International Food Security: Insufficient Efforts by Host	 
Governments and Donors Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger in	 
Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015 (29-MAY-08, GAO-08-680).		 
                                                                 
In 1996, the United States and more than 180 world leaders	 
pledged to halve the number of undernourished people globally by 
2015 from the 1990 level. The global number has not decreased	 
significantly--remaining at about 850 million in 2001-2003--and  
the number in sub-Saharan Africa has increased from about 170	 
million in 1990-1992 to over 200 million in 2001-2003. On the	 
basis of analyses of U.S. and international agency documents,	 
structured panel discussions with experts and practitioners, and 
fieldwork in four African countries, GAO was asked to examine (1)
factors that contribute to persistent food insecurity in	 
sub-Saharan Africa and (2) the extent to which host governments  
and donors, including the United States, are working toward	 
halving hunger in the region by 2015.				 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-08-680 					        
    ACCNO:   A82209						        
  TITLE:     International Food Security: Insufficient Efforts by Host
Governments and Donors Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger in	 
Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015					 
     DATE:   05/29/2008 
  SUBJECT:   Agricultural industry				 
	     Agricultural production				 
	     Agricultural programs				 
	     Climate change					 
	     Contaminated foods 				 
	     Developing countries				 
	     Federal aid to foreign countries			 
	     Food industry					 
	     Food inspection					 
	     Food relief programs				 
	     Food safety					 
	     Food supply					 
	     Foreign aid programs				 
	     Foreign governments				 
	     Grain and grain products				 
	     International agreements				 
	     International cooperation				 
	     International food programs			 
	     International organizations			 
	     International relations				 
	     Program management 				 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Sustainable agriculture				 
	     Policies and procedures				 
	     Program coordination				 
	     Program goals or objectives			 
	     Africa Food Security Initiative			 
	     Sub-Saharan Africa 				 
	     UN World Food Program				 
	     USAID Initiative to End Hunger in Africa		 

******************************************************************
** This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a  **
** GAO Product.                                                 **
**                                                              **
** No attempt has been made to display graphic images, although **
** figure captions are reproduced.  Tables are included, but    **
** may not resemble those in the printed version.               **
**                                                              **
** Please see the PDF (Portable Document Format) file, when     **
** available, for a complete electronic file of the printed     **
** document's contents.                                         **
**                                                              **
******************************************************************
GAO-08-680


This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-08-680 
entitled 'International Food Security: Insufficient Efforts by Host 
Governments and Donors Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger in Sub-Saharan 
Africa by 2015' which was released on May 29, 2008.

This text file was formatted by the U.S. Government Accountability 
Office (GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as part 
of a longer term project to improve GAO products' accessibility. Every 
attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data integrity of 
the original printed product. Accessibility features, such as text 
descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes placed at the 
end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters, are provided 
but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format of the printed 
version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an exact electronic 
replica of the printed version. We welcome your feedback. Please E-mail 
your comments regarding the contents or accessibility features of this 
document to [email protected]. 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright 
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed 
in its entirety without further permission from GAO. Because this work 
may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the 
copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this 
material separately. 

Report to Congressional Requesters: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

May 2008: 

International Food Security: 

Insufficient Efforts by Host Governments and Donors Threaten Progress 
to Halve Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015: 

GAO-08-680: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-08-680, a report to congressional requesters. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

In 1996, the United States and more than 180 world leaders pledged to 
halve the number of undernourished people globally by 2015 from the 
1990 level. The global number has not decreased significantlyï¿½remaining 
at about 850 million in 2001-2003ï¿½and the number in sub-Saharan Africa 
has increased from about 170 million in 1990-1992 to over 200 million 
in 2001-2003. On the basis of analyses of U.S. and international agency 
documents, structured panel discussions with experts and practitioners, 
and fieldwork in four African countries, GAO was asked to examine (1) 
factors that contribute to persistent food insecurity in sub-Saharan 
Africa and (2) the extent to which host governments and donors, 
including the United States, are working toward halving hunger in the 
region by 2015. 

What GAO Found: 

Chronic undernourishment (food insecurity) in sub-Saharan Africa 
persists primarily due to low agricultural productivity, limited rural 
development, government policy disincentives, and the impact of poor 
health on the agricultural workforce. Additional factors, including 
rising global commodity prices and climate change, will likely further 
exacerbate food insecurity in the region. Agricultural productivity in 
sub-Saharan Africa, as measured by grain yield, is only about 40 
percent of that of the rest of the worldï¿½s developing countries, and 
the gap has widened over the years (see left figure). Low agricultural 
productivity in sub-Saharan Africa is due, in part, to the limited use 
of agricultural inputs, such as fertilizer and improved seed varieties, 
and the lack of modern farming practices. 

Figure: Sub-Saharan Africa Has Lagged Behind the Rest of the World's 
Developing Countries in Agricultural Productivity: 

[See PDF for image] 

The figure is a multiple line graph and a photograph of a farmer 
plowing a field. The graph depicts the following data: 

Agricultural productivity, by grain yield (kilograms per acre): 

Year: 1970; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 338.139; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 624.954. 

Year: 1975; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 418.187; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 637.968. 

Year: 1980; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 446.47; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 741.97. 

Year: 1985; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 454.974. 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 870.869. 

Year: 1990; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 438.263; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1013.99. 

Year: 1995; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 424.958; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1119.09. 

Year: 2000; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 468.151; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1211.72. 

Year: 2005; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 529.176; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1312.22. 

[End of figure] 

Figure: Share of Official Development Assistance (ODA) of Agriculture 
for Sub-Saharan Africa Has Declined: 

[See PDF for image] 

The figure is a multiple line graph and a photograph of a child holding 
a bowl of grain. The graph depicts the following data: 

Year: 1974; 
Mutilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-Saharan 
Africa: 17%; Bilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-
Saharan Africa: 6%. 

Year: 1978; 
Mutilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-Saharan 
Africa: 32%; Bilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-
Saharan Africa: 5%. 

Year: 1982; 
Mutilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-Saharan 
Africa: 26%; Bilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-
Saharan Africa: 11%. 

Year: 1986; 
Mutilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-Saharan 
Africa: 19%; Bilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-
Saharan Africa: 12%. 

Year: 1990; 
Mutilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-Saharan 
Africa: 21%; Bilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-
Saharan Africa: 1%. 

Year: 1994; 
Mutilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-Saharan 
Africa: 9%; Bilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-
Saharan Africa: 8%. 

Year: 1998; 
Mutilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-Saharan 
Africa: 6%; Bilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-
Saharan Africa: 5%. 

Year: 2002; 
Mutilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-Saharan 
Africa: 3%; Bilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-
Saharan Africa: 4%. 

Year: 2006; 
Mutilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-Saharan 
Africa: 7%; Bilateral Assistance, Share of ODA for agriculture in sub-
Saharan Africa: 3%. 

Source: GAO analysis of Food and Agriculture Organization and 
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data. 

[End of figure] 

The efforts of host governments and donors, including the United 
States, to achieve the goal of halving hunger in sub-Saharan Africa by 
2015 have thus far been insufficient. First, some host governments have 
not prioritized food security as a development goal, and, according to 
a 2008 report of the International Food Policy Research Institute, as 
of 2005, only a few countries had fulfilled a 2003 pledge to direct 10 
percent of government spending to agriculture. Second, donors have 
reduced the priority given to agriculture (see right figure), and their 
efforts have been further hampered by difficulties in coordination and 
deficiencies in measuring and monitoring progress. Third, limited 
agricultural development resources and a fragmented approach have 
impaired U.S. efforts to reduce hunger in Africa. The U.S. Agency for 
International Development (USAID) funding to address food insecurity in 
Africa has been primarily for emergency food aid, which has been 
crucial in helping to alleviate food crises but has not addressed the 
underlying factors that contributed to the recurrence and severity of 
these crises. Also, the United Statesï¿½ principal strategy for meeting 
its commitment to halve hunger in Africa is limited to some of USAIDï¿½s 
agricultural development activities and does not integrate other U.S. 
agenciesï¿½ agricultural development assistance to the region. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends that the Administrator of USAID, in collaboration with 
the Secretaries of Agriculture, State, and the Treasury, (1) develop an 
integrated governmentwide U.S. strategy that defines actions and 
resources, enhances collaboration with host governments and donors, and 
improves measures to monitor progress and (2) report annually to 
Congress on the implementation of the first recommendation. USAID 
concurred with the first recommendation but expressed concerns about 
the vehicle of the annual reporting. The Departments of Agriculture and 
the Treasury generally concurred with the findings, while State 
identified additional issues for consideration. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-680]. For more 
information, contact Thomas Melito at (202) 512-9601 or 
[email protected]. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Results in Brief: 

Background: 

Food Insecurity Persists in Sub-Saharan Africa Due to Several Factors, 
Including Low Agricultural Productivity: 

Efforts of Host Governments and Donors, Including the United States, 
Toward Halving Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015 Have Been 
Insufficient: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Appendix II: U.S. Participation in the 1996 World Food Summit: 

Appendix III: Factors and Interventions Affecting Food Security: 

Appendix IV: Summary Results of GAO's Structured Panel Discussions with 
Donors and NGOs, with Examples of Interventions: 

Appendix V: Additional Development Partners That Implement Food 
Security Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa: 

Appendix VI: New Food Security Challenges: Rising Demand for Biofuels 
and Climate Change: 

Appendix VII: Comments from the U.S. Agency for International 
Development: 

Appendix VIII: Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: 

Appendix IX: Comments from the Department of State: 

Appendix X: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Related GAO Products: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Sub-Saharan African Farmers' Use of Agricultural Inputs 
Compared with Other Farmers Worldwide, 1998 to 2000: 

Table 2: Framework for Addressing Food Security Issues: 

Table 3: Key Recommendations for Improving Food Security: 

Table 4: Selected Studies with Negative Projected Impacts of Climate 
Change on African Agriculture: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Selected Events Related to Achieving Food Security and to the 
WFS and MDG Targets, 1996 to 2015: 

Figure 2: Prevalence of Undernourishment in the World (as of 2001- 
2003), and Progress Needed to Halve Hunger in Four Selected Sub-Saharan 
African Countries by 2015: 

Figure 3: Selected Factors Contributing to Persistent Food Insecurity 
in Sub-Saharan Africa: 

Figure 4: Grain Yield Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa Compared With the 
Rest of the World's Developing Countries, 1961 to 2006: 

Figure 5: Changes in Commodity Prices, 2000 to 2008: 

Figure 6: Actual Annual Agricultural Sector Spending of Kenya, 
Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia Compared With CAADP Goal (2002 to 
2005), and Annual Agricultural Sector Spending Required to Halve Hunger 
by 2015: 

Figure 7: Trends in Multilateral and Bilateral Official Development 
Assistance to Agriculture for Africa, 1974 to 2006: 

Figure 8: Worldwide ODA to Africa for Emergencies Compared with ODA to 
Africa for Agriculture, 1974 to 2006: 

Figure 9: Comparison of USAID Funding for Emergencies and Food Aid 
Funding for Development Activities in Sub-Saharan Africa under Title II 
of Public Law 480, Fiscal Years 1992 to 2007: 

Figure 10: Trends in U.S. Official Development Assistance to 
Agriculture for Africa, 1974 to 2006: 

Abbreviations: 

AGRA: Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa: 

AU: African Union: 

CAADP: Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program: 

C3P: Crop Crisis Control Project: 

CGIAR: Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research: 

DAC: Development Assistance Committee: 

FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization: 

G8: Group of Eight: 

HIPC: Heavily Indebted Poor Countries: 

HIV/AIDS: human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency 
syndrome: 

IEHA: Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (A U.S. Presidential 
Initiative): 

IFAD: International Fund for Agricultural Development: 

IFAR: International Food Assistance Report: 

IFPRI: International Food Policy Research Institute: 

IITA: International Institute for Tropical Agriculture: 

IMF: International Monetary Fund: 

IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: 

MDG: Millennium Development Goal: 

MCC: Millennium Challenge Corporation: 

NEPAD: New Partnership for Africa's Development: 

NGO: nongovernmental organization: 

ODA: official development assistance: 

OECD: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: 

PRSP: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper: 

PSNP: Productive Safety Net Program (Ethiopia): 

SOFI: The State of Food Insecurity in the World: 

UN: United Nations: 

UNDP: United Nations Development Program: 

UNFCC: United Nations Framework on Climate Change: 

USAID: U.S. Agency for International Development: 

USDA: U.S. Department of Agriculture: 

WFP: World Food Program: 

WFS: World Food Summit: 

WHO: World Health Organization: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548: 

May 29, 2008: 

The Honorable Russell D. Feingold: 
Chairman: 
Subcommittee on African Affairs: 
Committee on Foreign Relations: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable George V. Voinovich: 
Ranking Member: 
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal 
Workforce, and the District of Columbia: 
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Donald M. Payne: 
Chairman: 
Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health: 
Committee on Foreign Affairs: 
House of Representatives: 

At the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome,[Footnote 1] the United 
States and more than 180 world leaders pledged to halve the total 
number of undernourished[Footnote 2] people worldwide from the 1990 
level--a commitment that they reaffirmed in 2000 when they established 
the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which included a target to 
halve the proportion or the percentage of the world's population that 
is undernourished by 2015. More than a decade later, however, the 
number of undernourished people has not decreased significantly, and 
about 850 million people, including 170 million children, remain 
undernourished, according to the United Nations (UN) Food and 
Agriculture Organization (FAO). Furthermore, the number of 
undernourished people in sub-Saharan Africa has increased from about 
170 million in the period of 1990 to 1992 to over 200 million in the 
period of 2001 to 2003.[Footnote 3] 

Since early 2007, food-related riots have occurred in 15 countries, 
including 7 in sub-Saharan Africa,[Footnote 4] leading both the UN 
Secretary-General and the head of the World Food Program (WFP) to 
express concern about the impact of chronic undernourishment, or food 
insecurity, on world peace and security. In January 2008, world leaders 
meeting in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum predicted 
that food insecurity would be among the top potential threats to the 
world economy this year and for decades to come. In April 2008, the 
president of the World Bank called for a New Deal for a Global Food 
Policy that would involve a combination of long-term efforts to boost 
agricultural productivity in developing countries and short-term 
emergency aid to address immediate food crises. 

You asked us to examine (1) factors that contribute to persistent food 
insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and (2) the extent to which host 
governments and donors, including the United States, are working toward 
halving hunger in the region by 2015. 

