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

Adopting the recommendation for second reading by Mr Wilfried TELKÄMPER (V, D), Parliament approved the common position of the Council with the following amendments: - it called for the introduction of food strategies geared to alleviating poverty and making food aid superfluous; - it called again for food aid actions in catastrophe areas not to fall within the scope of this regulation and that, in the event of serious crises, all Community mechanisms should be implemented to alleviate these specific situations; - it insisted that food aid actions should be designed to promote food security in favour of the peoples of developing regions, to raise the standard of nutrition of the recipient population and promote their access to balanced nutrition, to improve supplies of drinking water, to encourage them to be independent in food and to reduce their dependence on food imports; - it laid particular emphasis on respect for the role of women and local communities in food security efforts and the drawing up of food programmes; - it called for food aid to be allocated on the basis of following criteria: fundamental food shortages, nutritional status measured against indicators of human and nutritional development (child death rate, average weight on birth, anaemia rates, life expectancy, percentage of population with access to clean water etc.); - it called for measures to strengthen regional approaches to food security, - it asked for operations in support of food security to help finance, inter alia, rural credit support schemes, with special emphasis on women, operations to supply drinking water, operations in support of those concerned with the marketing, transport, distribution or processing of agricultural and food products, projects to develop the environmentally acceptable production of food crops, technical assistance and field training operations, in particular for women and producer organizations, projects for producing fertilizers from raw materials and primary products in recipient countries, measures to support local food-aid structures, including on-the-spot training actions; - it called for products in the first instance to be mobilized in the recipient country or in a developing country belonging to the same geographical region. If that were not possible, aid should be mobilized in another of the developing countries or on the Community market; - regarding the allocation of food aid, it strengthened the role both of the non-governmental organizations participating in food aid programmes and that of the recipient population. Recipients must prove appropriate use of appropriations made available and, in the allocation of aid, priority must be given to small and medium-sized private undertakings. The Commission must, for its part, step up its work of coordination and the Council, after consulting the European Parliament, must allocate the aid in cereals between measures by the Community and by individual Member States. Finally, the Commission must assess the complementarity of actions in the area of food security with other EU policies.