Avoiding the humanitarian trap: The ‘Nobelization’ of food aid

Despite the significant role that hunger relief has played in global emergency response efforts throughout much of the last century—notably showcased with the 2015 naming of ‘Zero Hunger’ as the second Sustainable Development Goal, and more recently when the World Food Program was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize—significant hunger and malnutrition remain. Concerningly, past crises have demonstrated the potential for hunger relief efforts, particularly the provisioning of food aid, to undermine the ability of Global South countries and communities to recovery fully from shocks. This commentary takes a critical look at the role of food aid during extended crises and presents several thoughts for how aid agencies and Global North governments can continue to work toward Zero Hunger while simultaneously supporting Global South economies and cultures.

The Nutritional Content of Rescued Food Conveyed by a Food Aid Organization

Background: The number of food-insecure families in the European Union has increased, resulting in an increasing number of households depending on food assistance programs. The aim in this study was to evaluate the nutrient content of food rescued by a food aid organization that rescues and redistributes fresh or freshly cooked food to low-income households. Methods: To determine the nutritional content of food hampers provided by our case study organization, we weighed all items of food hampers in three weighing rounds over a period of four months. The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) was applied to measure households’ food insecurity. Results: Our results show that, at our case study food aid organization, food donations substantially contribute to energy, macro, and micronutrient dietary recommendation intake (DRI). Conclusions: When evaluating how these nutrients contribute to alleviating food insecurity of the beneficiary households, we found that the perception of food insecurity is independent of the amount of nutrients served. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study measuring the nutritional content of fresh or freshly cooked rescued food conveyed by a food aid organization.

The Social Practices of Food Bank Volunteer Work

The on-going rise in demand experienced by voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) providing emergency food aid has been described as a sign of a social and public health crisis in the UK (Loopstra, 2018; Lambie-Mumford, 2019), compounded since 2020 by the impact of (and responses to) Covid 19 (Power et al., 2020). In this article we adopted a social practice approach to understanding the work of food bank volunteering. We identify how ‘helping others’, ‘deploying coping strategies’ and ‘creating atmospheres’ are key specific (and connected) forms of shared social practice. Further, these practices are sometimes suffused by faith-based practice. The analysis offers insights into how such spaces of care and encounter (Williams et al., 2016; Cloke et al., 2017) function, considers the implications for these distinctive organisational forms (the growth of which has been subject to justified critique) and suggests avenues for future research.

Let Them Eat Fish!—Exploring the Possibility of Utilising Unwanted Catch in Food Bank Parcels in The Netherlands

The Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union was reformed in 2013 with the aim of improving the sustainability of the fishing sector. The Landing Obligation, a cornerstone of this reform, requires fishers to land their unwanted catch instead of discarding it at sea. Existing literature pays little attention to what becomes of this unwanted catch once it is landed. To further the discourse on the sustainable valorisation of unwanted catch, this study explores whether unwanted catch that is safe for human consumption could be used for improving food security. The paper focuses on Dutch food banks, which deliver critical food aid to over 160,000 individuals yearly but struggle to provide all dependant recipients with nutritionally balanced food parcels. The research question is addressed in two ways. The food bank recipients’ willingness to consume UWC is evaluated quantitatively through a survey. Next to this, data from interviews with relevant stakeholders are analysed qualitatively. Results indicate that the Food Bank Foundation and its recipients are willing to receive this fish if it is safe to consume and accessible. However, various factors such as existing infrastructure, lack of economic incentive to donate, competition from non-food and black markets, and the fishing industry’s conflict with the landing obligation might pose barriers to this kind of valorisation. The dissonance between fisheries, food, and sustainability policies is discussed and identified as a key limiting factor. To bridge the differences between these policy areas, we propose public-private partnerships and voluntary agreements among involved stakeholders.