To address these objectives, we reviewed economic literature on the 
factors that influence food security and recent reports, studies, and 
papers issued by U.S. agencies, multilateral organizations, and 
bilateral donors. In the four African countries that we selected for 
fieldwork--Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa, and Mozambique and Zambia 
in southern Africa[Footnote 5]--we conducted structured discussions 
with groups of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and donors. We 
conducted 9 panels with about 80 participants representing more than 60 
entities, to obtain the panels' views on recommendations and lessons 
learned for accelerating progress toward achieving food security in 
these countries. In Washington, D.C., we interviewed officials from 
several U.S. agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International 
Development (USAID); the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA), State, 
and the Treasury; and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). In 
addition, we met with the Rome-based UN food and agriculture agencies-
-namely, FAO, WFP, and the International Fund for Agricultural 
Development (IFAD)--as well as the U.S. Mission to the UN and several 
other bilateral donors' permanent representatives.[Footnote 6] We also 
met with representatives of private foundations that actively fund 
agriculture[Footnote 7] and food security projects in sub-Saharan 
Africa. Lastly, we convened a roundtable of 12 experts and 
practitioners--including representatives from academia, research 
organizations, multilateral organizations, and NGOs--to further 
delineate, on the basis of our initial work, some of the factors that 
have contributed to continued food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and 
efforts to address these factors. 

We conducted this performance audit from April 2007 to May 2008 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those 
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 
conclusions based on our audit objectives. (App. I provides a more 
detailed discussion of our objectives, scope, and methodology.) 

Results in Brief: 

Persistent food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa is primarily due to 
several factors, including low agricultural productivity, limited rural 
development, government policy disincentives, and the impact of poor 
health on the agricultural workforce. Additional factors, including 
rising global commodity prices and climate change, will likely further 
exacerbate food insecurity in the region. The gap between the average 
grain yield in sub-Saharan Africa compared with the rest of the world's 
developing countries has widened over the years, and, by 2006, the 
yield in sub-Saharan Africa was only about 40 percent of that of the 
rest of the world's developing countries. Low agricultural productivity 
is due, in part, to the limited use of agricultural inputs, such as 
fertilizer and improved seed varieties, and the lack of modern farming 
practices. Poor roads and lack of access to credit make it difficult 
for farmers to effectively participate in local and regional markets to 
increase their income. Moreover, some government policies, such as high 
taxation on agriculture, have a negative impact on agricultural 
production and food security. For example, Tanzanian farmers must pay 
about 55 taxes, levies, and fees to sell their agricultural products, 
equivalent to 50 percent of the price the farmers receive. Poor health 
also exacerbates food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa through its 
adverse impact on the agricultural workforce, according to panels in 
the four countries we visited. For example, the human immunodeficiency 
virus (HIV) has taken a heavy toll on the population and agricultural 
production of sub-Saharan Africa, because two thirds of those in the 
world who have HIV live in that region. In addition, rising global 
commodity prices and climate change will likely further exacerbate food 
insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa. Higher fuel and food prices are 
reducing the capacity of low-income consumers and import-dependent 
countries to purchase food, as well as raising delivery costs for 
emergency food aid programs providing assistance to the most food- 
insecure. Experts predict that climate change, such as global warming, 
will also reduce grain yields and increase hunger in sub-Saharan 
Africa. 

The efforts of host governments and donors, including the United 
States, toward achieving the goal of halving hunger in sub-Saharan 
Africa by 2015 have thus far been insufficient, as discussed below: 

* Host governments: Despite their commitment in the 1996 Rome 
Declaration on World Food Security to achieve food security for all, 
some host governments have not prioritized food security as a 
development goal, and agricultural spending levels fall below their 
stated commitment. Of 10 African Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers 
(PRSP) reviewed in an FAO-commissioned study, only half included 
policies to address food insecurity and fewer than half included 
interventions to address food insecurity. Furthermore, by the end of 
2008, only 13 of 40 countries are expected to have completed the 
roundtable process for the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development 
Program, which defines programs that are to be financed by host 
governments and donors. Although host governments pledged in 2003 to 
direct 10 percent of government spending to agriculture, only a few 
countries had achieved this commitment as of 2005. In addition, weak 
institutional capacity makes it difficult for host governments to 
sustain interventions after donor assistance has ended and to report on 
progress toward meeting the 2015 hunger goals. 

* Multilateral and bilateral donors: Donors have reduced the priority 
given to agriculture, and their efforts have been hampered by 
difficulties in coordination and deficiencies in estimates of 
undernourishment used to measure progress toward attaining the goals to 
halve hunger. The share of official development assistance (ODA) from 
both multilateral and bilateral donors to agriculture for Africa has 
significantly declined, from about 15 percent in the 1980s to about 4 
percent in 2006. Difficulties in coordination have also posed 
challenges in aligning donor efforts. Consequently, the UN has 
established new initiatives to facilitate donor coordination, such as 
the UN MDG Africa Steering Group and country-level Food Security Theme 
Groups. Furthermore, FAO's estimates of undernourishment have been 
criticized for weaknesses in methodology and poor country data quality 
and reliability. Its estimates are also outdated, with FAO's most 
recent published estimates covering the 3-year period of 2001 to 2003. 
[Footnote 8] 

* The United States: Limited agricultural development resources and a 
fragmented approach impair U.S. efforts to end hunger in sub-Saharan 
Africa. In recent years, USAID's food aid funding for emergencies has 
increased substantially, while its funding for development has not 
changed significantly. While emergency food aid has been crucial in 
helping to alleviate the growing number of emergency food crises, it 
does not address the underlying factors that contributed to the 
recurrence and severity of these crises. USAID's efforts since 2003 to 
shift its focus from emergency food aid to long-term agricultural 
development have not been successful. The United States' Presidential 
Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA)--the principal U.S. strategy 
to meet its commitment toward halving hunger in sub-Saharan Africa--is 
limited to only some of the agricultural development activities of 
USAID. Other U.S. agencies, such as MCC and USDA, provide substantial 
assistance that includes efforts intended to address agriculture and 
food security in sub-Saharan Africa, but these efforts are not 
integrated into IEHA. Given this fragmented approach to food security, 
the U.S. government is likely missing opportunities to leverage each 
agency's expertise and to minimize duplication. 

In this report, we recommend that the Administrator of USAID (1) work 
in collaboration with the Secretaries of State, Agriculture, and the 
Treasury to develop an integrated governmentwide U.S. strategy that 
defines each agency's actions and resource commitments toward achieving 
food security in sub-Saharan Africa, including improving collaboration 
with host governments and other donors and developing improved measures 
to monitor and evaluate progress toward the implementation of this 
strategy, and (2) report on progress toward the implementation of this 
recommendation as part of the annual U.S. International Food Assistance 
Report[Footnote 9] submitted to Congress. 

USAID, USDA, and State provided written comments on a draft of our 
report. We have reprinted these agencies' comments in appendixes VII, 
VIII, and IX, respectively, along with our responses to specific 
points. In addition to these agencies, several other entities-- 
including MCC, Treasury, FAO, IFAD, the International Food Policy 
Research Institute (IFPRI), the United Nations Development Program 
(UNDP), and WFP--provided technical comments on a draft of our report, 
which we have incorporated as appropriate. 

USAID concurred with our first recommendation--noting that the 
responsibility for halving hunger by 2015 lies with the respective 
countries, while mentioning activities that the United States, through 
efforts such as IEHA, and the international community are undertaking 
to address the issue of food insecurity. However, USAID expressed 
concern with our conclusion that the shift in its focus from emergency 
food aid to long-term agricultural development has not been successful. 
We recognize the challenges of addressing an increasing number of 
emergencies within tight resource constraints. However, addressing 
emergencies does not break the cycle of low agricultural productivity, 
high poverty, and food insecurity that has persisted in many sub- 
Saharan African countries. Regarding our second recommendation, USAID 
asserted that the International Food Assistance Report (IFAR) is not 
the appropriate vehicle for reporting on the progress of the 
implementation of our first recommendation. USAID suggested that a 
report such as the annual progress report on IEHA (which is not 
congressionally required) would be more appropriate. We disagree. We 
believe that the congressionally required annual IFAR, in fact, would 
be an appropriate vehicle for reporting on USAID's and other U.S. 
agencies' implementation of our first recommendation. Public Law 480, 
section 407(f) (codified at 7 U.S.C. 1736a(f)) requires that the 
President prepare an annual report that "shall include. . .an 
assessment of the progress toward achieving food security in each 
country receiving food assistance from the United States Government." 
This report is intended to contain a discussion of food security 
efforts by U.S. agencies. 

In addition, USDA stated that our report was timely and provided useful 
information and recommendations. Noting its participation in an 
interagency food aid policy coordinating process, USDA reaffirmed its 
commitment to using its full range of authorities and programs to 
address the need for and improve the effectiveness of global food 
assistance and development. State identified additional issues for 
consideration, which we have addressed as appropriate. Specifically, 
State disagreed with our statement that U.S. agencies had made no 
significant effort to coordinate their food security programs, citing 
its ongoing coordination with USAID and USDA on food security issues. 
For example, State indicated that several of its bureaus work closely 
with USAID and USDA to coordinate food security issues. However, as we 
noted in this report, to date, these efforts have been focused 
primarily on food aid, as opposed to food security, and there is no 
comprehensive U.S. governmentwide strategy for addressing food 
insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa. Treasury generally concurred with our 
findings and provided additional comments for consideration, which we 
have addressed in this report as appropriate. 

Background: 

[Definition and Elements of Food Security: 

Definition: When all people at all times have both physical and 
economic access to sufficient food to meet their dietary needs for a 
productive and healthy life. 

Elements: Food availability: achieved when sufficient quantities of 
food (supplied through household production, other domestic output, 
commercial imports, or food assistance) are consistently available to 
all individuals within a country. 

Food access: ensured when households and all individuals within them 
have adequate resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious 
diet. 

Food utilization: attained with the proper biological use of food, 
requiring a diet providing sufficient energy and essential nutrients, 
potable water, and adequate sanitation. 

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization.] 

Food insecurity--the lack of access of all people at all times to 
sufficient, nutritionally adequate, and safe food, without undue risk 
of losing such access--results in hunger and malnutrition, according to 
FAO. FAO estimates that 90 percent of the hungry suffer from chronic 
malnutrition. About 80 percent of the hungry worldwide live in rural 
areas--about half of them are smallholder peasants; 22 percent are 
landless laborers; and 8 percent live by using natural resources, such 
as pastoralists.[Footnote 10] Inadequate food and nutrition have 
profound impacts. Undernourished children have a smaller chance of 
survival and suffer lasting damage to their mental and physical 
development. In addition, work productivity is often impaired among 
undernourished adults. Food aid has helped to address the immediate 
nutritional requirements of some vulnerable people in the short term, 
but food aid has not addressed the underlying causes of persistent food 
insecurity. 

World Leaders Have Established Goals to Halve World Hunger by 2015: 

World leaders have agreed upon two different goals to halve world 
hunger by 2015: the first, established at the 1996 WFS in Rome, is to 
halve the total number of undernourished people worldwide; while the 
second, the first of eight UN MDGs set in 2000, also referred to as MDG-
1, aims to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by halving the 
proportion of undernourished people from the 1990 level by 
2015.[Footnote 11] Both of these goals apply not only globally but also 
at the country and regional levels. Although both the WFS and MDG 
targets to cut hunger are based on FAO's estimates of the number of 
undernourished people, because the MDG target is defined as the ratio 
of the number of undernourished people to the total population, it may 
appear that progress is being made when population increases even 
though there may have been no reduction in the number of undernourished 
people, according to FAO. Figure 1 is a timeline of some of the key 
events related to food security and the WFS and MDG targets. 

Figure 1: Selected Events Related to Achieving Food Security and to the 
WFS and MDG Targets, 1996 to 2015: 

[See PDF for image] 

This figure contains a list of selected events related to achieving 
food security and to the WFS and MDG targets, 1996 to 2015, as well as 
a photograph of a child. The list of events is as follows: 

1996: 
* At the World Food Summit (WFS), the United States and 185 other 
countries set a target to halve the number of undernourished people in 
the world by 2015. 

1997: 
* The President of the United States announced the Partnership for 
Economic Growth and Opportunity in Africa to expand U.S.-African trade 
and investment and to assist African leaders in making needed economic 
reforms. 

1998: 
* The U.S. Congress passed the Africa Seeds of Hope Act authorizing the 
Africa Food Security Initiative to provide agricultural assistance to 5 
target countries. 

1999: 
* The Food and Agriculture Organization published the first State of 
Food Insecurity in the World report. 

2000: 
* The U.S. Congress passed the African Growth and Opportunity Act to 
promote stable and sustainable economic growth and development in sub-
Saharan Africa. 

* The United Nations (UN) established the Millennium Development Goals 
(MDG). MDG-1 set a target to halve the proportion of undernourished 
people in the world by 2015. 

2001: 
* The African Union established the New Partnership for Africa's 
Development (NEPAD), a strategic policy framework for the revival and 
development of Africa. 

2002: 
* Approximately 15.3 million people in 6 countries in southern Africa 
experienced severe food shortages and the threat of famine. 

* The United States launched the Presidential Initiative to End Hunger 
in Africa (IEHA). 

2003: 
* The African Union endorsed the implementation of NEPADï¿½s 
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), a 
framework to guide countriesï¿½ agricultural development efforts, and 
agreed to allocate 10 percent of national budgetary resources to 
agriculture by 2008. 

* The UN established the first of 12 Millennium Villages in Sauri, 
Kenya, as part of the UN Millennium Project. 

2004: 
* The United States established the Millennium Challenge Corporation to 
reduce poverty by supporting sustainable economic growth in partnership 
with developing countries. 

* The UN established the first of 12 Millennium Villages in Sauri, 
Kenya, as part of the UN Millennium Project. 

2005: 
* The U.S. Agency for International Development committed to provide an 
estimated $200 million per year for 5 years through IEHA to support 
CAADP. 

* Leaders of government ministries responsible for development and 
heads of multilateral and bilateral donors agreed upon the Paris 
Declaration on Aid Effectiveness to reform the delivery and management 
of donor assistance in preparation for the 5-year review of MDGs. 

2006: 
* The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa was launched, chaired 
by the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, as 
an African-led partnership to help millions of small-scale farmers and 
their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. 

* The African Union called for an increase in fertilizer use from 8 to 
50 kilograms per hectare by 2015 and an increase in intra-African trade 
and other appropriate strategies to address food security in the Abuja 
Declaration. 

2007: 
* The UN Secretary-General established the UN MDG Africa Steering 
Group. 

2008: 
* The World Bank 2008 World Development Report featured agriculture. 

* The World Economic Forum predicted food security to be among the top 
threats to global economy in 2008 and for decades to come. 

* The World Bank announced its New Deal for Global Food Policy to focus 
on hunger, malnutrition, access to food, and interconnections with 
climate change, investment, and other issues. 

2015: 
* Target year to achieve both the WFS and MDG targets to halve hunger. 

Source: GAO. 

