World Food Program

The World Food Program (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian organization. A relative newcomer to the UN family of organizations, WFP was established in 1961 as a specialized agency focused on the delivery of food aid.

Set up on a 3-year pilot basis, with its first intervention implemented in 1963, WFP was thrown into action almost immediately when an earthquake hit Iran, a hurricane swept through Thailand, and newly independent Algeria was overwhelmed by 5 million returning refugees. Food was urgently required to respond to the needs of these diverse, disaster-affected and conflict-displaced people, and WFP was tasked to supply it.

Since 1963, WFP has supplied food to almost 1.5 billion people, dedicating more than US$30 billion to emergency relief and development interventions. In 2007, WFP provided 3.3 million tons of food for 86 million individuals in 80 countries. Of those 86 million people, roughly 62 million required immediate assistance through relief operations (more than 10 million being cross-border refugees or populations displaced by conflict within their own countries), and 24 million were targeted for support through development projects. Approximately 1.3 million of the beneficiaries were affected by HIV/AIDS.

Headquartered in Rome, Italy, WFP is funded entirely through voluntary donations. Total expenditures for the organization were US$2.97 billion in 2007. The budget is made up from grants primarily from national government entities, such as U.S. agencies, the European Commission and the member-states of the European Union, Japan, and others; in 2007, more than 60 governments provided funding to WFP. Donations are also received from corporations, private donors, and religious organizations. Around 93% of funding goes either to cover food costs or to pay for its transport and delivery to beneficiaries; in other words, only 7% goes to administration.

Donations are not only in the form of food. WFP was established during an era of “surplus disposal,” when industrialized countries had agricultural commodities that they could not dispose of in international markets, absorb through local demand, or afford to hold as stocks; these conditions led them to donate commodities as food aid. Today, although the need for food assistance is larger than it was 40 years ago, agricultural surpluses are no longer available. Global food aid deliveries peaked in 1993 at around 17 million metric tons. By 2007, global deliveries had fallen to less than 6 million tons, of which 3.3 million were handled by WFP. But only 1.2 million tons of WFP's food derived from in-kind donations—the rest was purchased by WFP using cash donations. Of the food purchased, 80% (2.1 million tons) was procured in 69 developing countries; this figure represented a transfer of approximately US$612 million. Such “local purchases” by WFP in themselves offer a significant benefit to developing nations.

As a UN agency, WFP is governed by an executive board that oversees the agency's operations. The 36-country board meets four times a year at WFP headquarters. Half of the board's members are elected by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations and the other half by the Council of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. Each member serves a 3-year term and is eligible for reelection. The executive board provides intergovernmental supervision and direction to the management of WFP, which is headed by an executive director who is appointed jointly by the UN secretary-general and the director-general of the Food and Agricultural Organization. WFP's 11th executive director, Josette Sheeran, took office in April 2007.

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