Enabling Development and 'Transition' among Food-Supported Producers in Ethiopia: A Comparative Case Study

<p>Ethiopia is synonymous with protracted drought, natural resource degradation, and hunger and impoverished livelihoods among many millions of farm-based producers. Since 1971, the Government of Ethiopia and foreign donors have channelled food aid and administrative and extension support to relief and rehabilitation projects for improved natural resource management. One such intervention is MERET-PLUS (Managing Environmental Resources to Enable Transition to more sustainable livelihoods through Partnership and Land User Solidarity), a long-standing, watershed-based food-for-assets development project. In its latest form, MERET-PLUS like many similar 'new generation' food-funded natural resource management interventions has multiple positive impacts, both for targeted watershed areas, and for the inhabitants of these areas. In spite of this, successfully enabling 'transition' of participants from receiving food aid remains highly problematic. Transition has not received sufficient attention in programming or - until recently - in academic literature. Partly for this reason, such interventions often lack an agreed, coherent definition of transition, a strategy for achieving such transition, and a means of measuring progress toward transition. Recognising potential for transition to advance policy and practice for such projects, I critically evaluate transition as an inherent objective of the current phase of MERET-PLUS, through the positional lens of my internship with a major donor to the project, the World Food Programme (WFP). I use four case study woredas as talking points, and use quantitative and qualitative information gathered from extensive research from site- through to federallevel. I wish to answer two research questions about transition through this research. Firstly: to what extent has 'enabling transition' in MERET-PLUS been developed as a concept, in policy or strategy, and as an understood and measurable concept? And secondly: what place does transition have in the MERETPLUS project? In relation to the first question, this research presents four main findings. Firstly, formal strategy for transitioning MERET-PLUS beneficiaries from project support has been formed only after thirty years of continuous food support. In many ways, this reflects the legacy of continued difficulties in linking relief, rehabilitation and development - and of achieving real development and independent capacities to sustain this development - through food-supported programming. Secondly, there are currently diverse interests in transition across all levels of the MERET-PLUS project, which must be factored-in to any strategy for implementation. In sub-federal government offices for example, strategy for transition is formed by observing the particular contexts of particular successful sites within their area. By contrast, at federal level, in the WFP Country Office, strategy for transition tends to be formed as part of instrumental programming goals. Thirdly, two particular components of MERET-PLUS make it difficult to conceive of transition as inherent in programming, or as an instrument introduced from higher levels. First, the integrated nature of MERET-PLUS, with a wide range of activities for land and water-source rehabilitation and human livelihood improvement, makes it difficult to conceive of one, integrated strategy for transition. Second, the holistic, participatory approaches to targeting project assistance and planning project activities make instrumental approaches to transition inappropriate. 'Transition as inherent' and 'transition as instrumental' approaches represent unrealised potential for scalable improvements of project impacts, coupled with the challenge of building the kind of concerted confidence required among beneficiaries, planners, leaders and government agencies. Fourthly and finally, information from project beneficiaries, planning teams, and project managers at higher levels has highlighted the importance of asset-based measures of communities' and households' livelihoods in assessing readiness for transition. Communication and planning for transition with engaged beneficiaries remains an important challenge, and one which has not been sufficiently understood in the literature. The goal of 'enabling transition' in MERET-PLUS is as yet unrealised in practice and at scale. A number of factors indicate real potential for transition in case study areas, including income generation from collective farm-based activities, and more broadly, confidence and belief among beneficiaries in improving their livelihoods through available project activities. As a snapshot of potential to 'enable transition', this research contributes practice-based insights for progressively phasing out "outsiders" assistance to vulnerable communities.</p>

Counting the Cost: The Effect of COVID-19 Lockdown on Households in South East Nigeria

The present study measured household hunger in South-East Nigeria amidst the COVID-19 lockdown. A total of 1209 households (urban and rural locations) were sampled. Household hunger was determined using the Radimer–Cornel hunger scale. Results show that before the COVID-19 lockdown, hunger prevalence in the urban areas was 85.5%, whereas prevalence in the rural areas was significantly lower, at a prevalence of 79.9% (7.3% level of association—X2 = 6.499, p = 0.012). During the COVID-19 lockdown, the prevalence of hunger in the urban areas rose to 98.0% and 99.2% in the rural areas (4.9% level of association was X2 = 2.888, p = 0.089). It was also observed that the COVID-19 lockdown significantly affected food prices. The major coping strategy employed by households was relying on less expensive foods (81.14%). High household hunger was identified as a short-term cost of the COVID-19 lockdown in South-East Nigeria. Only a few households (16.3%) benefited from the food aid programs and 16.9% from the government palliative cash transfer. It is recommended that the government setup a formidable unit that will develop physical and digital plans for effective implementation during a COVID-19 lockdown situation or other emergencies.