[End of figure] 

To reach the goal set at the 1996 WFS, world leaders approved a Plan of 
Action,[Footnote 12] the focus of which is to assist developing 
countries in becoming more self-reliant in meeting their food needs by 
promoting broad-based economic, political, and social reforms at the 
local, national, regional, and international levels. The WFS 
participants endorsed various actions but did not enter into any 
binding commitments. They agreed to review and revise their national 
plans, programs, and strategies, where appropriate, to achieve food 
security that is consistent with the WFS Plan of Action. Participants 
also agreed to submit periodic reports to FAO's Committee on World Food 
Security (CFS) on the implementation of the Plan of Action to track 
progress on food security. 

To monitor progress toward the target of halving the number of 
undernourished people worldwide, FAO periodically updates its estimates 
of the undernourished population at the global level as well as at the 
country level. FAO publishes these estimates in its annual report on 
The State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI), which was first 
issued in 1999. The same estimates are used by the UN to track progress 
toward the MDG hunger goal. 

Sub-Saharan Africa Has Made Little or No Progress in Achieving WFS and 
MDG Goals: 

As shown in figure 2, food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa is severe 
and widespread. According to FAO's estimates, one out of every four 
undernourished people in the developing countries lives in sub-Saharan 
Africa. This region also has the highest prevalence of food insecurity, 
with one out of every three people considered undernourished. In April 
2008, FAO reported that 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, out of 37 
countries worldwide, were critically food-insecure and required 
external assistance. 

Sub-Saharan Africa has not made much progress toward the WFS and MDG 
hunger goals to halve, respectively, the total number of and the 
proportion (or the percentage) of undernourished people by 2015. 
Between the periods of 1990 to 1992 and 2001 to 2003, the number of 
undernourished people in the region increased from 169 million to 206 
million,[Footnote 13] and decreased in only 15 of the 39 countries for 
which data were reported. The prevalence of hunger, or the proportion 
of undernourished people in the population, has declined slightly, from 
35 percent in 1990 to 1992 to 32 percent in 2001 to 2003--but this 
change is due to population growth. According to FAO's projections, the 
prevalence of hunger in sub-Saharan Africa will decline by 2015, but 
the number of hungry people will not fall below the 1990 to 1992 
levels. By 2015, FAO estimates that sub-Saharan Africa will have 30 
percent of the undernourished population in developing countries, 
compared with 20 percent in 1990 to 1992. These data suggest that sub- 
Saharan Africa needs to substantially accelerate progress if it is to 
meet the WFS and MDG targets by 2015. Figure 2 shows the prevalence of 
undernourishment around the world and also shows, for each of the four 
selected countries in East Africa and southern Africa that we focused 
on in our review, the progress needed to reduce the number of 
undernourished people to meet the WFS and MDG targets by 2015. 

Figure 2: Prevalence of Undernourishment in the World (as of 2001- 
2003), and Progress Needed to Halve Hunger in Four Selected Sub-Saharan 
African Countries by 2015: 

[See PDF for image] 

This figure contains a map of the World and an inset map of Sub-Saharan 
Africa, with shading indicating the percentage of the population that 
is undernourished. A series of pie-charts depicts the following data: 

Number and proportion of undernourished people in selected countries, 
2001-2003: 
Kenya: 9.7 million (31%0; 
Tanzania: 16.1 million (44%); 
Mozambique: 8.3 million (45%); 
Zambia: 5.1 million (47%). 

Four line graphs depict the following data: 

Number of undernourished people in selected countries compared with the 
MDG and WFS targets for 2015 (in millions): 

Kenya: 
1990-92: 9.5; 
1995-97: 10; 
2001-03: 9.7; 
2015 targets: 4.7 (WFS), 7.6 (MDG). 

Tanzania: 
1990-92: 9.9; 
1995-97: 15.7; 
2001-03: 16.1; 
2015 targets: 4.9 (WFS), 8.5 (MDG). 

Mozambique: 
1990-92: 9.2; 
1995-97: 9.5; 
2001-03: 8.3; 
2015 targets: 4.6 (WFS), 7.4 (MDG). 

Zambia: 
1990-92: 4; 
1995-97: 4.6; 
2001-03: 5.1; 
2015 targets: 2 (WFS), 3 (MDG). 

Sources: GAO analysis of Food and Agriculture Organization data; Map 
Resources (map). 

[End of figure] 

Multiple Development Partners Implement Programs to Advance Agriculture 
and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa: 

The principal development partners that implement programs to advance 
agriculture and food security in sub-Saharan Africa are as follows: 

* Regional organizations and host governments: At the regional level, 
the primary vehicle for addressing agricultural development in sub- 
Saharan Africa is the New Partnership for Africa's Development 
(NEPAD)[Footnote 14] and its Comprehensive Africa Agriculture 
Development Program (CAADP).[Footnote 15] The African Union (AU) 
established NEPAD in July 2001 as a strategic policy framework for the 
revitalization and development of Africa. In 2003, AU members endorsed 
the implementation of CAADP, a framework that is aimed to guide 
agricultural development efforts in African countries, and agreed to 
allocate 10 percent of government spending to agriculture by 2008. 
Subsequently, member states established a regionally supported, country-
driven CAADP roundtable process, which defines the programs and 
policies that require increased investment and support by host 
governments; multilateral organizations, including international 
financial institutions; bilateral donors; and private foundations. 
According to USAID officials, the CAADP roundtable process is designed 
to increase productivity and market access for large numbers of 
smallholders and promote broad-based economic growth. At the country 
level, host governments are expected to lead the development of a 
strategy for the agricultural sector, the coordination of donor 
assistance, and the implementation of projects and programs, as 
appropriate. 

* Multilateral organizations: Several multilateral organizations and 
international financial institutions implement programs that contribute 
to agricultural development and food security--providing about half of 
the donor assistance to African agriculture in 2006. These entities 
include the following Rome-based UN food and agriculture agencies: FAO, 
whose stated mandate is to achieve food security for all and lead 
international efforts to defeat hunger;[Footnote 16] WFP, which is the 
food aid arm of the UN;[Footnote 17] and IFAD, which finances (through 
loans and grants) efforts in developing countries to reduce rural 
poverty, primarily through increased agricultural productivity, with an 
emphasis on food production. IFAD and other international financial 
institutions, such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank, 
play a large role in providing funding support for agriculture. For 
example, the World Bank also provides Secretariat support for the 
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a 
partnership of countries, international and regional organizations, and 
private foundations supporting the work of 15 international 
agricultural research centers, whose work has played an important role 
in improving agricultural productivity and reducing hunger in the 
developing countries. Together, the World Bank, IFAD, and the African 
Development Bank account for about 73 percent of multilateral ODA to 
agriculture for Africa from 1974 to 2006. In addition, the New York-
based UNDP is responsible for supporting the implementation of the MDG 
targets and houses the UN MDG Support Team. 

* Bilateral donors, including the United States: The major bilateral 
donors have focused on issues of importance to Africa at every Group of 
Eight (G8) summit since the late 1990s.[Footnote 18] In 2005, these 
donors reiterated their commitment to focus on Africa as the only 
continent not on track to meet the MDG targets by 2015 and further 
committed themselves to supporting a comprehensive set of actions to 
raise agricultural productivity, strengthen urban-rural linkages, and 
empower the poor, based on national initiatives and in cooperation with 
NEPAD, CAADP, and other African initiatives. At that time, the 
commitments of the G8 and other donors were expected to lead to an 
increase in ODA to Africa of $25 billion a year by 2010, more than 
twice the amount provided in 2004.[Footnote 19] (See app. V for a 
summary discussion of the role of other development partners, such as 
NGOs and private foundations.) 

In the wake of the 1996 WFS, the United States adopted a number of 
development initiatives for Africa. These initiatives--including the 
Africa Food Security Initiative in 1998, the Africa Seeds of Hope Act 
in 1998, and the African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000--reflect 
U.S. efforts to improve the deteriorating food security situation in 
sub-Saharan Africa. The consistent U.S. positions at the summit were 
that the primary responsibility for reducing food insecurity rests with 
the host governments, and that it is critical that all countries 
promote self-reliance and facilitate food security at all levels. (See 
app. II for a summary of U.S. participation in the 1996 summit.) 

In 2002, the United States launched IEHA, which represents the U.S. 
strategy to help fulfill the MDG of halving hunger in Africa by 2015. 
In 2005, USAID, the primary agency that implements IEHA, committed to 
providing an estimated $200 million per year for 5 years through the 
initiative, using existing funds from Title II of Public Law 
480[Footnote 20] food for development and assorted USAID Development 
Assistance and other accounts. IEHA is intended to build an African-led 
partnership to cut hunger and poverty by investing in efforts to 
promote agricultural growth that is market-oriented and focused on 
small-scale farmers. IEHA is currently implemented in three regional 
missions in Africa as well as in eight bilateral missions: Kenya, 
Tanzania, and Uganda in East Africa; Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia in 
southern Africa; and Ghana and Mali in West Africa.[Footnote 21] 

Food Insecurity Persists in Sub-Saharan Africa Due to Several Factors, 
Including Low Agricultural Productivity: 

Low agricultural productivity, limited rural development, government 
policy disincentives, and poor health are among the main factors 
contributing to persistent food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa. 
[Footnote 22] Additional factors, including rising global commodity 
prices and climate change, will likely further exacerbate food 
insecurity in the region (see fig. 3). 

Figure 3: Selected Factors Contributing to Persistent Food Insecurity 
in Sub-Saharan Africa: 

[See PDF for image] 

This figure is an illustration of selected factors contributing to 
persistent food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to the 
following information, the figure contains four photographs related to 
the selected factors. 

Selected factors contributing to persistent food insecurity: 

Agricultural productivity: 
Examples of some interventions to address food insecurity: 
* Develop and improve markets; 
* Conduct and disseminate research; 
* Increase access to inputs; 
* Improve farm management and capacity; 
* Improve risk management. 

Rural development: 
Examples of some interventions to address food insecurity: 
* Strengthen rural communities and economies; 
* Invest in and improve infrastructure; 
* Increase access to credit. 

Governance: 
Examples of some interventions to address food insecurity: 
* Strengthen sector policies; 
* Improve emergency preparedness and risk management practices; 
* Improve tax policies 

Health: 
Examples of some interventions to address food insecurity: 
* Ensure access to health care and nutrition 

Source: GAO analysis of literature review and structured discussions. 

[End of figure] 

(For further discussions of factors and interventions affecting food 
security, including a framework for addressing food security issues, 
see table 2 in app. III. Additional examples of the interventions, as 
well as the summary results of our structured panel discussions with 
donors and NGOs during fieldwork, are discussed in app. IV.) 

Low Agricultural Productivity: 

Figure: 
[Agricultural Productivity: 
* Photograph showing use of a treadle pump improves a Zambian farmerï¿½s 
access to water. 
* Photograph depicting markets are not developed in many countries in 
East Africa and southern Africa. 

Source: GAO.] 

[End of figure] 

One of the most important factors that contribute to food insecurity in 
sub-Saharan Africa is its low agricultural productivity. Raising 
agricultural productivity is vital to all elements of food security: 
food availability, food access, and food utilization. Although imports 
can be used to supplement domestic agricultural production in some 
countries, importing staple foods may not be practical because some 
main staples, such as cassava,[Footnote 23] are generally not traded in 
the international market. In addition, poor infrastructure in many 
African countries makes it extremely costly to transport imported foods 
to remote areas. Furthermore, because the income of the majority of 
people in developing countries depends directly or indirectly on 
agriculture, growth in this sector would have widespread poverty-
reducing benefits and improve food access for the poor. The World Bank 
pointed out in its 2008 World Development Report[Footnote 24] that 
agriculture's ability to generate income for the poor, particularly for 
women, is more important for food security than its ability to increase 
local food supplies. According to FAO, poverty is a main immediate 
cause of food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa. Agriculture can also 
help enhance diet quality and diversity through new and improved crop 
varieties, thereby improving food utilization and nutritional status. 

Sub-Saharan Africa has lagged behind other developing countries in 
improving agricultural productivity. Since the early 1960s, grain yield 
[Footnote 25] in the rest of the world has increased almost 2.5 percent 
annually (see fig. 4). In contrast, grain yield in sub-Saharan Africa 
has stagnated, with an annual increase of only approximately 1 percent. 
As a result, yield of basic food staples in sub-Saharan Africa, such as 
maize, is much lower than that of other countries. For example, Zambia 
produces about 1,800 kilograms of maize on a hectare of land, while 
China produces almost 3 times as much on the same amount of land. 
Overall, the gap between the average grain yield in sub-Saharan Africa 
compared with the rest of the world's developing countries has widened 
over the years. By 2006, the average grain yield in sub-Saharan Africa 
was only about 40 percent of the rest of the world's developing 
countries. Research has also shown that the expansion of food 
production has taken a very different course in Asia than in sub-
Saharan Africa, where increases in food staples were achieved largely 
by expanding the area cultivated, not by increasing the yield on 
existing acreage. 

Figure 4: Grain Yield Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa Compared With the 
Rest of the World's Developing Countries, 1961 to 2006: 

[See PDF for image] 

The figure is a multiple line graph and two photographs of bowls full 
of grain. The graph depicts the following data: 

Agricultural productivity, by grain yield (kilograms per acre): 

Year: 1961; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 324.413; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 452.216. 

Year: 1962; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 332.922; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 471.596. 

Year: 1963; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 331.614; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 467.072. 

Year: 1964; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 320.23; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 512.214. 

Year: 1965; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 311.83; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 487.868. 

Year: 1966; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 315.6; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 543.169. 

Year: 1967; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 372.777; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 547.915. 

Year: 1968; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 323.745; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 571.476. 

Year: 1969; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 325.019; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 571.104. 

Year: 1970; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 338.139; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 624.954. 

Year: 1971; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 367.831; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 632.577. 

Year: 1972; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 378.861; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 608.47. 

Year: 1973; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 329.628; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 662.097. 

Year: 1974; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 423.397; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 651.136. 

Year: 1975; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 418.187; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 637.968. 

Year: 1976; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 391.765; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 704.438. 

Year: 1977; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 684.676; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 425.217. 

Year: 1978; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 429.489; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 755.004. 

Year: 1979; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 422.415; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 725.825. 

Year: 1980; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 446.47; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 741.97. 

Year: 1981; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 524.64; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 747.384. 

Year: 1982; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 460.161; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 803.112. 

Year: 1983; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 408.863; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 849.535. 

Year: 1984; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 399.408; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 864.266. 

Year: 1985; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 454.974; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 870.869. 

Year: 1986; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 447.594; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 900.825. 

Year: 1987; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 440.473; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 909.354. 

Year: 1988; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 469.845; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 917.777. 

Year: 1989; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 484.835; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 956.619. 

Year: 1990; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 438.263; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1013.99. 

Year: 1991; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 445.046; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 977.494. 

Year: 1992; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 377.755; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1074.92. 

Year: 1993; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 456.185; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1099.08. 

Year: 1994; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 451.85; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1087.76. 

Year: 1995; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 424.958; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1119.09. 

Year: 1996; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 484.543; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1166.15. 

