The UN World Food Program

Josette Sheeran

Paper prepared for presentation at the “World Food Security: Can Private Sector R&D Feed the Poor?” conference conducted by the Crawford Fund for International Agricultural Research, Parliament House, Canberra, Australia, October 27-28, 2009

Copyright 2009 by Josette Sheeran. All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies.

C ONFERENCE D INNER, M URAL H ALL, P ARLIAMENT H OUSE

The UN World Food Program

1 JOSETTE SHEERAN World Food Program Rome, Italy

The World Food Program feeds on and to bring a more secure, humane and peaceful average about 90 million people per year, two- world. Australia has had a key role in founding thirds of them children. It has offices in 80 coun- CGIAR and through ACIAR, institutions that tries. Despite the scale of this effort and the large provide innovation and leadership in ending quantities of food involved, forward planning is hunger in areas of the world, and particularly very challenging because of the small financial reserves on hand at any time. Natural disasters Africa, where progress has been slower than we and conflict generate unpredictable demand for have wished. food. The WFP is evolving successful strategies to address not only immediate needs but underly- The challenge ing causes of food crises; partnerships have a significant and essential role in this success. I was unable to attend the presentation two weeks ago in Iowa of the World Food Prize to Dr Gebisa Introduction Ejeta of Ethiopia, whose sorghum hybrids resis- tant to drought and the devastating striga weed It is not only an honour to be here but a great have dramatically increased the production and opportunity to talk about issues of mutual interest. availability of one of the world’s five principal I actually came here to do something very simple grains. I had been given a great honour of deliver- but which maybe we don’t do often enough: to ing a memorial speech about Norman Borlaug’s thank the people and government of Australia for legacy when a suicide bomber attacked WFP’s their leadership on food security. So when I met headquarters in Pakistan, killing a number of our with the Foreign Minister I told him how wonder- staff who had been maintaining the humanitarian ful Australia is, and of the meetings you have had lifeline for up to ten million people in that this week; he agreed that these do provide special country, including three million displaced by the opportunities. A number of my heroes are here, conflict there. This event was really symbolic of some known to me only by name and others the convergence of our worlds: hunger, food whom I have met — Bob McMullen, Jim Ingram insecurity and violence on the world’s front pages, and others that follow in the great traditions of Sir while you are working to beat the clock on food John Crawford, Norman Borlaug and others who supply for an expanding global population in a really understood the power of advances in farm- more severe and erratic climate. ing and food science and technology to save lives I really want to commend the work of the Crawford Fund’s World Food Crises Task Force, JOSETTE SHEERAN has been Executive Director and in particular Jim Ingram. The report2 of the of the United Nations (WFP), the world’s largest humanitarian organi- sation, since April 2007. Previously she served as the Under Secretary for 1 The text here was prepared by the editor from an audio Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs in recording of the presentation. the State Department. She had earlier held 2 Persley, G.J. and Blight, D.G. (eds) 2008. A Food senior positions in private sector management Secure World: How Australia can Help. Report of and as a journalist. She holds a BA from the the Crawford Fund World Food Crisis Task Force, University of Colorado. ATSE, Melbourne, 60 pp.