Enabling Development and 'Transition' among Food-Supported Producers in Ethiopia: A Comparative Case Study

<p>Ethiopia is synonymous with protracted drought, natural resource degradation, and hunger and impoverished livelihoods among many millions of farm-based producers. Since 1971, the Government of Ethiopia and foreign donors have channelled food aid and administrative and extension support to relief and rehabilitation projects for improved natural resource management. One such intervention is MERET-PLUS (Managing Environmental Resources to Enable Transition to more sustainable livelihoods through Partnership and Land User Solidarity), a long-standing, watershed-based food-for-assets development project. In its latest form, MERET-PLUS like many similar 'new generation' food-funded natural resource management interventions has multiple positive impacts, both for targeted watershed areas, and for the inhabitants of these areas. In spite of this, successfully enabling 'transition' of participants from receiving food aid remains highly problematic. Transition has not received sufficient attention in programming or - until recently - in academic literature. Partly for this reason, such interventions often lack an agreed, coherent definition of transition, a strategy for achieving such transition, and a means of measuring progress toward transition. Recognising potential for transition to advance policy and practice for such projects, I critically evaluate transition as an inherent objective of the current phase of MERET-PLUS, through the positional lens of my internship with a major donor to the project, the World Food Programme (WFP). I use four case study woredas as talking points, and use quantitative and qualitative information gathered from extensive research from site- through to federallevel. I wish to answer two research questions about transition through this research. Firstly: to what extent has 'enabling transition' in MERET-PLUS been developed as a concept, in policy or strategy, and as an understood and measurable concept? And secondly: what place does transition have in the MERETPLUS project? In relation to the first question, this research presents four main findings. Firstly, formal strategy for transitioning MERET-PLUS beneficiaries from project support has been formed only after thirty years of continuous food support. In many ways, this reflects the legacy of continued difficulties in linking relief, rehabilitation and development - and of achieving real development and independent capacities to sustain this development - through food-supported programming. Secondly, there are currently diverse interests in transition across all levels of the MERET-PLUS project, which must be factored-in to any strategy for implementation. In sub-federal government offices for example, strategy for transition is formed by observing the particular contexts of particular successful sites within their area. By contrast, at federal level, in the WFP Country Office, strategy for transition tends to be formed as part of instrumental programming goals. Thirdly, two particular components of MERET-PLUS make it difficult to conceive of transition as inherent in programming, or as an instrument introduced from higher levels. First, the integrated nature of MERET-PLUS, with a wide range of activities for land and water-source rehabilitation and human livelihood improvement, makes it difficult to conceive of one, integrated strategy for transition. Second, the holistic, participatory approaches to targeting project assistance and planning project activities make instrumental approaches to transition inappropriate. 'Transition as inherent' and 'transition as instrumental' approaches represent unrealised potential for scalable improvements of project impacts, coupled with the challenge of building the kind of concerted confidence required among beneficiaries, planners, leaders and government agencies. Fourthly and finally, information from project beneficiaries, planning teams, and project managers at higher levels has highlighted the importance of asset-based measures of communities' and households' livelihoods in assessing readiness for transition. Communication and planning for transition with engaged beneficiaries remains an important challenge, and one which has not been sufficiently understood in the literature. The goal of 'enabling transition' in MERET-PLUS is as yet unrealised in practice and at scale. A number of factors indicate real potential for transition in case study areas, including income generation from collective farm-based activities, and more broadly, confidence and belief among beneficiaries in improving their livelihoods through available project activities. As a snapshot of potential to 'enable transition', this research contributes practice-based insights for progressively phasing out "outsiders" assistance to vulnerable communities.</p>