Policy Paper October 2009

InterAction Food Security and

Agriculture Working Group Response
to the Global Hunger and Food Security
Initiative Consultation Document

I
For more information, nterAction’s Food Security and Agriculture Working Group (FS/Ag WG) applauds the Global Hun-
please contact: ger and Food Security Initiative for strengthening and expanding its global food security draft
strategy. We are especially pleased that the document is consistent with the Millennium Devel-
Vanessa Dick opment Goals (MDGs) framework and identifies a reduction in chronic hunger, under-nutrition,
Senior Legislative Associate for and poverty as the purpose of development assistance. The stated goals “to sustainably reduce
International Development chronic hunger, raise the incomes of the rural poor, and reduce the number of children suffering
InterAction from under nutrition “ are in full accord with the longtime work of InterAction member NGOS and
vdick@interaction.org we welcome the new partnership that this approach promises.
The draft strategy also increases its chances for success by broadening its approach to include
Brian Greenberg a continuum of hunger-fighting programs: food aid, nutrition, safety nets, and agricultural de-
Director of Sustainable velopment. Also praiseworthy are the call for increased, long term funding commitments and an
Development ‘equally strong’ allocation between food aid and agricultural development; an intention to address
InterAction the challenges faced by women farmers (as producers and nutrition providers); the emphasis on
bgreenberg@interaction.org country-led and community-led strategies; the recognition of child nutritional status as a pivotal
indicator of well-being; and the shift toward multilateralism with the acknowledgement that the
Lindsay Coates US ‘can’t do it alone’.
Vice President In order to strengthen the strategy, we respectfully ask that it address the following:
Policy and Communications
InterAction Whole of Government Approach:
lcoates@interaction.org To integrate, strengthen, and coalesce current US government hunger programs it will require
leadership that understands the challenges to coordinating a complex international development
and humanitarian relief program across US government entities. This leadership must be able to
rise above the political landscape and instead focus on the long-term sustainability and effective-
ness of the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative. For this reason we ask for:
• a refined definition of the food security coordinator position and role, including a mandate
that explains how it will fold into larger foreign assistance efforts, thereby reducing com-
plexity and consolidating interventions;
• clarification on how policy coordination and programs will be strengthened across agen-
cies of the US government to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of efforts in food
security, nutrition, and agriculture; and,
• investments in regenerating technical and planning capacity within USAID to ensure it is
capable of acting as the lead development agency and primary institutional resource for
the food security coordinator.
www.InterAction.org
Strengthening Development Partnerships, Especially with NGOs:
Strengthened partnerships with the NGO community to achieve common development goals will
1400 16th Street, NW
Suite 210 result in expanded impacts that get at the root of hunger and poverty alleviation. These partner-
Washington, DC 20036 ships should extend beyond a consultative role, and prominently feature civil society organiza-
202-667-8227 tions in leveraging resources, articulating strategy, building capacity, and implementing pro-
 grams. NGOs are best positioned to reach the most vulnerable
and this comparative advantage should be maximized.
Working Together: The Country Led Strategy,
Community Led Development, ‘Investment Plans’
and the Interagency Global Hunger and Food
Security Strategy:
The Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative rightly pre-
scribes a range of strategic frameworks. Nonetheless, all should
have a consistent set of development investment priorities,
avoiding competing frameworks. In addition, the development
planning and budgeting process should be restructured to
support strategic, multi-year, transparent planning and imple-
mentation.
To realize the multi-stakeholder participatory ideals assumed
in a ‘country led’ strategy and ‘community led’ development,
support should be provided for capacity building in gover-
nance, decentralization and community empowerment.
Capacity for ‘community-led’ development depends not just
on the technologies and market systems now prioritized in the
strategy, but on human and social capital. Investments in build-
ing human capital must be done at all levels including produc-
ers, value chain participants, those providing extension servic-
es (both traditional and non-traditional), government officials
and those in academia. The dissemination of information and
building of knowledge must not be limited to single subjects,
but presented in a holistic manner.
Maintain flexibility in the plan for ‘pre-investment’ countries
to support a range of capacity building and other activities that
are essential precursors to an actual plan.
Strengthen financial transparency and accountability mech-
anisms to address risks of corruption in country led approach-
es. Build civil society and governance capacity to create norms
and demand for accountability to in country stakeholders.
World Bank Food Security Trust Fund:
Clarify and strengthen the promising concept of a food secu-
rity trust fund. Explain how a fund managed by the World Bank
would be structured to avoid the governance, accountability,
social protections, transparency constraints and lengthy de-
lays that often typify World Bank managed funds. Clarify how
country-determined development priorities would be congru-
ent with the pattern of external priorities often associated with
World Bank lending. Identify a meaningful role for civil soci-
ety—including the full range from governance to implement-
ing partners—within the World Bank Food Security Trust Fund.
Monitoring and Evaluation:
• Strengthen mechanisms for accountability and transpar-
ency linked to M & E systems.
