The main recipients of Dutch bilateral food aid were Ethiopia, Mozambique and Sudan. According to the 1991 IOV evaluation food aid distributed in the context of food for work projects appeared to go to poverty stricken groups, women in particular. Although untied, nearly three fifths of Dutch food aid was de facto from the Netherlands.
Until the mid-1990s the Netherlands provided food in kind (in particular milk powder and cereals), through the LNV ministry’s VIB (Verkoop en Inkoopbureau) to WFP. However, it was felt that providing food in kind would not contribute to the longer term food security of affected groups and regions. Moreover, food aid often negatively affected the local market prices and local production. The Netherlands and many other donor countries gradually shifted their aid from in kind donations to financial support to the World Food Program (WFP), to be at least partially used for food and cash for work programs. Where possible, WFP shifted from import of food to local sourcing.
One of the main conclusions of the IOV evaluation of Food Aid and Development (1991)[2] is that food aid initiatives often have detrimental effects on local food consumption patterns (especially in urban areas) and, at the time, on liberalization of food markets and inducing policy reforms. Another conclusion is that the quality of projects implemented as food for work activities (mainly infrastructure), was often poor. Participants in these projects tended to have a low work capacity, the projects had a low priority for local governments and supervision and equipment were often inadequate. The evaluation also raised issues related to the type of products and sourcing strategies. The Dutch government was advised to provide cash rather than food to WFP. In turn, WFP was encouraged to use the cash for local and triangular purchases of food products[3].
Cash for work programs provide income to vulnerable groups for food purchases at local markets where limited food supplies can then usually be complemented with food aid to maintain supplies and ensure that prices remain within reach of the poor.
Case study: Ethiopia
In the 1970´s several programs of the Ethiopian government that were supported from the beginning by WFP, the Dutch government and SNV, were instrumental to implement labour intensive public works projects, initially with food provisions for daily labourers, and later also with cash payments. These programs focused on vulnerable groups who contributed towards construction and maintenance of rural roads, other small scale infrastructure and terraces for agricultural development, culminating over time in a national social protection programme (the Ethiopian Productive Safety Net Programme). This approach, initiated in the ‘70s and ‘80s shifted the provision of food aid in refugee tents along the main roads to managing in situ Food for Work programs in rural areas, enabling farming households affected by drought and famine, to work on their fields and to build up food reserves in agricultural slack periods while creating rural economic infrastructure that could provide access to agricultural inputs and markets for produce as well as increased agricultural production by limiting erosion and improving the water holding capacity of soils via terraces and reforestation. The Dutch supported projects in the drought affected Kobo-Lalibela area in Northern Ethiopia in the ‘70s and ‘80s were at the forefront of this innovative approach[1]. Similar programs were also initiated in other countries in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel region which were severely affected by drought in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
[1] On the Kobo-Lalibela road construction project in Ethiopia in the 1970s, based on a Food for Work Labour Intensive Public Works approach.
Kobo - Lalibela Road Project 1974-1979, the Starting of SNV Netherlands Development Organisation Work in Ethiopia, Worku Behonegne, Mekonnen Lulie, Johannis Leeuwenburg, Bart Wesseling (2019)
[2] Food Aid and Development: Summary Evaluation Report, IOV 1991 NICC collection A10149
[3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247633500_Triangular_Transactions_in_Food_Aid_Concept_and_Practice_The_example_of_the_Zimbabwe_operations