International conference on food assistance, hosted by GPPi and Cornell University

From 10-11 March 2011, the Global Public Policy Institute and Cornell University held the fifth Transatlantic Dialogue on Humanitarian Action in the Washington, DC, area. The conference focused again on humanitarian food assistance.

With global food insecurity on the rise, efficient food assistance is urgently needed. The current spike in food prices, for example, underlines the need to have both adequate funding and efficient donor coordination to help those subjected to food insecurity. Policymakers should continue to explore venues for greater donor coordination and build on the momentum created by recent high-level government discussions on the role of the Food Aid Convention in the international aid architecture.

Titled Uniting on Food Assistance: Transatlantic Dialogue and Convergence of Policy and Practice, the conference brought together stakeholders from all the relevant sectors – governments, non-governmental organizations, international institutions, business and universities. Drawing on results from the previous conference on humanitarian food assistance in Berlin, as well as research by GPPi and Cornell University, participants outlined research results and specific recommendations intended for policymakers in the European Commission and United States government and for humanitarian practitioners in general. The recommendations focused on food aid, food assistance and in particular the need to reform the Food Aid Convention. Officials and legislators from the US and EU governments discussed the practical implications of such recommendations as well as future actions for increased transatlantic cooperation.

Participants and speakers at the conference included, among others: Rodney Bent (advisor to the US deputy secretary of state for management and resources), Catherine Bertini (former executive director of the World Food Programme), Jean-Jacques Graisse (former deputy executive director of the World Food Programme), Daniel Maxwell (associate professor at Tufts University), Jan-Artur Sienczewski (head of the specific thematic policies unit at the European Commission DG ECHO) and Terri Raney (senior economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization at the UN and editor of the State of Food and Agriculture).

The conference is part of a research and dialogue project by GPPi and the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. The research project is funded by the European Union with additional conference support by the US German Marshall Fund. Launched in April 2010, the Uniting on Food Assistance project seeks to create an evidence-based dialogue on best practices in food aid and food assistance in order to assist transatlantic partners in identifying points of prospective agreement and to inform the upcoming Food Aid Convention renegotiations.

For more information please contact Alexander Gaus.