Year: 1997; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 458.771; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1173.42. 

Year: 1998; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 447.679; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1206.05. 

Year: 1999; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 462.371; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1233.28. 

Year: 2000; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 468.151; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1211.72. 

Year: 2001; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 473.582; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1236.21. 

Year: 2002; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 479.901; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1232.5. 

Year: 2003; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 487.183; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1256.01. 

Year: 2004; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 491.313; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1301.34. 

Year: 2005; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 529.176; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1312.22. 

Year: 2006; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 537.399; 
Rest of the World's developing countries: 1341.16. 

Sources: GAO analysis of Food and Agriculture Organization data; GAO 
(photos). 

[End of figure] 

Low agricultural productivity growth in sub-Saharan Africa is partially 
due to inadequate investment and the limited use of modern inputs and 
farming practice. Panelists in all four countries we visited reported 
difficulty in accessing critical inputs, such as land, seed, 
fertilizer, and water, due to their high costs and limited 
availability. The panelists also noted that farm management practices 
were weak in all four countries. FAO data show that the investment per 
hectare of land in sub-Saharan Africa is about one third of the world's 
average. Less than 1 percent of the agricultural land in sub-Saharan 
Africa is irrigated, thereby making agricultural production prone to 
natural disasters, such as droughts. Sub-Saharan Africa uses far less 
inputs, such as fertilizer and pesticide, than other parts of the 
world. For example, its pesticide use is only about 5 percent of the 
world's average, which was 0.39 kilograms per hectare in 1998 to 2000 
(see table 1). The World Bank reports that while scientific plant 
breeding has improved agricultural production throughout much of the 
world, sub-Saharan Africa lags behind in adoption of these new 
varieties. For example, while at least 80 percent of the crop area in 
Asia was planted with improved varieties of rice, maize, sorghum, and 
potatoes, only about 20 percent to 40 percent of the crop area in sub- 
Saharan Africa used new varieties in these categories. According to 
several USAID officials, agricultural productivity has also lagged in 
sub-Saharan Africa because innovations in science and technologies, 
such as improved seed and soil fertility systems, have not been 
transferred and adapted to each country's unique agro-ecosystem. 

Table 1: Sub-Saharan African Farmers' Use of Agricultural Inputs 
Compared with Other Farmers Worldwide, 1998 to 2000: 

Category: Number of live animals per hectare of agricultural land; 
Unit: Livestock units per hectare; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 0.18; 
Worldwide: 0.33. 

Category: Fertilizer consumption per hectare of agricultural land; 
Unit: Kilograms per hectare; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 1.4; 
Worldwide: 27.6. 

Category: Pesticide consumption per hectare of agricultural land; 
Unit: Kilograms per hectare; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 0.02; 
Worldwide: 0.39. 

Category: Share of irrigated land in total agricultural land; 
Unit: Percentage; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 0.6%; 
Worldwide: 5.4%. 

Category: Number of tractors used per hectare of arable land; 
Unit: Number per 1,000 hectare; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: 1.1; 
Worldwide: 19.1. 

Category: Investment per hectare of agricultural land; 
Unit: U.S. dollars per hectare; 
Sub-Saharan Africa: $247; 
Worldwide: $788. 

Source: GAO analysis of Food and Agriculture Organization data. 

[End of table] 

Limited Rural Development: 

Figure: 

Photograph: Opportunities to increase nonfarm income include beekeeping 
training in Kenya. 

Photograph: Weak infrastructure, such as poor roads, impedes economic 
growth in East Africa and southern Africa. 

Source: GAO. 

[End of figure] 

Limited rural development has also been a primary factor aggravating 
food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the population, 
as well as the majority of the poor, lives in the rural areas of the 
region. Weak rural infrastructure and lack of rural investment, among 
other factors, limit the potential for agricultural development and 
opportunities for nonfarm income. Panels in all four countries we 
visited cited poor infrastructure and farmers' lack of access to 
microcredit[Footnote 26] as challenges. 

Rural development in sub-Saharan Africa has suffered from weak 
infrastructure, such as lack of rural telecommunications, electricity, 
and roads. Although the development community has recognized the 
importance of improving rural infrastructure for poverty reduction and 
agricultural growth, infrastructure in the region is generally in a 
frail condition. For example, IFPRI reported that progress in paved 
roads is almost nonexistent in sub-Saharan Africa, and the World Bank 
reported that less than half of the rural population in this region 
lives next to an all-season road. The lack of adequate rural roads 
increases distribution costs, adds to postharvest food spoilage, and 
inhibits the development of local and regional markets as well as 
access to those markets. Many rural households also do not have access 
to safe drinking water, electricity, modern communication services, or 
good transportation. For example, in Burkina Faso, Uganda, and Zambia, 
walking is the principal means of transportation for 87 percent of 
rural residents. IFPRI concluded that it is the poor households within 
the rural areas that have the least access to infrastructure. 

Farmers' lack of access to credit also hinders rural development. The 
World Bank noted that almost all countries in Africa have a large unmet 
demand for agricultural credit and rural finance. With inadequate 
financing in the short term, farmers find it difficult to buy inputs 
and seeds. In the long term, they are unable to invest in land 
improvement, better technology, or irrigation development. The 
International Monetary Fund (IMF) noted that rural credit in sub- 
Saharan Africa is hampered by land tenure systems that prevent the use 
of land as collateral, the absence of physical collateral, the high 
risk associated with rain-fed agriculture and sharp commodity price 
fluctuations, and poor transport and communication facilities. Banks 
that specialize in agricultural lending have become insolvent in many 
sub-Saharan African countries, or have had to be rescued at large 
public cost, with many of these banks collapsing through the 1980s. 

Government Policy Disincentives: 

Figure: Governance: 

Illustration of Report of Baseline Survey of Food Security and 
Nutrition in Mozambique: Mozambique took action to improve emergency 
preparedness and disaster management capacity to help deal with cycles 
of droughts and floods in the region. 

Source: Government of Mozambique. 

[End of figure] 

Each of the panels we conducted in the four countries we visited cited 
weak governance or deficient agricultural policies as challenges, with 
one panelist noting that government policies can be a disincentive to 
agricultural growth. These policies can have a detrimental impact on 
the rural poor. While Asia has fostered growth in agriculture by 
providing credit to support prices and input subsidies to farmers, sub- 
Saharan African governments have taxed agriculture more than the 
governments of other regions. For example, according to the government 
of Tanzania's 2007/2008 Agricultural Sector Review,[Footnote 27] 
Tanzanian farmers must pay about 55 taxes, levies, and fees to sell 
their agricultural products, which is equivalent to 50 percent of the 
products' price. The World Bank noted that efforts by local governments 
to raise local revenue in Tanzania have occasionally added a 
significant tax burden to agriculture, with little benefit. A World 
Bank study found that of the 18 countries studied, the 3 with the 
highest tax rates on the agricultural sector were all in sub-Saharan 
Africa--Cï¿½te d'Ivoire (49 percent), Ghana (60 percent), and Zambia (46 
percent). 

While progress has been made over the past two decades by numerous 
developing countries in reducing these policy biases, many welfare-and 
trade-reducing price distortions remain. These policies continue to 
provide disincentives for agricultural development and investment. 
Other government policies, such as subsidies to agriculture, if used 
improperly, can also negatively affect agriculture and food security. 
For example, a World Bank report notes that the government of Zambia's 
policy of subsidizing smallholders' maize production has had a number 
of long-term effects, including a loss of farmers' skills and knowledge 
and increased dietary concentration on subsidized maize meal among 
Zambian people. We met with officials in Zambia who also expressed 
concern that Zambian maize subsidies led to overreliance on maize meal 
for nutrition and underreliance on other sources of food, such as 
vegetables. 

Poor Health: 

Figure: Photograph with caption: Poor Health: HIV/AIDS, malaria, and 
other diseases affect population and agricultural productivity. 

Source: GAO. 

[End of figure] 

Poor health also exacerbates food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa, 
according to panels in the four countries we visited, through its 
adverse impact on the agricultural workforce. For example, HIV has 
taken a heavy toll on the population and agricultural production of sub-
Saharan Africa, because two thirds of those in the world who have HIV 
live in that region. HIV is concentrated in the most economically 
productive groups, those aged 15 to 45 years, with slightly more women 
infected than men. UNDP noted that more than one quarter of Africans 
are directly affected by the HIV epidemic. HIV/acquired 
immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has a profound impact on poverty by 
reducing adults' capability to work and raising mortality among young 
adults. In addition, malaria kills over 1 million people each year, 
according to the World Health Organization (WHO), mostly in Africa. The 
World Bank notes that there is a two-way relationship between malaria 
and agriculture. Specifically, on one hand, when farmers become ill or 
die from malaria, agricultural production decreases because of lost 
labor, knowledge, and assets. On the other hand, some methods that 
farmers use to increase agricultural production, such as increased 
irrigation, can increase the risk of malaria by increasing the 
population of mosquitoes. Furthermore, WHO estimates that there were 
14.4 million cases of tuberculosis worldwide in 2006, and that Africa 
has the highest incidence of the disease--363 cases per 100,000 people. 
Tuberculosis spreads particularly rapidly in areas with high 
concentrations of livestock. 

Rising Global Commodity Prices: 

Global prices for fuel and agricultural commodities have been rising 
significantly due to various factors, further exacerbating food 
insecurity. From 2000 to early 2008, oil prices have increased by 238 
percent, grain prices have increased by 175 percent, and vegetable oil 
prices have increased by 184 percent (see fig. 5). The growing use of 
agricultural products, such as soybeans and corn, for biofuels has 
raised the price of these commodities and reduced the amount of land 
available for production of other food commodities.[Footnote 28] (See 
app. VI for further discussion of biofuels and their impacts on food 
security.) Economic growth in large countries, such as China and India, 
has also raised demand for food--through both increased incomes and 
shifting dietary patterns.[Footnote 29] Droughts in major grain- 
producing countries, such as Australia, and record-low grain reserves 
have further constrained world supplies and increased the prices of 
agricultural goods. 

Figure 5: Changes in Commodity Prices, 2000 to 2008: 

[See PDF for image] 

This figure is a multiple line graph depicting the following data: 

Index 2000=100: 

Year: 2000; 
Grain: 100; 
Vegetable oil: 100; 
Crude Oil: 100. 

Year: 2001; 
Grain: 104.58; 
Vegetable oil: 98.63; 
Crude Oil: 86.17. 

Year: 2002; 
Grain: 119.48; 
Vegetable oil: 116.49; 
Crude Oil: 88.36. 

Year: 2003; 
Grain: 120.95; 
Vegetable oil: 142.2; 
Crude Oil: 102.33. 

Year: 2004; 
Grain: 130.62; 
Vegetable oil: 167.83; 
Crude Oil: 133.73. 

Year: 2005; 
Grain: 126.83; 
Vegetable oil: 140.91; 
Crude Oil: 188.96. 

Year: 2006; 
Grain: 153.84; 
Vegetable oil: 156.75; 
Crude Oil: 227.64. 

Year: 2007; 
Grain: 201.33; 
Vegetable oil: 227.31; 
Crude Oil: 251.91. 

Year: 2008 (projected); 
Grain: 274.76; 
Vegetable oil: 284.24; 
Crude Oil: 338.23. 

Source: GAO analysis of International Monetary Fund World Economic 
Outlook Database (April 2008) data. 

Note: Index numbers are used to compare changes in prices over time. An 
index-based comparison involves measuring the relative value of a price 
in a given time period (e.g., in 2004) compared with a price in another 
time period, which has been designated as the base (e.g., in 2000). The 
value of the base period is set at 100 and prices for other periods are 
expressed as percentages of the value of the base period. Therefore, if 
the index of 2004 is 140, prices in 2004 were 40 percent higher than 
prices in 2000. 

[End of figure] 

Experts suggest that rising fuel and commodity prices are negatively 
impacting African food security efforts through several channels, as 
follows: 

* Higher fuel prices increase the prices of fertilizer and other inputs 
for farmers and make harvesting, storage, and transportation of 
agricultural production more expensive. Higher fuel import costs also 
limit available foreign exchange for imports of food. USDA reports that 
official development assistance has fallen well short of rising energy 
import bills. Twenty-two countries--15 of which are in sub-Saharan 
Africa--depend on imported fuel, import grain, and report a prevalence 
of undernourishment exceeding 30 percent, according to FAO. 

* Higher agricultural prices hurt many of Africa's food-insecure, 
including low-income consumers who spend a large share of their income 
on grains and farmers who buy more food than they produce. Food- 
insecure populations are likely to be net buyers of food, and many sub- 
Saharan African countries are, in fact, net importers of food.[Footnote 
30] In February 2008, FAO announced that 21 African countries are in 
crisis as a result, in part, of higher food prices, while nutritional 
studies estimate that 16 million additional people would be affected by 
food insecurity for every 1 percent increase in staple food prices, 
with many of these people being in Africa. In the long term, while 
higher grain prices provide incentives to expand agricultural 
production, complementary policies and investments in technology and 
market development may be required. 

* Higher fuel and commodity prices increase delivery costs for 
emergency food aid programs to Africa's most food-insecure. For the 
largest U.S. emergency food aid program, USAID has reported that 
commodity costs increased by 41 percent and transportation costs 
increased by 26 percent in the first half of fiscal year 2008. As a 
result, USAID projects a $265 million shortfall in this year's food aid 
budget. According to our estimates, that $265 million could provide 
enough food aid to reach about 4.5 million vulnerable people in sub- 
Saharan Africa during a typical peak hungry season lasting 3 months. 
Similarly, in March 2008, WFP appealed to the international community, 
including the United States, to compensate for the growing shortfall in 
its food aid budget.[Footnote 31] 

Climate Change: 

Climate change is also an important emerging challenge that is expected 
to worsen African food insecurity.[Footnote 32] Key climate change 
models conclude that global warming has occurred and, since the mid- 
twentieth century, has been largely attributable to human activities, 
such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.[Footnote 33] 
Several models predict further global warming, changed precipitation 
patterns, and increased frequency and severity of damaging weather- 
related events for this century. IFPRI reports that sub-Saharan Africa 
may be hardest hit by climate change, with one estimate predicting that 
temperature increases for certain areas may double those of the global 
average. Since sub-Saharan African countries have a lower capacity to 
adapt to variable weather, models also predict that climate change will 
further reduce African agricultural yields and will increase the number 
of people at risk of hunger. Climate change affects agriculture in 
several ways: higher temperatures shorten the growing season and 
adversely affect grain formation; reduced precipitation levels limit 
the availability of water to grow rain-fed crops; variable climates 
shift production to marginal lands and intensify soil erosion; rising 
sea levels threaten coastal agricultural land; and climate extremes, 
such as floods and droughts, result in crop failure and livestock 
deaths. Accounting for these effects, numerous studies seek to estimate 
the impact of climate change on African agricultural yields. By 2060, 
for example, the United Nations Environment Program projects a 33 
percent reduction in grain yield in sub-Saharan Africa, while FAO 
predicts that the number of Africans at risk of hunger will increase to 
415 million.[Footnote 34] (For further discussion of climate change, 
see app. VI, which also includes a compendium of the results of several 
studies that project adverse impacts from climate change on African 
agriculture.) 