• Base M & E systems on existing strong USAID guidance in
documents such as the draft MYAP FY 10 guidelines.
• Please provide a more complete list of evaluation indica-
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tors; our community has extensive experience in program
evaluation which we would like to share.
◊ Base key indicators for the effectiveness of programs
on the MDGs—especially Goal 1—to ensure the focus
remains on poverty reduction and reduced hunger.
◊ Carefully track the nutritional status of children un-
der 5 years of age to maintain focus on that period of
acute vulnerability.
• Clarify what is meant by ‘increasing the impact of humani-
tarian assistance’. Through which indicators would prog-
ress toward increased impact be measured?
• Identify indicators and targets linked to each goal to add
clarity to the strategic framework.
Nutrition:
• Use country selection criteria and processes that ensure
this initiative reaches the countries where the greatest
number of stunted children live.
• Integrate dietary quality into programs in smallholder agri-
culture, nutrition and food security.
• Address food availability, access, utilization and stability in
nutrition and food security interventions.
◊ Feature food processing, storage, and preparation (in-
cluding availability of fuel) in a strategy for improved
nutrition since these are critical to dietary quality.
◊ Focus on under-nutrition as well as malnutrition.
Track diet quality through indicators such as vitamin
A, calcium and iron.
• Structure nutrition programs to respond to the disadvan-
tages in intra-household food allocation often faced by
women and girls.
• Address urban and peri-urban hunger and food insecurity
in the current strategy in light of the large number of vul-
nerable people in those areas.
• Promote program links across sectors with clear synergies,
such as nutrition, agriculture, health, (HIV/AIDS, maternal &
child) and education.
• Ensure that specialized production for markets does ‘no harm’
to dietary diversity or the nutritional status of communities.
Food Aid:
• Explore opportunities to strengthen in-kind flexibilities
and resilience through pre-positioning, replenishment, in-
country reserves.
• Better explicate and expand the role that developmental
food aid can have in meeting food security needs.
• Improve the nutritional quality of food aid.
Environmental Regeneration and Natural
Resource Management:
• Prioritize regeneration of agricultural resources in the
many places where environmental degradation now re-
duces production and incomes.
 ◊ Support alternative techniques such as ecological
agriculture that hold potential for significant yield in-
creases and improved NRM.
◊ Direct and equip extension services, universities and
research institutions to vigorously re-orient them-
selves to support sustainable agriculture.
• Revise the strategy’s current technical emphasis on boost-
ing production through intensive irrigation, fertilizer and
pesticide inputs because these often underpin unsustain-
able resource use.
• Encourage genetic diversity and use of local seed variet-
ies in the many circumstances where hybrid seeds are not
available, affordable or viable without intensive irrigation
and other inputs.
• Base the global hunger and food security strategy on ex-
isting strong USAID guidance on environmental protection
such as the draft MYAP FY 10 guidelines.
• Shift the strategy away from the distinction between pro-
duction and nutrition to an integrated approach.
• Respond to climate change as a major risk for rural liveli-
hoods, food security and agriculture by much more thor-
oughly integrating it into all areas of the strategy.
Safety Nets:
• Better define and explain the envisioned safety net pro-
grams. Incorporate much more complete and long term
safety net program approaches and mechanisms into the
strategy.
• Clarify what ‘increasing the impact’ of food aid and safety
net programs means.
• Build social protection and safety nets at the local/com-
munity level through NGOs and other appropriate imple-
menters. Avoid reliance on the World Bank fund or other
initiative to address this need.
• Incorporate agricultural yield insurance into social protec-
tion mechanisms.
• Help countries create safety net systems that help prevent
the economically vulnerable from falling into destitution in
the wake of shocks.
Agriculture:
• Incorporate strategies for addressing the heterogeneity of
small holder farmers, from subsistence to small scale com-
mercial producers, from agriculturalists to pastoralists.
• Build and strengthen farmer-owned and controlled institu-
tions. Enable coops, producer groups, farmer associations,
cooperative development associations and NGOs—which
already play key roles in providing information and ad-
vice—to reach much greater numbers of farmers.
• Promote increased diversity in production systems to
better distribute labor demands and improve nutrition.
Promote better integration between diversified crop, live-
stock and agro-forestry systems to improve productivity
and reduce environmental degradation.
• Support the wide range of non-agricultural livelihood and
income strategies rural communities have adopted to re-
duce poverty and strengthen agricultural markets.
• Reprioritize the current emphasis on crop production tech-
nologies to address other technical challenges—such as
communications, energy and water—that constrain rural
livelihoods and agriculture.
◊ Emphasize labor saving technologies to reduce the
time burden on women and children from tasks such
as collection and carrying of potable water.
Research, Extension and Education:
• Re-balance the strategy’s emphasis on technical production
aspects of agriculture by investing much more heavily in
human and social capital through education. Focus on the
knowledge and information needs of small scale farmers in
supporting educational systems that directly serve them.
