Food aid policy: management of EC food aid and special operations in support of food security in developing countries

OBJECTIVE: to restructure, update and adapt all the legal instruments of Community food aid policy and management with a view to their rationalization, including specific operations in support of food security, such as the supply of inputs, seeds, storage programmes and early-warning systems. CONTENT: this proposal covers food aid alone (famine or imminent risk of famine, not humanitarian food aid) and is based on three main lines of approach: . adapting the legal basis in order to strengthen food aid as an essential element of long-term food security: - concentrating on purchasing food on the market of recipient countries (local and triangular procurement), - improving the integration of food aid into agricultural and agro-foodstuffs development policies in recipient countries (programming and implementing food aid operations taking account of individual development policies in developing countries relating to the fight against poverty, nutrition, family planning, environmental protection and continuity once emergency aid stops); - strengthening food security support operations in countries with a structural food deficit by avoiding using this type of operation as a substitute for rural development operations; . adapting the legal basis to important geo-political changes in certain countries by updating the list of countries in receipt of this aid (especially for the countries of the former Soviet Union): the countries concerned are classified in the order established by the Development Aid Committee of the OECD and are limited to the 3 least favoured groups (annex to the regulation): - LDC (least developed countries); - LIC (low per capita income countries); - LMIC (low middle-income countries). The regulation also makes provision for a flexible procedure for amending this list (the Commission amends the list after consulting the food aid committee, not by proposing regulations which are adopted by the Council); . grouping all the instruments into a single regulation which includes all the food aid policy and management provisions and specific support operations with a view to rationalization (consequently, regulations (EEC) nos. 3972/86, 1755/84, 2507 and 2508/88 and 1420/87 have been repealed). At the same time, and in order to avoid any competition or net loss of external aid justified by a food deficit, the Commission proposes creating a new mode of intervention which provides, in certain circumstances, for aid in the form of a foreign currency facility for private operators so that they can import staples. As far as decision-making is concerned, the procedure recommended by the Commission is more flexible, especially in the case of minor decisions, in order to respond to the need for administrative flexibility and flexible planning. The European Parliament and the Council will receive information on food aid management on a regular basis, mainly in the form of progress reports on the various operations during each financial year.