Efforts of Host Governments and Donors, Including the United States, 
Toward Halving Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015 Have Been 
Insufficient: 

Despite their commitment to halve hunger in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015, 
efforts of host governments and donors, including the United States, to 
accelerate progress toward that goal have been insufficient. First, 
host governments have not prioritized food security as a development 
goal, and few have met their 2003 pledge to direct 10 percent of 
government spending to agriculture. Second, donors reduced the priority 
given to agriculture, and their efforts have been hampered by 
difficulties in coordination and deficiencies in estimates of 
undernourishment used to measure progress toward attaining the goals to 
halve hunger by 2015. Third, limited agricultural development 
resources, increased demand for emergency food aid, and a fragmented 
approach impair U.S. efforts to end hunger in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Limited Prioritization, Low Agricultural Spending, and Weak Capacity of 
Government Institutions Hamper Host Government Efforts: 

Host government efforts in sub-Saharan Africa have been hampered by 
limited prioritization of food security in poverty reduction strategies 
and slow follow-through on CAADP goals, low agricultural spending 
levels, and weak capacity of government institutions to sustain food 
security interventions and to report on progress toward goals to halve 
hunger by 2015. 

Achieving Food Security Has Not Been Prioritized by Some Host 
Governments: 

Despite their commitment in the November 1996 Rome Declaration on World 
Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action to achieve food 
security for all, some host governments have not prioritized food 
security in their strategies and use of resources. An FAO-commissioned 
review of the PRSP process found a lack of consistency among policies, 
strategies, and interventions for alleviating food insecurity and 
poverty. Developing countries prepare a PRSP every 3 to 5 years through 
a participatory process with civil society and donors. As country-owned 
documents that establish development priorities and serve as the basis 
for assistance from the World Bank and other donors, PRSPs are to 
include a country poverty assessment and clearly present the priorities 
for macroeconomic, structural, and social policies. Of 10 African PRSPs 
reviewed in the FAO-commissioned review, only half included policies to 
address food insecurity and less than half included interventions to 
address food insecurity. Furthermore, several delegates who attended 
the 2004 Committee on World Food Security meeting expressed concern 
that food security and rural development issues were not adequately 
reflected in PRSPs of many countries. Similarly, our analysis of World 
Bank and IMF joint assessments of current PRSPs for eight countries in 
East Africa and southern Africa found that food security and 
agricultural development require greater prioritization in more than 
half of the strategies examined.[Footnote 35] 

Although African leaders pledged their commitment to prioritize 
agricultural development in the CAADP framework,[Footnote 36] both the 
initial planning process and the actual implementation of the CAADP 
framework at the country level have been slow. According to a World 
Bank official, CAADP's initial planning process[Footnote 37] did not 
begin until 2005, 2 years after the framework was developed, because it 
involved (1) forming stakeholder groups at the regional and continental 
levels and (2) establishing credibility within the development 
community. Thus, country-level implementation did not start until 2007. 
Regional entities representing 40 countries in East Africa, West 
Africa, and southern Africa have continued to encourage the 
implementation and acceleration of CAADP. However, by the end of 2008, 
only 13 of the 40 countries[Footnote 38] are expected to have completed 
the initial planning process and organized a roundtable to formally 
adopt a CAADP compact. The remaining 27 countries are scheduled to 
complete the entire process by the summer of 2009. However, for those 
countries that will formally adopt a CAADP compact, it is unclear 
whether concrete results will follow. According to an IFPRI official, 
because CAADP is still in the early stages of implementation, it is 
difficult to demonstrate the impact of CAADP efforts to date. 

Low Agriculture Spending Levels Remain a Significant Challenge: 

Although African leaders in 2003 pledged to devote 10 percent of 
government spending on agriculture, according to an IFPRI study issued 
in 2008, most countries in Africa--with the exception of four 
countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, and Burkina Faso--had not reached 
this goal as of 2005. Of the four countries we reviewed--Kenya, 
Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia--none had met the goal as of 2005. 
Mozambique was close to reaching the goal, and government spending for 
agriculture in Zambia has shown an upward trend since 2002. However, as 
shown in figure 6, government spending for agriculture in Kenya and 
Tanzania from 2002 to 2005 was well below the CAADP goal. 

According to estimates by several research organizations, the total 
financial investment required for agricultural development and to halve 
hunger in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015 is significant, and experts 
conclude that the majority of African countries will need to 
substantially scale up spending for their agricultural sectors. 
[Footnote 39] IFPRI estimated that annual investments of $32 billion to 
$39 billion per year would be required for agriculture in sub-Saharan 
Africa, more than 3 to 4 times the level in 2004. Specifically, Kenya's 
spending would need to increase by up to 12 times its 2004 levels; 
Mozambique spending would need to double; Tanzania would need to triple 
its 2004 spending levels; and Zambia would need to spend up to 9 times 
its 2004 total. (See fig. 6 for a comparison of actual 2004 
agricultural sector spending and the annual agricultural sector 
spending required under different scenarios to halve hunger by 2015 in 
Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia.) 

Figure 15: Actual Annual Agricultural Sector Spending of Kenya, 
Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia Compared With CAADP Goal (2002 to 
2005), and Annual Agricultural Sector Spending Required to Halve Hunger 
by 2015: 

[See PDF for image] 

This figure contains four line graphs and four vertical bar graphs 
depicting the following data: 

Actual annual agricultural spending (2002-2005) as a percentage of 
total government spending compared with CAADP goal: 

Country: Kenya: 
Year: 2002; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 4.99%. 

Country: Kenya: 
Year: 2003; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 4.58%. 

Country: Kenya: 
Year: 2004; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 4.22%. 

Country: Kenya: 
Year: 2005; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 3.83%. 

Country: Mozambique: 
Year: 2002; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 17.1. 

Country: Mozambique: 
Year: 2003; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 1.2%. 

Country: Mozambique: 
Year: 2004; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 9.1%. 

Country: Mozambique: 
Year: 2005; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 9.1%. 

Country: Tanzania: 
Year: 2002; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 4.5%; 

Country: Tanzania: 
Year: 2003; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 6.8%; 

Country: Tanzania: 
Year: 2004; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 4.22%. 

Country: Tanzania: 
Year: 2005; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 3.83%. 

Country: Zambia: 
Year: 2002; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 1.8%. 

Country: Zambia: 
Year: 2003; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 2.3%. 

Country: Zambia: 
Year: 2004; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 4%. 

Country: Zambia: 
Year: 2005; 
CAADP Goal: 10%; 
Actual spending: 8%. 

2004 agricultural spending compared with annual spending required to 
halve hunger by 2015 (Constant 2000 dollars in billions): 

Country: Kenya; 
Actual agricultural spending in 2004: $0.339; 
Optimistic estimated annual agricultural spending required to meet 
MDG-1 by 2015: $3.313; 
Conservative estimated annual agricultural spending required to meet 
MDG-1 by 2015: $4.318. 

Country: Mozambique; 
Actual agricultural spending in 2004: $0.216; 
Optimistic estimated annual agricultural spending required to meet 
MDG-1 by 2015: $0.413; 
Conservative estimated annual agricultural spending required to meet 
MDG-1 by 2015: %0.463. 

Country: Tanzania; 
Actual agricultural spending in 2004: $0.042; 
Optimistic estimated annual agricultural spending required to meet 
MDG-1 by 2015: $0.118; 
Conservative estimated annual agricultural spending required to meet 
MDG-1 by 2015: $0.156. 

Country: Zambia; 
Actual agricultural spending in 2004: $0.072; 
Optimistic estimated annual agricultural spending required to meet 
MDG-1 by 2015: $0.324; 
Conservative estimated annual agricultural spending required to meet 
MDG-1 by 2015: $0.665. 

Sources: GAO analysis of International Food Policy Research Institute 
data; Nova Development (Art Explosion). 

[End of figure] 

Weak Capacity of Host Government Institutions Hinders Long- term 
Sustainability of Interventions and Reporting on Progress: 

Some Food Security Interventions Are Unsustainable Due to a Lack of 
Host Government Capacity: 

Host governments' institutional capacity affects whether they can 
eventually take over development activities at the conclusion of donor 
assistance, and some lack the capacity to sustain donor- assisted food 
security interventions over time. In a 2007 review of World Bank 
assistance to the agricultural sector in Africa, the World Bank 
Independent Evaluation Group reported that only 40 percent of the 
bank's agriculture-related projects in sub-Saharan Africa had been 
sustainable, compared with 53 percent for its projects in other 
sectors. For example, the World Bank found the expected sustainability 
of two agriculture projects in Tanzania to be unrealistic, given the 
government's limited capacity to generate the projected public sector 
resources. Similarly, IFAD maintains that sustainability remains one of 
the most challenging areas that require priority attention. An annual 
report, issued by IFAD's independent Office of Evaluation, on the 
results and impact of IFAD operations between 2002 and 2006 rated 45 
percent of its agricultural development projects satisfactory for 
sustainability.[Footnote 40] 

Donors' exit strategies vary depending on host governments' capacity to 
continue their assistance activities. For some sub-Saharan African 
countries, the handover may be progressive--that is, a relevant 
government ministry gradually takes over the responsibilities of 
certain food security interventions in specific geographic regions as 
the government's capacity improves. For example, because the government 
of Lesotho currently lacks the capacity to run the WFP-funded school- 
feeding program throughout the country, WFP has targeted schools in 
remote, inaccessible mountainous areas and expects to hand over full 
responsibility to the government by 2010. Political instability can 
also impact the sustainability of food security, even when the handover 
is expected to be successful. For example, although the director of the 
UN Millennium Village in Sauri, Kenya, has been relying on effective 
coordination with several Kenyan government ministries to enable the 
village to continue its operations after the UN's departure, recent 
postelection turmoil in the country has raised uncertainties about the 
project's long-term sustainability.[Footnote 41] 

Weak Reporting on Progress Toward Hunger Goals: 

All participating governments and international organizations agreed to 
submit a biannual national progress report to FAO's Committee on World 
Food Security on the implementation of the WFS Plan of Action. However, 
many governments have not submitted reports, and the quality of the 
reports that have been submitted has varied. Successful reporting 
requires a lengthy consultation process with government officials and 
other stakeholders to answer several questions about indicators of 
progress that cover 7 commitments and 27 objectives. To make the 
process easier, FAO revised its reporting requirements in 2004, but the 
reporting rate has remained low. In 2006, the last time that the 
reports were due, only 79 member states and organizations, such as the 
World Bank and WFP, had submitted progress reports on the WFS Plan of 
Action to FAO's Committee on World Food Security, according to FAO. Of 
these 79 member states and organizations, only 17 were from sub-Saharan 
Africa.[Footnote 42] 

FAO cited the limited capacity of government institutions as one of the 
main reasons for low reporting rates on progress toward hunger targets. 
According to FAO, government officials working within ministries of 
agriculture are responsible for reporting on their country's national 
food security action plan. However, some government ministries that are 
responsible for reporting lack the capacity to prepare a comprehensive 
report on all seven commitments because they do not have the support 
they require from other domestic institutions and agencies. 

According to FAO, the poor quality and inconsistency of the national 
progress reports have not allowed FAO to draw general substantive 
conclusions. While most national progress reports provide information 
on policies, programs, and actions being taken to reduce 
undernourishment, few of the reports provide information on the actual 
results of actions taken to reduce the number of undernourished people. 
In addition, the content of the reports varies. Specifically, some 
countries either (1) provide only selective information on certain 
aspects of food security that they consider most relevant, such as food 
stocks or reserve policies; (2) provide variable emphasis on past, 
ongoing, and future food security plans and programs; (3) focus on 
irrelevant issues; or (4) provide more description than analysis. 
Despite these concerns, providing feedback or critical assessments on 
the submitted reports is beyond the mandate and the staff capacity of 
the Committee on World Food Security Secretariat, according to FAO 
officials. As a result, the usefulness of the information submitted and 
the potential to improve the quality of reporting are limited. FAO 
officials acknowledged these limitations and the usefulness of the 
information submitted for monitoring and is investigating ways to 
improve the WFS monitoring process. 

Declining Resources, Difficulties in Coordination, and Deficiencies in 
Undernourishment Estimates Limit Donor Efforts: 

Multilateral and Bilateral Aid to African Agriculture Has Declined: 

For some sub-Saharan Africa countries, a large portion of food security 
assistance comes from multilateral and bilateral donors through ODA 
provided to the country's agriculture sector. However, the share of 
multilateral and bilateral ODA provided to agriculture for Africa has 
declined steadily since peaking in the 1980s. Specifically, ODA data 
show that the worldwide share of ODA to the agricultural sector for 
Africa has significantly declined, from about 15 percent in the early 
1980s to about 4 percent in 2006.[Footnote 43] According to a World 
Bank official, in the 1980s, the bank directed considerable funding 
toward agricultural development programs in sub-Saharan Africa that 
ultimately proved unsustainable. In the 1990s, the World Bank 
prioritized health and sanitation programs in the region over 
agricultural development programs. By 2005, the bank had started 
shifting its priorities back to African agricultural development, 
investing approximately $500 million per year in the sector. Bank 
officials expect that total to increase by 30 percent by the end of 
2008. According to the UN, the international community needs to 
increase external financing for African agriculture from the current $1 
to $2 billion per year to about $8 billion by 2010. Figure 7 shows the 
overall declining trend of multilateral and bilateral ODA to 
agriculture for Africa and the percentages of bilateral and 
multilateral donor contributions from 1974 to 2006. 

Figure 7: Trends in Multilateral and Bilateral Official Development 
Assistance to Agriculture for Africa, 1974 to 2006: 

[See PDF for image] 

This figure contains a line graph a pie-chart, and two pie-chart 
insets, depicting the following information: 

Actual ODA to agriculture for sub-Saharan Africa (constant 2006 dollars 
in millions): 

Year: 1974; 
Bilateral assistance: $396; 
Multilateral assistance: $526; 
Overall assistance: $922. 

Year: 1975; 
Bilateral assistance: $496; 
Multilateral assistance: $721; 
Overall assistance: $1218. 

Year: 1976; 
Bilateral assistance: $486; 
Multilateral assistance: $1170; 
Overall assistance: $1656. 

Year: 1977; 
Bilateral assistance: $719; 
Multilateral assistance: $931; 
Overall assistance: $1651. 

Year: 1978; 
Bilateral assistance: $542; 
Multilateral assistance: $1008; 
Overall assistance: $1550. 

Year: 1979; 
Bilateral assistance: $947; 
Multilateral assistance: $757; 
Overall assistance: $1704. 

