World Food Program

AMID CONTROVERSY AND competing ideas, the World Food Program (WFP) was established by parallel resolutions of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations' (UN) General Assembly in 1961. It began as a recommendation of Senator George McGovern at a time when John F. Kennedy, then president of the United States, was revamping U.S. foreign aid assistance programs. McGovern convinced the president that the need for food aid was so great that the United States could support a multilateral approach to food aid that utilized agricultural commodities as a supplement to other bilateral arrangements. Kennedy agreed and the United States supported the UN General Assembly resolution.

Located in Rome, Italy, the World Food Program was started as a three-year experimental program to provide food to poverty-ridden, malnourished, hungry people around the world. In 1963, the WFP undertook its first field operations by responding to multiple disasters. An earthquake in Iran in September 1962 necessitated the transfer of 1,500 tons of wheat in order to feed people, plus 27 tons of tea and sugar from India. This disaster was followed by a hurricane in Thailand in October 1962, which left 10,000 people without food. WFP arranged donations and transferred supplies from Australia and the Netherlands.

Finally, the newly independent African nation of Algeria was resettling five million refugees, and the WFP supplied much-needed food. Among the original WFP mandates were to use food aid to support economic and social development, provide food and associated logistics support in times of emergency, and generally promote world food security. From an initial three-year experimental program (1963–65) with under $100 million in resources, WFP has grown to become the world's most prominent multilateral food aid organization, responsible for more than 90 percent of multilateral food aid allocated and about 30 percent of all food aid worldwide. WFP food aid reached 113 million people in 80 countries in 2004.

The primary goal of WFP aid was to save lives in refugee and other emergency situations; to enhance the nutrition and quality of life of the most vulnerable people at critical times in their lives; and to help build assets and promote the self-reliance of poor people and communities, largely through labor-intensive work programs. In emergency situations food aid was essential for social and humanitarian protection. The provision of food aid, when possible, was coordinated with the relief [Page 1190]assistance provided by other humanitarian organizations. In nonemergency situations, feeding the poor with food aid was considered a pre-investment in human capital and resource building; it was used to help build capacity among the very poor. WFP designed projects to serve long-term development needs as well as mitigate short-term disasters.