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A Closer Look at USAID Food Aid Programs in HaitiA review of publicly available reports and recently released documents obtained via an Associated Press (AP) Freedom of Information Act request reveal that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has spent over $200 million on Title II food aid in Haiti since the earthquake. Title II food aid, administered by USAID and implemented by NGOs and intergovernmental organizations (primarily the World Food Program - WFP), is “the main avenue for U.S. food assistance.” As can be seen in Figure 1, in fiscal years 2010 and 2011, USAID obligated over $200 million and distributed over 174,000 metric tons of food aid in Haiti. Although most of this came in the form of emergency food aid following the earthquake, food distributions have continued in 2011 as well.
Figure 1.
Source: USAID, Author’s Calculations
The Numbers
According to a report prepared for USAID’s Office of Food for Peace, in fiscal year 2010, USAID Title II food aid totaled 153,000 metric tons (MT), of which over 115,000 came in the form of emergency food aid. In 2011, these totals decreased drastically to 21,430 MT, of which 5,950 MT was emergency aid. According to the report, emergency food aid was distributed through two avenues: Single-Year Assistance Programs and the World Food Program. Based on documents obtained by the AP, USAID obligated over $21 million to World Vision, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Agricultural Cooperative Development International and Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (ACDI/VOCA) for program costs associated with these emergency distributions. Additionally, USAID, which covers the cost of commodities and shipping, valued these services at over $100 million.
Non-emergency food aid takes the form of food distribution, but also often incorporates agricultural productivity, natural resource management as well as other issues related to food security. The majority of non-emergency food aid, which totaled over 50,000 MT in FY 2010 and 2011, came through Multi-Year Assistance Programs implemented by the same partners as the above-mentioned emergency, single-year programs: ACDI/VOCA, World Vision and CRS. These three programs all began prior to the earthquake and are ongoing until at least September 2012. A recent audit conducted by the USAID Inspector General (IG) reveals that, since the programs began in 2008, these partners have spent $46 million dollars in program costs. According to the AP documents most of this came after the earthquake. Together, the three organizations distributed nearly $70 million in commodities.
The Inspector General, in its audit of these multi-year programs, noted that “assistance generally has improved conditions for targeted beneficiaries…However, we could not determine whether the effects will last well into the future.” Nevertheless, the IG found a number of problems in the management of these programs, including overlapping with other USAID projects; lack of data management; the use of duplicative, excessive and uncoordinated indicators; uneven and poorly tracked integration of key activities; and other problems.
Overall, the documents obtained by the Associated Press show that World Vision, ACDI/VOCA and CRS have received $57 million since the earthquake from USAID for program costs related to Title II food aid, as can be seen in Figure 2. As will be discussed in more detail later, while this data shows program costs, the provision of the actual commodities for distribution and the shipping of those commodities are paid for directly by USAID, and so do not show up in Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Source: USAID, Associated Press
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