nearly 100 countries, the WFP works to meet the food needs of people who are unable to do so themselves. This includes ongoing hunger relief efforts in impoverished countries and among poor populations around the world, as well as emergency relief as a result of natural disaster, economic calamity, or armed conflict. On average, WFP provides food to 90 million people each year, including 58 million children.

The organization was established in 1963 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN and the UN General Assembly. A multilateral food aid program had been proposed at the 1960 FAO Conference by future American presidential candidate George McGovern, who was then the director of Eisenhower's Agricultural Trade Development Assistance Act (ATDA), later renamed Food For Peace by President Kennedy. ATDA had the same essential goals that WFP adopted: combating hunger and malnutrition at the global level, not only through the provision of food, but also by expanding international trade and developing agriculture throughout the world.

Both Food For Peace and the WFP have placed an emphasis on sustainable development, a term not yet in currency at the time of their founding. The WFP regularly works with FAO, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in coordinating a response to natural disasters, ongoing problems, and the human consequences of armed conflict. For instance, WFP has been a significant agency in the humanitarian response to the crisis in Darfur, which has left about 4 million people dependent on aid, a humanitarian relief situation requiring consistent and adept coordination in order to prevent needs from falling through the cracks. This coordination is not always seamless, and not always apolitical. There are occasional disputes over jurisdictional and administrative matters; for as long as food aid to impoverished Africa has been an international concern, and arguments have occurred between FAO and WFP over which agency has the final responsibility of authorizing food aid shipments to that continent.

Representatives of 36 member states make up WFP's executive board. Most (90 percent) of the program's [Page 788]roughly 9,000 employees work in the field, providing relief and emergency care, and running local programs. The executive director (after November 2006) was Josette Sheeran, former U.S. state department undersecretary for economic, business, and agricultural affairs, and managing editor of the Washington Times newspaper. WFP funding comes from voluntary donations from private donors, governments, and corporations, with administrative costs kept low (about 7 percent of expenditures). Not all monies spent on programs is spent with equal wisdom, however; like most government and government-affiliated agencies, WFP sometimes has trouble canceling a program due to internal politics and the protective nature of program heads. The UN periodically evaluates WFP's programs in search of chaff, and a number of programs can be expected to be canceled or reduced in 2010 and 2011. Because donations have slowed since the onset of the global financial crisis, and many donation pledges never actually followed through, in the summer of 2009 WFP eliminated some of its regional programs in order to cut costs. The eliminated programs were primarily in Chad, Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.

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