MODERNIZING FOOD AID: IMPROVING EFFECTIVENESS AND SAVING LIVES HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION FEBRUARY 14, 2018 Serial No. 115–108 Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 28–654PDF WASHINGTON : 2018 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:57 Mar 19, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 Z:\WORK\_FULL\021418\28654 SHIRL COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California PAUL COOK, California LOIS FRANKEL, Florida SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii RON DESANTIS, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois TED S. YOHO, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois DINA TITUS, Nevada LEE M. ZELDIN, New York NORMA J. TORRES, California DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR., New York BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York Wisconsin ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York ANN WAGNER, Missouri TED LIEU, California BRIAN J. MAST, Florida FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania THOMAS A. GARRETT, JR., Virginia JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director (II) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:57 Mar 19, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 Z:\WORK\_FULL\021418\28654 SHIRL C O N T E N T S Page WITNESSES The Honorable Andrew Natsios, executive professor, The Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University (former Adminis- trator, U.S. Agency for International Development) ......................................... 4 Erin Lentz, Ph.D., assistant professor of public affairs, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin ............................ 17 The Honorable Dan Glickman, distinguished fellow of global food and agri- culture, Chicago Council on Global Affairs (former Secretary, U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture) ............................................................................................. 25 LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING The Honorable Andrew Natsios: Prepared statement .......................................... 7 Erin Lentz, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................................. 19 The Honorable Dan Glickman: Prepared statement ............................................. 28 APPENDIX Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 62 Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 63 The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs: Material submitted for the record ...................................................................................... 65 The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement .............................................. 70 (III) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:57 Mar 19, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 Z:\WORK\_FULL\021418\28654 SHIRL VerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:57 Mar 19, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 Z:\WORK\_FULL\021418\28654 SHIRL MODERNIZING FOOD AID: IMPROVING EFFECTIVENESS AND SAVING LIVES WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2018 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Royce (chairman of the committee) presiding. Chairman ROYCE. We will ask now that the committee comes to order. This hearing today is on food aid reform and this commit- tee’s long work to strengthen foreign assistance, and we do that in order to have an effective way to advance our interests and our val- ues around the world. Properly implemented, these relatively small investments can strengthen our national security and can support the development of democratic governments and strong market economies overseas. So last month with committee leadership, the House passed the African Growth and Opportunity Act, and the MCA Modernization Act off the floor, which promises to create new opportunities for U.S. trade and investment. It has the promise of sparking private sector-led growth, particularly in Africa. And last Congress, we en- acted the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act to iden- tify what is and what is not working. And I want to, again, thank Judge Poe for his leadership on that bill. This committee also led the way on pushing for reforms to one of the central elements of our foreign assistance, and that is the Food for Peace Act. These reforms enabled USAID to chip away at monetization and provided limited flexibility for NGOs to use mar- ket-based tools. But much remains to be done to truly modernize the Food for Peace Act. We must, in my view, completely end this inefficient process known as monetization, where local aid groups sell donated U.S. food to support their operations. This policy, along with re- quirements that all aid provided through Food for Peace be pur- chased from U.S. farmers and sent overseas by U.S. shippers, that process harms local markets. And more importantly, it slows our response to emergencies. These restrictions also needlessly drive up costs by modernizing the Food for Peace Act and prioritizing flexibility and efficiency, we can free up $300 million, and this will enable us to reach almost 10 million more men, women, and children, who would otherwise (1) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:57 Mar 19, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\WORK\_FULL\021418\28654 SHIRL 2 face starvation in places like Syria and Yemen, northern Nigeria and Somalia. Hunger in countries such as these fuels conflict; it fuels insta- bility. So helping people get the food they need not only helps save lives, it also strengthens U.S. national security. Modernizing U.S. food assistance will also help reach people immediately after dis- aster strikes. It does that by allowing us to purchase food closer to the areas in crisis. Under current law it takes about 14 weeks for U.S. food to reach those in need. As I saw with many members of this committee when we traveled to the Philippines right after the cyclone—it was that typhoon Haiyan, as I recall—we don’t have 14 weeks. Cer- tainly, the people there did not have 14 weeks to wait for us to re- spond to the disaster of that magnitude. So we saw the flexibility that had been put in place with a pilot program we had supported in this committee, where people were able to get that food imme- diately. As we were landing, they were being fed. We need the flexibility to purchase food in the region and get it to impacted areas within hours, not within 14 weeks. Saving time means saving lives. Additional reforms are also worth considering. In South Sudan, committee staff here saw how others provide assistance through se- cured debit cards, which recipients use to purchase the food locally in a crisis area like that. Providing assistance this way helps build economic infrastructure that can endure after aid ends. That said, no one is talking about completely cutting the American farmer out of their food aid programs. Our food aid programs are here to stay, and in places that suffer from cyclical drought, like Ethiopia, then food grown in the U.S. is critical, but this is not always the case, and that is what we are talking about here today. Sometimes we need to provide U.S. commodities. Other times, we will need to buy local, or we will need to use vouchers. More often than not, we will need to do both, but we cannot keep supporting outdated, unnecessary, expensive requirements. Such deliberate, unjustified waste does not serve our national interests. It certainly doesn’t save lives in the types of crisis we most often see. So I now turn to our ranking member, Eliot Engel, who has been a partner in these aid efforts for his remarks. Mr. ENGEL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for calling this hearing. And to our distinguished witnesses, wel- come to the Foreign Affairs Committee. I want to welcome all of you, especially my good friend and former colleague, Secretary Glickman. It is nice to have you here again, and we are grateful for all the witnesses’ time and willingness to share your expertise with our members. I am glad we are focusing on food aid today, because this is an effort on the administration’s chopping block, unfortunately, like so many of our other diplomatic and developmental priorities. The ad- ministration’s budget eliminates the Food for Peace account. I think that is a terrible idea, it would hurt hungry people, that shows a lack of understanding about why the Food for Peace pro- gram is so important to our foreign policy. VerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:57 Mar 19, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\WORK\_FULL\021418\28654 SHIRL 3 Since 1954 Food for Peace has fed more than 4 billion people, that is billion with a ‘‘B’’ in 150-plus countries all over the world. With our country’s tremendous blessing of agricultural resources helping famine-stricken and malnourished people around the world is simply the right thing to do.