Year: 1980; 
Bilateral assistance: $961; 
Multilateral assistance: $1287; 
Overall assistance: $2248. 

Year: 1981; 
Bilateral assistance: $1261; 
Multilateral assistance: $1266; 
Overall assistance: $2527. 

Year: 1982; 
Bilateral assistance: $1215; 
Multilateral assistance: $1624; 
Overall assistance: $2839. 

Year: 1983; 
Bilateral assistance: $1233; 
Multilateral assistance: $1051; 
Overall assistance: $2283. 

Year: 1984; 
Bilateral assistance: $1378; 
Multilateral assistance: $1332; 
Overall assistance: $2709. 

Year: 1985; 
Bilateral assistance: $1391; 
Multilateral assistance: $1181; 
Overall assistance: $2572. 

Year: 1986; 
Bilateral assistance: $1669; 
Multilateral assistance: $700; 
Overall assistance: $1369. 

Year: 1987; 
Bilateral assistance: $1775; 
Multilateral assistance: $1406; 
Overall assistance: $3180. 

Year: 1988; 
Bilateral assistance: $2389; 
Multilateral assistance: $1649; 
Overall assistance: $4039. 

Year: 1989; 
Bilateral assistance: $1559; 
Multilateral assistance: $1639; 
Overall assistance: $3197. 

Year: 1990; 
Bilateral assistance: $1765; 
Multilateral assistance: $1140; 
Overall assistance: $2905. 

Year: 1991; 
Bilateral assistance: $1147; 
Multilateral assistance: $666; 
Overall assistance: $1813. 

Year: 1992; 
Bilateral assistance: $1209; 
Multilateral assistance: $668; 
Overall assistance: $1877. 

Year: 1993; 
Bilateral assistance: $1077; 
Multilateral assistance: $631; 
Overall assistance: $1708. 

Year: 1994; 
Bilateral assistance: $907; 
Multilateral assistance: $569; 
Overall assistance: $1476. 

Year: 1995; 
Bilateral assistance: $844; 
Multilateral assistance: $932; 
Overall assistance: $1776. 

Year: 1996; 
Bilateral assistance: $1134; 
Multilateral assistance: $390; 
Overall assistance: $1524. 

Year: 1997; 
Bilateral assistance: $773; 
Multilateral assistance: $331; 
Overall assistance: $1104. 

Year: 1998; 
Bilateral assistance: $772; 
Multilateral assistance: $516; 
Overall assistance: $1287. 

Year: 1999; 
Bilateral assistance: $790; 
Multilateral assistance: $585; 
Overall assistance: $1375. 

Year: 2000; 
Bilateral assistance: $824; 
Multilateral assistance: $609; 
Overall assistance: $1433. 

Year: 2001; 
Bilateral assistance: $656; 
Multilateral assistance: $571; 
Overall assistance: $1227. 

Year: 2002; 
Bilateral assistance: $674; 
Multilateral assistance: $347; 
Overall assistance: $1021. 

Year: 2003; 
Bilateral assistance: $584; 
Multilateral assistance: $750; 
Overall assistance: $1334. 

Year: 2004; 
Bilateral assistance: $739; 
Multilateral assistance: $518; 
Overall assistance: $1257. 

Year: 2005; 
Bilateral assistance: $716; 
Multilateral assistance: $438; 
Overall assistance: $1154. 

Year: 2006; 
Bilateral assistance: $873; 
Multilateral assistance: $932; 
Overall assistance: $1805. 

Over the last 3 decades, bilateral contributions of ODA to agriculture 
for Africa have exceeded multilateral contributions.The United States 
has provided the largest share of bilateral ODA to agriculture for 
Africa, while the World Bank has provided the largest share of 
multilateral ODA to agriculture for Africa. 

Multilateral: 46%; Of that: 
- World Bank (International Development Assistance): 44%; 
- International Fund for Agricultural Development: 11%; 
- African Development Bank: 18%; 
- Other: 27%. 

Bilateral: 54%; Of that: 
- United States: 22%; 
- France: 15%; 
- Japan: 12%; 
- Germany: 9%; 
- Netherlands: 8%; 
- Other: 34%. 

Source: GAO analysis of Organization for Economic Cooperation and 
Development (Development Assistance Committee) data. 

Note: As discussed in appendix I, OECD's classification of ODA to 
agriculture may underreport funding to agriculture. For example, OECD's 
ODA to agriculture excludes developmental food aid. 

[End of figure] 

The decline of donor support to agriculture in Africa is due to 
competing priorities for funding and a lack of results from past 
unsuccessful interventions. According to the 2008 World Development 
Report, many of the large-scale integrated rural development 
interventions promoted heavily by the World Bank suffered from 
mismanagement and weak governance and did not produce the claimed 
benefits. In the 1990s, donors started prioritizing social sectors, 
such as health and education, over agriculture. For example, one of the 
United States' top priorities for development assistance is the 
treatment, prevention, and care of HIV/AIDS through the President's 
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which is receiving billions of dollars 
every year. The increasing number of emergencies and response required 
from international donors has also diverted ODA that could have been 
spent on agricultural development. (See fig. 8 for the increasing trend 
of ODA to Africa for emergencies compared with ODA to agriculture for 
Africa.) 

Figure 8: Worldwide ODA to Africa for Emergencies Compared with ODA to 
Africa for Agriculture, 1974 to 2006 (constant 2006 dollars in 
billions): 

[See PDF for image] 

This figure is a multiple line graph with two accompanying photographs 
of agricultural settings, depicting the following information: 

Year: 1974; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.9; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.52. 

Year: 1975; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.1; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.21. 

Year: 1976; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.9; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.34. 

Year: 1977; 
ODA for emergencies: $5.5; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.12. 

Year: 1978; 
ODA for emergencies: $6.5; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.26. 

Year: 1979; 
ODA for emergencies: $6.6; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.3. 

Year: 1980; 
ODA for emergencies: $7.6; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.3. 

Year: 1981; 
ODA for emergencies: $6.3; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.4. 

Year: 1982; 
ODA for emergencies: $8.1; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.7. 

Year: 1983; 
ODA for emergencies: $7.3; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.7. 

Year: 1984; 
ODA for emergencies: $8.5; 
ODA for agriculture: $1.5. 

Year: 1985; 
ODA for emergencies: $8.1; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.8. 

Year: 1986; 
ODA for emergencies: $5.0; 
ODA for agriculture: $1.0. 

Year: 1987; 
ODA for emergencies: $7.4; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.7. 

Year: 1988; 
ODA for emergencies: $8.3; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.6. 

Year: 1989; 
ODA for emergencies: $7.1; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.6. 

Year: 1990; 
ODA for emergencies: $6.7; 
ODA for agriculture: $0.9. 

Year: 1991; 
ODA for emergencies: $4.7; 
ODA for agriculture: $1.1. 

Year: 1992; 
ODA for emergencies: $5.1; 
ODA for agriculture: $1.6. 

Year: 1993; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.2; 
ODA for agriculture: $1.5. 

Year: 1994; 
ODA for emergencies: $4.3; 
ODA for agriculture: $1.8. 

Year: 1995; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.9; 
ODA for agriculture: $2.2; 

Year: 1996; 
ODA for emergencies: $4.2; 
ODA for agriculture: $2.9. 

Year: 1997; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.5; 
ODA for agriculture: $2.8. 

Year: 1998; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.9; 
ODA for agriculture: $4.3. 

Year: 1999; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.7; 
ODA for agriculture: $6.9. 

Year: 2000; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.7; 
ODA for agriculture: $3.8. 

Year: 2001; 
ODA for emergencies: $4.0; 
ODA for agriculture: $3.7. 

Year: 2002; 
ODA for emergencies: $2.9; 
ODA for agriculture: $5.3. 

Year: 2003; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.8; 
ODA for agriculture: $6.4. 

Year: 2004; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.5; 
ODA for agriculture: $6.2. 

Year: 2005; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.7; 
ODA for agriculture: $8.2. 

Year: 2006; 
ODA for emergencies: $3.9; 
ODA for agriculture: $6.5. 

Sources: GAO analysis of Organization for Economic Cooperation and 
Development (Development Assistance Committee) data; GAO (photos). 

Note: As discussed in appendix I, OECD's classification of ODA to 
agriculture may underreport funding to agriculture. For example, OECD's 
ODA to agriculture excludes developmental food aid. 

[End of figure] 

Donors and Other Development Partners Have Experienced Difficulties in 
Coordination: 

Donor and NGO panels that we convened in the four countries we visited-
-Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia--reported a general lack of 
donor coordination as a challenge, despite efforts to better align 
donor support with national development priorities, such as those that 
the international community agreed upon in the Paris Declaration on Aid 
Effectiveness in March 2005.[Footnote 44] Improved donor coordination 
was recommended seven times in four panels that we convened during our 
fieldwork. 

Coordination of agricultural development programs has been difficult at 
the country level due, in part, to the large number of simultaneous 
agricultural development projects that have not been adequately 
aligned. According to the 2008 World Development Report, in Ethiopia, 
almost 20 donors were supporting more than 100 agriculture projects in 
2005. Similarly, government efforts in Tanzania have been fragmented 
among some 17 multilateral and bilateral donors in 
agriculture.[Footnote 45] A study of the United Kingdom National Audit 
Office reported that British country teams are not sure about specific 
activities, geographical focus, and donors' comparative advantage due, 
in part, to the large number of donors and projects ongoing at the 
country level. In addition, bilateral donor assistance is often not 
adequately aligned with the strategies and programs of international 
financial institutions and private foundations. Specifically, according 
to the UN Millennium Project, UN agencies are frequently not well-
linked to the local activities of the large financial institutions and 
regional development banks that tend to have the most access in 
advising a government, since they provide the greatest resources. The 
World Bank in its 2008 World Development Report was critical of the 
lack of complementary investments made by other donors at different 
stages of the food production and supply process. 

In an attempt to address inadequate division of labor among donors, the 
UN agencies have established new coordination mechanisms. In September 
2007, the UN Secretary-General first convened the UN MDG Africa 
Steering Group to identify strategic ways in which the international 
community could better coordinate and support national governments' 
implementation of MDG programs, including the implementation of 
agriculture and food security. The steering group met again in March 
2008, where it identified the unpredictability of aid, poor alignment 
with country systems, and inadequate division of labor among donors as 
major challenges to African food security. The group expects to publish 
its recommendations for achieving MDGs in Africa by the end of May 
2008. In addition, the UN has recently established the One UN 
initiative at the country level to facilitate coordination. The purpose 
of this initiative is to shift from several individual agency programs 
to a single UN program in each country with specific focus areas, one 
of which could be food security. Two countries we visited--Tanzania and 
Mozambique--were among the eight countries[Footnote 46] worldwide to 
pilot the One UN initiative in 2007 and 2008. In addition, to 
accelerate progress toward MDGs--particularly MDG-1--WFP, FAO, and IFAD 
recently agreed to establish joint Food Security Theme Groups at the 
country level. The main purpose of these groups is to enhance 
interagency collaboration and coordination to support countries' 
development efforts in the areas of food security, agriculture, and 
rural development. Between June 2007 and August 2007, a review of the 
status of the Food Security Theme Groups showed that they are present 
in 55 countries (29 in sub-Saharan Africa). However, according to the 
UN Millennium Project, efforts through UN country teams are more of a 
forum for dialogue, rather than a vehicle for real coordination. 

FAO Estimates of Undernourishment Have Deficiencies: 

It is difficult to accurately assess progress toward the hunger goals 
because of deficiencies in FAO's estimates of undernourishment, which 
are considered the authoritative statistics on food security. These 
deficiencies stem from methodological weaknesses and poor data quality 
and reliability, as follows: 

* Weaknesses in methodology: FAO's methodology has been criticized on 
several grounds. First, FAO relies on total calories available from 
food supplies and ignores dietary deficiencies that can occur due to 
the lack of adequate amounts of protein and essential micronutrients. 
Second, FAO underestimates per capita food availability in Africa, and, 
according to several FAO officials in Rome, coverage of noncereal 
crops, such as cassava--a main staple food for sub-Saharan Africa--has 
been inadequate. Third, FAO estimates are more subject to changes in 
the availability of food and less so to changes in the distribution of 
food, which leads to the underestimation of undernourishment in regions 
with relatively better food availability but relatively worse 
distribution of food, such as South Asia. Even when food is available, 
poor people may not have access to it, which leads to undernourishment. 
Lastly, FAO relies on food consumption data from outdated household 
surveys to measure inequality in food distribution. According to FAO, 
some of these surveys are over 10 years old. 

* Poor data quality and reliability: According to FAO officials, the 
quality and reliability of food production, trade, and population data, 
which FAO relies on for its estimates of undernourishment, vary from 
country to country. For many developing countries, the data are either 
inaccurate or incomplete, which directly impacts FAO's final estimate 
of undernourishment. For example, FAO officials told us that the 
estimated prevalence of undernourishment in Myanmar was 5 percent, but 
the officials questioned the reliability and accuracy of the data 
reported by the government of Myanmar. In addition, FAO lacks estimates 
of undernourishment for some countries to which a substantial amount of 
food aid has been delivered, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. 
Since data on production, trade, and consumption of food in some 
countries are not available, FAO makes one undernourishment estimate 
for these countries as a group and takes this estimate into account to 
determine total undernourishment worldwide. 

Furthermore, FAO's undernourishment estimates are outdated, with its 
most recent published estimates covering the 3-year period of 2001 to 
2003. In 2007, FAO suspended publication of The State of Food 
Insecurity in the World (SOFI) report, which it had been issuing 
annually since 1999. FAO also did not submit hunger data for the UN 
Millennium Development Report in 2006, and, according to an official 
from the UN Statistics Division, FAO is unlikely to do so for 2007 as 
well. FAO did not publish the 2007 SOFI report or contribute data for 
the Millennium Development Report because it is presently revising the 
minimum caloric requirements, a key component in FAO's methodology for 
estimating undernourishment to measure progress toward the 2015 hunger 
goals. 

FAO has acknowledged that it needs to improve its methodology and 
consider other indicators to accurately portray progress toward hunger 
targets. As part of this effort, FAO sponsored an "International 
Scientific Symposium" in 2002 for scientists and practitioners to 
discuss various measures and assessment methods on food deprivation and 
undernourishment. According to FAO, efforts to improve food security 
and nutrition measures are a continuous activity of the agency, which 
has also been involved in strengthening data collection and reporting 
capacity at the regional and country levels. FAO is also developing a 
new set of indicators for measuring food security and nutrition status. 