W ORLD F OOD S ECURITY AND P RIVATE S ECTOR R&D 97 task force noted the intersection of research in- funding for the WFP21. I met recently in vestments, trade and aid in helping ensure that we with a number of experts on global supply chains can feed a hungry world. The report reminded me from Unilever, Cadburys and military food of the vulnerability that we experienced a couple services who commented that WFP is the most of years ago during the food crises that exposed complex supply chain in the world. We have to areas in the global food supply chain that we have reach places like Darfur and there feed four mil- to really shore up. We saw that whole nations lion people a day in the middle of hostile deserts could not procure supplies on global markets (and that have no roads. The people I spoke with thought of lead times of three years. I said, ‘what the World Food Program could not get tenders if you didn’t know how much money you would filled), while others resorted to shutting borders have in twelve weeks’? They replied ‘That is and banning export of even humanitarian food. impossible’. The world’s most complex global These events illustrated the urgency of addressing supply chain does need pre-planning, pre- anew the issue of adequate food supply and positioning, pre-contracting and pre-buying. adequate access by the world’s hungry. The first Unfortunately less than 4% of WFP’s money is Millennium Development Goal, which includes multiyear predictable so that we can plan ahead. the goal of cutting the number and the proportion When I described this great difficulty to the Prime of hungry in the world in half, is the most threat- Minister Mr Rudd he said, ‘Lets change that’. So ened. In just the past two years over two hundred thank you Bob McMullen and all those who million people have been added to the ranks of the helped with the leadership and the report that the urgently hungry. At the recent G8 and G20 meet- Crawford Fund put forward; the result has been ings, world leaders put food security front and wonderful. It allows us to get ahead of the hunger centre of the global agenda. We must not take curve and, even in places like Afghanistan, to buy food security for granted. In the developing world, wheat from local farmers so that when we are including 80% of the countries in Africa, prices filling the cup for the schoolchildren we also for essential commodities are higher today than support the farmers who so desperately need an they were a year ago. What that means is that outlet for their food. people in many places can afford only two-thirds It also means that the WFP can ask a number of as much food today as they could just two years questions: not only whether people are hungry but ago. why they are hungry: what is the basic problem? I want to thank Dr Pingali and the Gates Founda- This is urgent business. The World Food Program tion and others who have worked with us to get is very honoured to have been created by the better at our vulnerability analyses. In the old days world as a member of the United Nations family these were just crop assessments. Fortunately to help nations when all else fails and to help them when the food crises hit we had actually consid- build secure food supply systems that will reduce ered other factors such as differential inflation their vulnerability to emergencies and disasters. between food prices and wage prices. That is what hit the developing world two years ago. Food The World Food Program and prices galloped ahead, doubling and tripling, Australia’s contribution while for eight or twelve months wages stayed flat and therefore the bottom billion people could Ours is not grandmother’s food aid. Eighty per- afford a third less on a budget that was already cent of the food that WFP purchases now is devoted entirely to food. So partnerships are really purchased from farmers in the developing world; valuable. this huge shift allows us to build synergies between even emergency action and alleviation of Examples of projects with the root causes of hunger. For example, we tripled multiple benefits our local purchases in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the midst of a conflict so that farmers We would like help from experts like you and who could not get their food out were supported others throughout the world to develop connected, and did not require food aid. Farmers would much longer-term solutions to problems of hunger and rather sell their food if they can connect to a poor nutrition. The following are some examples market, even in the midst of conflict. that could be built on.

An announcement was made today that Australia 21 http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2009/fa- will generously provide predictable multiyear s091026.html

