The World Food Programme: On the Front Lines of the Fight against Hunger

Catherine Bertini

Editor’s Note: “2020 Views” seeks to generate dialogue and discussion through interviews with leading policymakers, researchers, and opinion leaders on 2020 Vision topics. For this issue, NEWS & VIEWS interviewed Catherine Bertini, executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme.

NEWS & VIEWS: What have we learned about the best uses of food aid since WFP was created in 1963?

The real purpose of food aid is to help people overcome hunger. If we’re going to do that, we’ve got to target it. Adequate food and the right kinds of food keep people alive and strong. If an adult doesn’t have food for a week, he can recover. But if a child doesn’t have food for a week, he may never recover. So we’ve learned it’s critical to get food to children, to pregnant women, and to women who are breast feeding.

We’ve also learned, particularly since the 1995 United Nations conference on women, that since our purpose is to end hunger, we have to get food to the people in the household who are responsible for food security. And that’s women.

Another thing we’ve learned is that we don’t have enough resources to feed everybody forever, and even if we could, it would create a problem of dependency. So we have to work on a short-term basis to help people help themselves, and, as a priority, allow them to feed themselves.

NEWS & VIEWS: The share of aid devoted to emergency relief worldwide has climbed dramatically. How has this shift affected WFP?

Our share of aid going to emergency relief is 70 percent, and that’s been the case for the last six or seven years. This is in large part because the emergencies are so massive and complex. Since the Cold War, ethnic violence and political shifts have created conditions that keep people from getting the food they need.

So the shift to more emergency aid has occurred. But I’m not willing to concede that development food aid is over. It’s got to be the basis of helping people help themselves out of poverty. If we don’t do that, we are building a world of perpetual emergencies.

Let’s imagine there’s no more war; there are only natural disasters. If disaster hits Texas, let’s face it, Texas can handle it. But if disaster hits Bangladesh, Bangladesh doesn’t have the resources to overcome it.

Food for development is also important at critical times in life. When you’re 4, if you didn’t have the right kind of food to eat, you may be dead before you’re 40. If you’re pregnant and you don’t have the right kind of food to eat, you may give birth to a baby who’s underweight. Babies of undernourished women get a poor start in life. In these situations, nothing else but food can help.

NEWS & VIEWS: How do developing countries perceive food aid?

Almost every developing country believes food aid is critically important for its development. Some countries have graduated out of food aid. South Korea and Hungary used to be food aid recipients and are now donors. I can only think of one developing country—Eritrea—that doesn’t subscribe to the kind of food aid we provide. They feel they can manage it themselves. Uganda says food aid is okay, but even better is when we buy food from them and distribute it to others.

NEWS & VIEWS: Several reports are predicting a large food gap in coming decades. What role can WFP play in helping to fill this gap?

No one organization or even group of organizations can end hunger. So we want to know where the most vulnerable areas in the future will be. We have developed a system called VAM—Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping. We put information about infrastructure, education, per capita income—all sorts of information—into the computer. We then come up with sophisticated mapping of where the most vulnerable people are. And then we can ask what inputs are necessary to help people help themselves out of poverty. It could be food aid, it could be infrastructure. We now have this system in 28 countries. We want to do this throughout the world.

NEWS & VIEWS: What is your vision for the future of WFP and food aid?

I’d like to think the vision is that WFP would graduate itself out of food aid because there are no longer hungry people in the world. But I’ve worked in the United States, the richest country in the world, and seen that there are still hungry people there. So I would say that my vision is that WFP remains the agency on the front line of fighting hunger, not only providing food but also advocating to get resources directed to those who need them most.

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