Limited Agricultural Development Resources and a Fragmented Approach 
Impair U.S. Efforts to End Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa: 

USAID's Food Aid Funding for Emergencies Has Increased Substantially, 
While Its Food Aid Funding for Development Has Not Changed 
Significantly: 

In recent years, the levels of USAID funding for development in sub- 
Saharan Africa have not changed significantly compared with the 
substantial increase in funding for emergencies (see fig. 9). Funding 
for the emergency portion of Title II of Public Law 480--the largest 
U.S. food aid program--has increased from about 70 percent a decade ago 
to over 85 percent in recent years. After rising slightly from 2003 to 
2005, the development portion of USAID'S food aid funding fell below 
the 2003 level in 2006 and 2007. 

Figure 9: Comparison of USAID Funding for Emergencies and Food Aid 
Funding for Development Activities in Sub-Saharan Africa under Title II 
of Public Law 480, Fiscal Years 1992 to 2007 (Constant 2007 dollars in 
millions): 

[See PDF for image] 

This figure is a multiple line graph with two accompanying photographs 
of agricultural emergency and development, depicting the following 
information: 

Year: 1992; 
Emergency funding: $395.3; 
Development funding: $115.8. 

Year: 1993; 
Emergency funding: $362.3; 
Development funding: $131.9. 

Year: 1994; 
Emergency funding: $509.4; 
Development funding: $102.7. 

Year: 1995; 
Emergency funding: $514.3; 
Development funding: $94.7. 

Year: 1996; 
Emergency funding: $400.6; 
Development funding: $106.0. 

Year: 1997; 
Emergency funding: $288.0; 
Development funding: $138.0. 

Year: 1998; 
Emergency funding: $383.1; 
Development funding: $165.1. 

Year: 1999; 
Emergency funding: $308.1; 
Development funding: $177.2. 

Year: 2000; 
Emergency funding: $353.8; 
Development funding: $195.6. 

Year: 2001; 
Emergency funding: $359.6; 
Development funding: $196.8. 

Year: 2002; 
Emergency funding: $430.9; 
Development funding: $181.0. 

Year: 2003; 
Emergency funding: $1105.3; 
Development funding: $221. 

Year: 2004; 
Emergency funding: $1112.3; 
Development funding: $224.9. 

Year: 2005; 
Emergency funding: $1171.4; 
Development funding: $179.9. 

Year: 2006; 
Emergency funding: $1071.6; 
Development funding: $161.2. 

Year: 2007; 
Emergency funding: $1065.5; 
Development funding: $167.4. 

Sources: GAO analysis of U.S. Agency for International Development 
data; GAO (photos). 

[End of figure] 

While emergency food aid has been crucial in helping to alleviate the 
growing number of food crises, it does not address the underlying 
factors that contributed to the recurrence and severity of these 
crises. Despite repeated attempts from 2003 to 2005, the former 
Administrator of USAID was unsuccessful in significantly increasing 
long-term agricultural development funding in the face of increased 
emergency needs and other priorities. Specifically, USAID and several 
other officials noted that budget restrictions and other priorities, 
such as health and education, have limited the U.S. government's 
ability to fund long-term agricultural development programs in sub- 
Saharan Africa. The United States, consistent with other multilateral 
and bilateral donors, has steadily reduced its ODA to agriculture for 
Africa since the late 1980s, from about $500 million in 1988 to less 
than $100 million in 2006 (see fig. 10).[Footnote 47] 

Figure 10: Trends in U.S. Official Development Assistance to 
Agriculture for Africa, 1974 to 2006 (Constant 2006 dollars in 
millions): 

[See PDF for image] 

This figure is a line graph depicting the following information: 

Year: 1974; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $82.3. 

Year: 1975; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $242.6. 

Year: 1976; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $109.4. 

Year: 1977; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $37.6. 

Year: 1978; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $82.8. 

Year: 1979; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $23.4. 

Year: 1980; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $376.8. 

Year: 1981; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $403.9. 

Year: 1982; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $502.1. 

Year: 1983; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $302.8. 

Year: 1984; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $391.8. 

Year: 1985; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $445.2. 

Year: 1986; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $422.7. 

Year: 1987; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $510.7. 

Year: 1988; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $522.7. 

Year: 1989; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $282.8. 

Year: 1990; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $257.6. 

Year: 1991; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $297.7. 

Year: 1992; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $272.0. 

Year: 1993; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $176.2. 

Year: 1994; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $207.9. 

Year: 1995; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $151.3. 

Year: 1996; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $96.6. 

Year: 1997; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $143.6. 

Year: 1998; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $180.4. 

Year: 1999; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $202.3. 

Year: 2000; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $191.7. 

Year: 2001; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $174.4. 

Year: 2002; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $99.5. 

Year: 2003; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $47.5. 

Year: 2004; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $79.6. 

Year: 2005; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $107.7. 

Year: 2006; 
Assistance to Agriculture: $82.4. 

Source: GAO analysis of Organization for Economic Cooperation and 
Development (Development Assistance Committee) data. 

Note: The figure shows U.S. bilateral ODA and does not include U.S. 
contributions to multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank, 
African Development Bank, and International Fund for Agricultural 
Development, which also provide ODA to agriculture. As discussed in 
appendix I, OECD's classification of ODA to agriculture may underreport 
funding to agriculture. For example, OECD's ODA to agriculture excludes 
developmental food aid. 

[End of figure] 

Despite Other Agency Efforts, U.S. Presidential Initiative to End 
Hunger in Africa Is Limited to USAID: 

The U.S. Presidential Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA)--the 
principal U.S. strategy to meet its commitment toward halving hunger in 
sub-Saharan Africa--has undertaken a variety of efforts that, according 
to USAID officials, aim to increase rural income by improving 
agricultural productivity, increasing agricultural trade, and advancing 
a favorable policy environment, including building partnerships with 
donors and African leaders. However, USAID officials acknowledged that 
IEHA lacks a political mandate to align the U.S. government food aid, 
emergency, and development agendas to address the root causes of food 
insecurity. Despite purporting to be a governmentwide presidential 
strategy, IEHA is limited to only some of USAID's agricultural 
development activities and does not integrate with other agencies in 
terms of plans, programs, resources, and activities to address food 
insecurity in Africa. For example, because only eight USAID missions 
have fully committed to IEHA and the rest of the missions have not 
attributed funding to the initiative, USAID has been unable to leverage 
all of the agricultural development funding it provides to end hunger 
in Africa. This lack of a comprehensive strategy has likely led to 
missed opportunities to leverage expertise and minimize overlap and 
duplication. Our meetings with officials of other agencies demonstrated 
that there was no significant effort to coordinate their food security 
programs. A U.S. interagency working group that had attempted to 
address food security issues since the mid- 1990s disbanded in 2003. In 
April 2008, USAID established a new Food Security and Food Price 
Increase Task Force, but it is not a governmentwide interagency working 
group. 

Although both MCC and USDA are making efforts to address agriculture 
and food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa, IEHA's decision-making 
process does not take these efforts into consideration. In addition, 
IEHA does not leverage the full extent of the United States' assistance 
to African agriculture through its contributions to multilateral 
organizations and international financial institutions, which are 
managed by State and Treasury. Some of the U.S. agencies' plans and 
programs for addressing food insecurity in Africa involve significant 
amounts of assistance. For example, as of June 2007, MCC had committed 
$1.5 billion for multiyear compacts in sub-Saharan Africa, of which 
$605 million (39 percent) was for agriculture and rural development 
programs and another $575 million (37 percent) was for transportation 
and other infrastructure. Only recently, USAID has provided MCC with 
assistance in the development and implementation of country compacts. 
USDA, which administers several food aid programs,[Footnote 48] also 
administers a wide range of agricultural technical assistance, 
training, and research programs in sub-Saharan Africa to support the 
African Growth and Opportunity Act, NEPAD/CAADP, and the regional 
economic organizations. However, according to USAID Mission officials 
in Zambia, coordination difficulties arise when U.S.-based officials 
from other government agencies, such as USDA, plan and implement food 
security projects at the country level with little or no consultation 
with the U.S. Mission staff. 

Conclusions: 

Most donors, including the United States, have committed to halving 
global hunger by 2015, but meeting this goal in sub-Saharan Africa is 
increasingly unlikely. Although host governments and donors share 
responsibility for this failure, especially with regard to devoting 
resources to support sub-Saharan Africa's agricultural sector, host 
governments play a primary role in reducing hunger in their own 
countries. Without adequate efforts by the host governments coupled 
with sufficient donor support, it is difficult to break the cycle of 
low agricultural productivity, high poverty, and food insecurity that 
has contributed to an increase in emergency needs. The United States' 
approach to addressing food insecurity has traditionally relied on the 
U.S. food aid programs. However, in recent years, the resources of 
these programs have focused on the rising number of acute food and 
humanitarian emergencies, to the detriment of actions designed to 
address the fundamental causes of these emergencies, such as low 
agricultural productivity. Moreover, IEHA does not comprehensively 
address the underlying causes of food insecurity, nor does it leverage 
the full extent of U.S. assistance to sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently, 
the U.S. approach does not constitute an integrated governmentwide food 
security strategy. In implementing its food security efforts, the 
United States has not adequately collaborated with host governments and 
other donors, which has contributed to further fragmentation of these 
efforts. Finally, without reliable data on the nature and extent of 
hunger, it is difficult to target appropriate interventions to the most 
vulnerable populations and to monitor and evaluate their effectiveness. 
Sustained progress in reducing sub-Saharan Africa's persistent food 
insecurity will require concerted efforts by host governments and 
donors, including the United States, in all of these areas. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To enhance efforts to address global food insecurity and accelerate 
progress toward halving world hunger by 2015, particularly in sub- 
Saharan Africa, we recommend that the Administrator of USAID take the 
following two actions: 

* work in collaboration with the Secretaries of State, Agriculture, and 
the Treasury to develop an integrated governmentwide U.S. strategy that 
defines each agency's actions and resource commitments toward achieving 
food security in sub-Saharan Africa, including improving collaboration 
with host governments and other donors and developing improved measures 
to monitor and evaluate progress toward the implementation of this 
strategy, and: 

* prepare and submit, as part of the annual U.S. International Food 
Assistance Report, an annual report to Congress on progress toward the 
implementation of the first recommendation. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

USAID and the Departments of Agriculture and State provided written 
comments on a draft of our report. We have reprinted these agencies' 
comments in appendixes VII, VIII, and IX, respectively, along with our 
responses to specific points. In addition to these agencies, several 
other entities--including MCC, Treasury, FAO, IFAD, IFPRI, UNDP, and 
WFP--provided technical comments on a draft of our report, which we 
have incorporated as appropriate. 

USAID concurred with our first recommendation--noting that the 
responsibility for halving hunger by 2015 lies with the respective 
countries while mentioning activities that the United States, through 
efforts such as IEHA, and the international community are undertaking 
to address the issue of food security. However, USAID expressed concern 
with our conclusion that the shift in its focus from emergency food aid 
to long-term agricultural development has not been successful. We 
recognize the challenges of addressing an increasing number of 
emergencies within tight resource constraints. However, it is equally 
important to recognize that addressing emergencies--to the detriment of 
long-term agricultural development--does not break the cycle of low 
agricultural productivity, high poverty, and food insecurity that has 
persisted in many sub-Saharan African countries. Regarding our second 
recommendation, USAID asserted that the International Food Assistance 
Report (IFAR) is not the appropriate vehicle for reporting on progress 
on the implementation of our first recommendation. USAID suggested that 
a report such as the annual progress report on IEHA (which is not 
congressionally required) would be more appropriate. We disagree. We 
believe that the congressionally required annual IFAR, in fact, would 
be an appropriate vehicle for reporting on USAID's and other U.S. 
agencies' implementation of our first recommendation. Public Law 480, 
section 407(f) (codified at 7 U.S.C. 1736a(f)) requires that the 
President prepare an annual report that "shall include. . .an 
assessment of the progress toward achieving food security in each 
country receiving food assistance from the United States Government." 
This report is intended to contain a discussion of food security 
efforts by U.S. agencies. 

In addition, USDA stated that our report was timely and provided useful 
information and recommendations. Noting its participation in an 
interagency food aid policy coordinating process, USDA reaffirmed its 
commitment to using its full range of authorities and programs to 
address the need for and improve the effectiveness of global food 
assistance and development. Although we recognize that an interagency 
Food Assistance Policy Council provides a forum for the discussion and 
coordination of U.S. food aid programs, a similar forum to address food 
security issues had not been established until May 2008 following the 
release of a draft of this report. Finally, although USDA administers 
food assistance programs, including food aid programs for development, 
we note that these are not included in IEHA. 

State identified additional issues for consideration, which we have 
addressed as appropriate. Specifically, State disagreed with our 
statement that U.S. agencies had made no significant effort to 
coordinate their food security programs, citing its ongoing 
coordination with USAID and USDA on food security issues. For example, 
State indicated that several of its offices and bureaus--such as as the 
Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance; the Bureaus of 
Population, Refugees, and Migration; Economic, Energy, and Business 
Affairs; African Affairs; International Organization Affairs, and 
others--work closely with USAID and USDA to coordinate food security 
issues. However, as we noted in this report, these efforts, to date, 
have been focused primarily on food aid, as opposed to food security, 
and there is no comprehensive U.S. governmentwide strategy for 
addressing food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Treasury generally concurred with our findings and provided additional 
comments for consideration, which we have addressed as appropriate. 

We are sending copies of this report to interested Members of Congress; 
the Administrator of USAID; and the Secretaries of Agriculture, State, 
and the Treasury. We will also make copies available to others upon 
request. In addition, this report will be available at no charge on the 
GAO Web site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please 
contact me at (202) 512-9601 or [email protected]. Contact points for our 
Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on 
the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to 
this report are listed in appendix X. 

Signed by: 

Thomas Melito: 
Director, International Affairs and Trade: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Our objectives were to examine (1) factors that contributed to 
persistent food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and (2) the extent to 
which host governments and donors, including the United States, are 
working toward halving hunger in the region by 2015. 

To examine factors that have contributed to continued food insecurity 
in sub-Saharan Africa, we relied on the United Nations (UN) Food and 
Agriculture Organization's (FAO) estimates on the number of 
undernourished people, and the prevalence of undernourishment, which is 
one of two progress indicators in the Millennium Development Goals 
(MDG) target of halving hunger, to illustrate the lack of progress in 
reducing hunger in sub-Saharan Africa as compared with other parts of 
the developing world. Although we recognize the limitations of FAO's 
estimates (such as the lack of up-to-date information), they are the 
official basis of the World Food Summit (WFS) and MDG targets and are 
largely consistent with the trends reported by other sources, such as 
the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) estimates on global hunger. 
We discussed the reliability of FAO's undernourishment data with 
several cognizant FAO officials and various U.S. government officials 
in Washington and in sub-Saharan Africa. We determined that these 
estimates are sufficiently reliable for our purpose, which is to show 
overall trends over time at the aggregate level. We also analyzed FAO's 
data on input use, grain production, and grain planting areas to 
compare agricultural input use and productivity in sub-Saharan Africa 
with that of other parts of the world. We determined that these data 
are sufficiently reliable for our purposes. To assess the reliability 
of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) data on commodity prices, we 
reviewed (1) existing documentation related to the data sources and (2) 
documents from other agencies reporting on commodity prices and found 
collaborating support. Accordingly, we determined that the data were 
sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. 