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Developing local foods the producers could get the equipment to add the iodine and now iodised salt is being sold in those The World Food Program conducts school feeding villages — a second win. The third win is that the programs — school lunch programs — for 20 women are helping their own country by rebuild- million children. This is not permanent charity. It ing areas that have been devastated. A fourth win helps countries build up a food security net that is that the children are getting the food and the can be handed over to others, as we have now iodised salt they need. So a single initial invest- done in over 30 countries. Typically it is filling ment has transformed whole communities. We one cup with porridge each day for each child; need help in really understanding how to do this that is the only food the children know. in other situations. The World Food Program does After the recent food crises the President of Libe- not know how to iodise salt. We don’t wish to do ria told me they import up to 80% of their food. that, but we do need the partners to do so. The president wanted to fill this cup with local produce, although the children had lost their taste Convenient, non-perishable food for it. The local cassava and maize offer an oppor- In regions of increasing floods and droughts, the tunity to produce farina and thereby to populations of many nations like the Philippines re-introduce the population to their own food sometimes have no access even to adequate clean products. I have pledged to assist, but we need water for long periods. Neither the WFP nor the help in the task. WFP is not an expert on how you people have food products that can ensure that increase production. How do you scale it up? It young children’s minds and bodies stay strong would be a big pull factor if we could buy that through such challenges. food locally. That is where we need FAO, that is The World Food Program, with the help of Aus- where we need the Gates Foundation and the tralia, a food technologist and others, has Rockefeller Foundation as partners, and the work developed in India a sweet, highly fortified paste of CGIAR and all of you. What kinds of technol- made with chickpeas and dried milk. If a mother ogy? Where does it make sense for Liberia to rips off the corner of the package of the day’s rebuild? And, guess what, there are virtually no ration, the paste can sustain a child with all the nutrients in that farina. Do we fortify it? Do we necessary micronutrients without adding water — plant better seeds? We need partnerships to and it needs no refrigeration. address these questions. If we can fill this cup Every leader in the developing world to whom I locally we will change the taste of a generation describe this example — Prime Minister Meles, and strengthen local markets. I can foresee the day President Arroyo, others — recognise that they we would step out; there would be no need for need such a product. Prime Minister Meles said aid. There is good business in helping to feed the that in a drought in Ethiopia there is nowhere for a schoolchildren of Liberia. parent to turn even if they have money. We are developing such products now in Pakistan. In the In Afghanistan we are at a point where we can Philippines we may be able to use a coconut base. dream of buying more wheat locally. We do it to a We will do our best, but how to connect the crops small degree now with the help of Australia, with accessible, non-perishable food for the Canada and others, and we have biscuit factories bottom billion people? where women are producing fortified biscuits for schoolchildren. Again this doesn’t need perma- We currently have a global call for every high- nent aid. energy biscuit that we can find for use in the Philippines. These are biscuits produced by WFP; The multiplier effect fortunately Thailand, Ecuador and others now produce their own. In Egypt we make a date bar A second example I will give is from Senegal. We that is packed with nutrients; when troubles hit now buy locally whenever possible. Senegal is a Gaza last year, people had no cooking fuel, no food-deficit nation, but they do have a lot of salt. electricity and no water. Hospital staff couldn’t For a micronutrient initiative with Canada and eat, patients couldn’t eat. We produced twenty others, salt is purchased from seven thousand million of those date bars after gearing up over- village producers, mostly women, who never had night — talking to the government and asking a secure outlet — the first win. Now these DSM (an international life science and perform- women, for the first time, are iodising the salt ance materials company from the Netherlands) to because Senegal has an iodine deficiency epi- tell us how to fortify them to suit the people in demic. Because they have a guaranteed contract, Gaza.

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Other appeals for help our public–private projects are in the same area that AGRA is working in. In our vulnerability The arrangements described above are very ad analyses, and also in reducing risk for farmers, hoc. I envisage progress that within five years will WFP is working with Rockefeller to map the areas provide people in the developing world with tools that are the most vulnerable. We wish to be sure to give them affordable access to emergency our humanitarian aid is looking at things like foods based on their local produce. We need to disaster risk insurance —we did a pilot project on know where all the production capabilities lie — this in Ethiopia that proved to have market viabil- not just those of the WFP. Prime Minister Meles ity; it reduces risk for the farmers who otherwise of Ethiopia has asked that much broader assis- bear all the risks. tance than the WFP can provide should be made available. So that is another appeal that I would Conclusion really like to make. In many of the areas I have described our interests We are working very closely with the Gates and work intersect. I do want to thank Australia Foundation, the Howard Buffett Foundation and again. In response to a question from Prime Min- the Rockefeller Foundation to examine the ways ister Rudd, I emphasised the importance of we contract with farmers. WFP — whose budget predictability to help us get ahead of the hunger was $1.4 billion last year — invests in develop- curve. His response three months later was very ing-world farmers by buying food. We are doing welcome. I know that such a rapid response has this in a way that allows them to plan for and required a lot of political support, and support invest in better seeds, better technologies and from AusAID and others. better access to markets. The great thing about WFP is that we are a real market — a market with By my estimates, leaders such as Sir John patience and a market that can draw on the re- Crawford and Norman Borlaug have saved more sources the world has. In our purchasing project, physical lives then any human being in history. involving 20 nations, we are seeking ways to Theirs is a great legacy and a great goal to keep in work even better with small farmers like the salt mind, and also a great inspiration. producers in Senegal and others to support their We are proud and honoured to connect with all of efforts. We really need the backing of your under- you in your work — solving hunger and its prob- standing. lems at its roots. So thank you. We work very closely with AGRA (the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) to make sure

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