It is hard, in fact, to see what else WFP could have done. A big purchase of $22.5m was made from Glencore in July, which is when famine was declared in the Horn of Africa. ... The problem is that humanitarian aid is typically hand to mouth and last minute, which forces agencies to buy on international markets at their peak, as Chatham House fellow Rob Bailey points out. What is needed is for donors to look further ahead and cough up money in time. At the moment, WFP has a $150m revolving fund with which it is allowed to buy ahead to anticipate crises, small stuff compared with the $1.23bn total it needed to feed the starving in 2011. It would be good, too, if its programme to buy from small farmers locally and improve storage capacity in poorer countries were bigger.
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The problem is that humanitarian aid is typically hand to mouth and last minute, which forces agencies to buy on international markets at their peak, as Chatham House fellow Rob Bailey points out. What is needed is for donors to look further ahead and cough up money in time. At the moment, WFP has a $150m revolving fund with which it is allowed to buy ahead to anticipate crises, small stuff compared with the $1.23bn total it needed to feed the starving in 2011. It would be good, too, if its programme to buy from small farmers locally and improve storage capacity in poorer countries were bigger.