• Re-prioritize technical, research and educational priori-
ties to recognize that market access and small enterprise
development is often as great a challenge for small scale
farmers and rural value chains as low productivity.
• Re-focus research priorities in universities and research
institutions away from publications and ‘cutting edge’ sci-
ence toward addressing constraints faced by smallholder
farmers and the poor.
◊ Shift the focus of the CGIAR centers, for example,
away from commodity-based research toward food
security and food systems.
◊ Re-emphasize water management, agro-forestry and
low external input methods of regenerating soil fertil-
ity that will be essential to boosting the productivity
of resource poor producers.
• Expand the range of approaches to extension, informa-
tion and advisory services much beyond often-moribund
state extension services and private sector services that
often offer information only on a limited range of com-
mercial inputs.
◊ NGOs, coops, producer groups and farmer associa-
tions all play important roles that could be strength-
ened and expanded to reach much greater numbers
of farmers.
◊ Encourage and incorporate the broad range of ap-
plied and program research undertaken by farmer
associations and NGOs—on ‘best practices’, etc.—into
the information stream shaping field programs.
• Focus not only on higher education in agriculture, but on
basic education and literacy—especially for women—as a
primary strategy for increasing incomes, reducing hunger,
improving health status and boosting agricultural growth.
• Ensure greatly increased numbers of women extension
workers are recruited to engage women facing social con-
finement or limited mobility.
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 Markets:
• Create expanded market access for small scale farmers
and farmer-owned institutions by recognizing that coops
greatly help to achieve that in many circumstances.
• Strengthen the sections of the strategy on markets to clari-
fy that the inefficiency of entire value chains is frequently a
constraint worthy of program interventions.
• Support the development of small and medium enter-
prises to generate employment, income and improve the
functioning of markets and value chains.
• Balance local, regional and international market develop-
ment to take advantage of opportunities for growth at all
scales.
◊ Support export-led strategies only when they are de-
monstrably in the interest of poverty reduction and
improved food security.
◊ Ensure that official development assistance is not
used to create opportunities for already wealthy pro-
ducers and processors most likely to benefit directly
from export-led growth in trade.
• Address the mix of constraints that limit the movement of
surplus food to deficit regions, such as market failures, weak
infrastructure, administrative barriers and obstacles to trade.
Financial Services:
• Structure programs to address the cost and affordability of
financial services, including savings, insurance and credit.
• Provide necessary enterprise or livelihood training for
credit recipients to ensure loans result in productive gains
rather than burdensome debt.
• Address the barriers to credit and market participation
rather than simply increasing opportunities for access.
Gender:
• Strengthen, clarify and expand the section on gender.
• Adopt and consistently follow a ‘gender’ perspective rather
than simply citing ‘women’.
• Separate the discussion of the status and challenges of
‘women’ from those of the ‘poor’.
• Make ‘gender’ a cross-cutting strategic element, incorpo-
rating it into other aspects of the strategy. Retain a section
dedicated to gender issues in food security and agriculture.
• Incorporate approaches to working with men to address
social, economic and legal issues underlying the disadvan-
taged status of women.
◊ Avoid reliance on solutions to gender bias such as
‘engaging in dialogue’ with men since the cultural
roots of patriarchy and male privilege will likely not
be fundamentally reshaped in that way. Instead, en-
gage men around the structural changes—such as
land ownership, inheritance, financial management
and social mobility—needed to improve the status of
women and create viable lasting change.
• Base the gender integration strategy on existing strong
USAID guidance such as the draft MYAP FY 10 guidelines.
• Beyond a program ‘focus’ on women, allocate resources to
the development needs of women proportional to their
number and prominent role in agricultural production and
in household nutrition, health and food security.
• Use terminology such as the needs of ‘men and women’
farmers, and follow those differing needs into program
strategies that respond to both.
• Structure programs to reach adolescent and young wom-
en, whose social status is often more disadvantaged than
that of adult women.
Social and Community Development:
• Invest in decentralized capacity building for communi-
ties—education, infrastructure and governance—rather
than simply in central governments.
• Clarify the meaning and mechanisms of “community-
based” in the strategy. Ensure the participation of benefi-
ciary groups and communities through a local process of
priority setting and decision making leading to ‘commu-
nity led’ development.
• Support NGOs, farmer associations, and other community-
based groups that provide “bridging capital” by empower-
ing communities to articulate their interests and link more
advantageously to governments.
• Prioritize conflict resolution in the many countries where
conflict poses significant risks to stability and increased
prosperity.
• Establish a consistent and open process for identifying
‘stakeholders’; enable meaningful stakeholder participa-
tion identification of country needs and the formation of
country strategies.
InterAction understands the challenge in developing a global
food security strategy that is both sustainable and effective.
Our membership represents a tremendous amount of exper-
tise in international development and humanitarian relief is-
sues and we appreciate this opportunity to provide feedback.
We look forward to working with you throughout this process
and please let us know how we can be most helpful.