CARE Forgoes US Food Donations

CARE, one of the world’s foremost humanitarian organizations, has announced that it will no longer accept food donations from the U.S. government for re-sale in developing countries. Under the resale system, the U.S. government purchases American-grown agricultural products (mostly from large agribusinesses) and donates them to NGOs abroad as a form of indirect financing. The NGOs, in turn, sell those products (well below U.S. market rates) to distressed populations and use the revenue to finance other programs. This practice has long been controversial, as some believe that by introducing large numbers of U.S. products into developing markets, aid agencies are undercutting local producers and working against efforts to enhance local productive capacity. Some observers also complain that U.S. businesses should not be such a strong focus in what are ostensibly humanitarian programs, and the Government Accountability Office concluded recently that the program was “inherently inefficient.” CARE is the first NGO to walk away from the program, which has received a decidedly mixed reaction from counterpart organizations. The PCR Project is currently finalizing a report on enhancing the U.S. capacity for humanitarian response, which will be out in the middle of next month.