We selected four countries for fieldwork--Kenya and Tanzania in East 
Africa, and Mozambique and Zambia in southern Africa--on the basis of 
geographic region, data on undernourished people, and U.S. Agency for 
International Development (USAID) programs in-country. We selected 
countries in east and southern Africa because those regions have high 
prevalence rates of undernourishment and excluded countries with 
current conflict. While this selection is not representative in any 
statistical sense, it ensured that we had variation in the key factors 
we considered. We do not generalize the results of our fieldwork beyond 
that selection, using fieldwork primarily to provide illustrative 
examples. 

In addition, we reviewed economic literature on the factors that 
influence food security and recent reports, studies, and papers issued 
by U.S. agencies, multilateral organizations, and bilateral donors. We 
reviewed the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food 
Summit Plan of Action, which included 7 commitments, 27 objectives, and 
181 specific actions. We recognize the multifaceted nature of factors 
affecting food security, but some of them, such as conflict and trade 
reforms, were beyond the scope of our study. We reviewed economic 
studies and recent reports on the factors that influence food security. 
These included articles from leading authors published in established 
journals, such as World Development. We also included studies by such 
organizations as the International Food Policy and Research Institute 
(IFPRI), FAO, IMF, USDA's Economic Research Service, World Food Program 
(WFP), and the World Bank. These sources were chosen because they 
represent a wide cross section of the discussion on food security and 
are written by the leading authorities and institutions working in the 
field. To summarize and organize meaningfully the many factors and 
interventions that impact and can address global food security, we 
created a framework. To ensure that the framework was comprehensive and 
rigorous, we based it on relevant literature and the input of 
practitioners and experts. Specifically, our first step was to review 
relevant research on global food security from multilateral 
institutions and academia and consider key policy documents, such as 
the Rome Declaration. We presented the first draft of the framework to 
a panel of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and government 
representatives in Washington, D.C., and subsequently used the 
framework during our panels in the four African countries to help 
stimulate discussion. We refined the framework on the basis of 
preliminary analysis of the panel results and finalized it on the basis 
of the input of a roundtable of food security experts in Washington, 
D.C. 

In the four African countries that we selected for fieldwork, we 
conducted structured discussions with groups of NGOs and donors, 
organizing them into 9 panels with about 80 participants representing 
more than 60 entities. To identify the panelists' views on key 
recommendations for improvement and lessons learned, we posed the same 
questions to each of the 9 panels and recorded their answers. 
Subsequently, we coded their recommendations and lessons according to 
the factors that were further refined and are shown in figure 3. We 
also coded some recommendations and lessons according to a few 
additional topics that occurred with some frequency in the panels but 
that fell outside the scope of our framework, such as donor 
coordination and the targeting of U.S. food aid. Two staff members 
performed the initial coding independently and then met to reconcile 
any differences in their coding. These lessons and recommendations that 
we coded represent the most frequently expressed views and perspectives 
of in-country NGOs, donors, and regional representatives that we met 
with, and cannot be generalized beyond that population. 

To examine the extent to which host governments and donors, including 
the United States, are working toward halving hunger by 2015, we 
analyzed data on official development assistance (ODA) to developing 
countries published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and 
Development (OECD), Development Assistance Committee (DAC). 
Specifically, we analyzed the trends in the share of ODA going to 
agriculture and to emergencies from multilateral and bilateral donors, 
from 1974 to 2006. The DAC Secretariat assesses the quality of aid 
activity data each year by verifying both the coverage (completeness) 
of each donor's reporting and the conformity of reporting with DAC's 
definitions to ensure the comparability of data among donors. These 
data are widely used by researchers and institutions in studying 
development assistance resource flows. OECD's classification of 
agriculture may underreport funding to agriculture. OECD's ODA to 
agriculture excludes rural development and development food aid. For 
example, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) 
believes that some of its multisectoral lending may not have counted as 
ODA to agriculture. However, since OECD has consistently used the same 
classification, we determined that the data are sufficiently reliable 
for our purpose, which is to track trends over time. To determine 
whether African governments have fulfilled their pledge to devote 10 
percent of their budgets to agriculture, we relied on the government 
expenditure data provided by IFPRI, which is the same data source on 
which USAID relies. We determined that these data are sufficiently 
reliable for the purposes of a broad comparison of countries' 
agricultural spending to the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture 
Development Program (CAADP) targets in the aggregate. IFPRI recognizes 
that data on government sectoral spending are weak in many developing 
countries and is working with some of these countries to improve data 
quality. We also analyzed USAID budget for the Presidential Initiative 
to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA). We determined that these data are 
sufficiently reliable for our purposes. The information on foreign law 
in this report does not reflect our independent legal analysis but is 
based on interviews and secondary sources. 

In Washington, D.C., we interviewed officials from U.S. agencies, 
including USAID, USDA, the Departments of State and the Treasury, and 
the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). We also met with IFPRI and 
the World Bank. In New York, we met with UNDP, the Rockefeller 
Foundation, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and 
Columbia University; and in Seattle, Washington, we met with the Bill 
and Melinda Gates Foundation. In Rome, we met with FAO, WFP, IFAD, and 
the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). 
We also met with the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Rome and 
several bilateral donors' permanent representatives to the Rome-based 
UN food and agriculture agencies. In addition, in Washington, D.C., we 
convened a roundtable of 12 experts and practitioners--including 
representatives from academia, research organizations, multilateral 
organizations, NGOs, and others--to further delineate, on the basis of 
our initial work, some of the factors that have contributed to food 
insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and challenges that hamper 
accelerating progress toward food security. 

We conducted this performance audit from April 2007 to May 2008 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those 
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 
conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: U.S. Participation in the 1996 World Food Summit: 

As a major participant in the 1996 WFS, the United States supported the 
summit's goal of halving the number of undernourished people in the 
world by 2015. During the summit and over the last decade, the U.S. 
position on global food security has been predicated on a strong belief 
that the primary responsibility for reducing food insecurity rests with 
each country, and that it is critical that all countries adopt policies 
that promote self-reliance and facilitate food security at all levels, 
including food availability, access, and utilization. U.S. policy as 
represented at the summit advocated the following national policies and 
actions to improve food security: 

* Governments should act as facilitators rather than intervenors. 
National policies that facilitate the development of markets and expand 
the individual's freedom of action are the best guarantor of food 
security. Emphasis is placed on democratic institutions, transparency 
in government, opposition to graft and corruption, and full 
participation by the private sector. 

* All countries should work to promote liberalized trade to maximize 
the potential for economic growth (within the context of sustainable 
development) and realize the benefits of comparative advantage. 

* Governments should invest in a public goods infrastructure that 
includes transportation, communication, education, and social safety 
nets; and governments should provide basic health and sanitary 
services, maintain basic levels of nutrition, and facilitate the 
stabilization of vulnerable populations. 

* Governments should ensure a political system that does not 
discriminate against women. All countries must recognize the essential 
role of women, who work to produce more than half of the food in 
developing countries. 

* Governments should establish a general development policy that (1) 
neither discriminates against agricultural or fisheries sectors nor 
against rural or coastal areas and (2) recognizes that poverty 
alleviation requires an integrated approach to rural development. 

* All countries should promote the critical role of sustainable 
development in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sectors, and these 
policies must be environmentally sound. 

* Greater emphasis needs to be placed on agricultural research and 
extension services. Governments should emphasize investment in 
agricultural research and technical education. 

During negotiations on the summit policy statement and Plan of Action, 
the United States opposed any agreement that supported additional 
resource pledges by the developed countries or the creation of new 
financial mechanisms, institutions, or bureaucracies. Although the 
United States was not prepared to commit increased resources for food 
security, U.S. government representatives at the summit indicated that 
the United States intended to play a major role in promoting food 
security around the world. According to a U.S. position paper, the 
United States planned to accomplish this objective by: 

* enhancing U.S. government support for research and technology 
development in agriculture and related sectors; 

* employing an integrated approach to sustainable development, with a 
strong emphasis on those countries that show a good-faith willingness 
to address policy reforms; 

* continuing support for food security through the use of agriculture 
programs, development assistance, and food aid; 

* continuing support for international efforts to respond to and 
prevent humanitarian crises that create a need for emergency food; 

* continuing efforts to encourage and facilitate implementations of 
food security-related actions adopted at international conferences or 
agreed-to conventions; 

* working within the multilateral system to enhance global approaches 
to food security; and: 

* working with all countries to achieve freer trade and ensure that the 
benefits are equitably realized, and urging all countries to open their 
markets in the interest of achieving greater stability and 
participation in the world market. 

An interagency governmentwide Working Group on Food Security that was 
established to prepare for the 1996 summit continued to operate until 
2003, issuing two annual reports on a U.S. Food Security Plan of Action 
in 1999 and 2000. This group was assisted by a Food Security Advisory 
Committee composed of representatives from the private agribusiness 
sector, NGOs, and educational institutions. (These groups were 
disbanded in 2003.) These reports indicated some limited progress in 
addressing food security, primarily through the use of existing U.S. 
food aid and limited agricultural development and trade initiatives. 
The establishment of the African Food Security Initiative in 1998, the 
Greater Horn of Africa Initiative, the Africa Seeds of Hope Act in 
1998, and the African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000 all reflected 
some limited U.S. government initiative to improve a deteriorating food 
security situation in sub-Saharan Africa. 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Factors and Interventions Affecting Food Security: 

This appendix provides greater detail and explains the importance of 
the factors we used to develop a framework to evaluate findings 
obtained during the in-country interviews in Kenya, Tanzania, 
Mozambique, and Zambia and the literature on food security, including 
the 2008 World Bank Development report and the Rome Declaration. The 
factors listed in the framework shown in table 2 are areas on which 
development efforts can be focused. They include such areas as 
agricultural productivity and development; rural development; 
governance; and health, education, and social welfare. All of these 
factors contribute to food security. For example, actions to improve 
agricultural productivity are most effective in conjunction with rural 
development, good governance, and good health and welfare. The 
framework also identifies actions or interventions that can be taken to 
address these development factors. They include such actions or 
interventions as increasing access to inputs, improving infrastructure, 
and strengthening rural communities. Successful agricultural 
development requires coordination of these interventions across a range 
of activities. For example, farmers cannot buy inputs unless there are 
functioning credit institutions. Also, farmers cannot access markets if 
there are no roads. Given that achieving food security is an extremely 
difficult and complex process and that there are many different ways in 
which to categorize these factors, this list should not be construed as 
exhaustive. Nonetheless, this categorization provides a framework with 
which to identify the issues on which to base discussion on food 
security and summarize the range of programs implemented in various 
African countries. 

Table 2: Framework for Addressing Food Security Issues: 

Factor: Agricultural productivity and development; 
Intervention: Develop and improve markets: Encourage private sector 
investment and support the value chain approach, build private sector 
capacity, assist and develop markets, establish public/private 
partnerships, use vouchers, and develop agroprocessing. 

Factor: Agricultural productivity and development; 
Intervention: Conduct and disseminate research: 
Develop disease-resistant, pest-resistant varieties; develop 
organizations to disseminate information, such as extension programs 
and farmer groups. Maintain and increase yields through research. 
Strengthen research capacity at all levels. 

Factor: Agricultural productivity and development; 
Intervention: Increase access to inputs: Provide access to fertilizer 
seed, water, chemicals, machinery, land (via tenure/title), and 
technologies. 

Factor: Agricultural productivity and development; 
Intervention: Improve farm management and capacity: Encourage farmer 
education, modern farm practices, cash crops, transaction costs, 
sustainable businesses, and crop diversification. 

Factor: Agricultural productivity and development; 
Intervention: Improve risk management for farm and food systems: 
Promote systems to mitigate risks such as crop insurance, 
diversification of risks, stock policy, and postharvest conservation, 
conservation agriculture, and storage of food stocks. 

Factor: Agricultural productivity and development; 
Intervention: Institute natural resource management: Strengthen water 
management, biodiversity, and drought management. 

Factor: Rural development; 
Intervention: Strengthen rural communities and economies: Provide 
opportunities for nonfarm income, farmer's cooperative associations, 
empowered rural communities, local processing, decentralized resources 
to regions, and cash transfers to rural communities. 

Factor: Rural development; 
Intervention: Invest in and improve infrastructure: Invest in roads, 
ports, telecommunications, and power. 

Factor: Rural development; 
Intervention: Increase access to credit: Provide access to microcredit 
and financial training. 

Factor: Governance; 
Intervention: Strengthen sectoral policies: Lobby to improve 
agriculture policies and balance agriculture and nonagriculture 
subsidies. 

Factor: Governance; 
Intervention: Improve emergency preparedness and disaster management 
capacities: Improve systems for vulnerability mapping, climate 
forecasting, and early warning systems. 

Factor: Governance; 
Intervention: Improve tax policies: Rationalize tax policies-- such as 
minimizing agricultural input, output, and land taxes--as a way to 
enhance agricultural sector development. 

Factor: Governance; 
Intervention: Modernize trade policy: Encourage trade policies that 
foster agricultural trade. 

Factor: Governance; 
Intervention: Strengthen fiscal and monetary policy: Promote sound 
fiscal and monetary policies that could allow more funding for the 
agricultural sector. 

Factor: Governance; 
Intervention: Improve governance: Engage government in rule of law 
reform, anticorruption efforts, institutional capacity building, and 
conflict resolution. 

Factor: Health, education, and social welfare; 
Intervention: Improve health and nutrition: Provide access to health 
care and basic sanitation to prevent or minimize the negative effects 
of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. Supply the agricultural 
workforce with adequate vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. 

Factor: Health, education, and social welfare; 
Intervention: Develop and retain qualified staff: Build capacity 
through training government and NGO personnel and establish pay and 
conditions to retain needed staff. 

Factor: Health, education, and social welfare; 
Intervention: Develop safety nets: Encourage and implement social 
safety nets for vulnerable populations. 

Factor: Health, education, and social welfare; 
Intervention: Address gender inequalities: Promote women's rights and 
access to basic education. 

Source: GAO analysis of literature reviews and structured discussions. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: Summary Results of GAO's Structured Panel Discussions with 
Donors and NGOs, with Examples of Interventions: 

On the basis of a content analysis of the results from our nine 
structured panel discussions in Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, and 
Zambia, we identified key recommendations for improving food security 
(see table 3).[Footnote 49] For example, the first row of this table 
indicates that all 9 panels mentioned the recommendation to improve 
marketing, and that the recommendation was mentioned 35 times across 
all 9 panels. 

Table 3: Key Recommendations for Improving Food Security: 

Recommendation: Develop and improve markets; 
Total number of panels in which the recommendation was mentioned 
(maximum = 9): 9; 
Total number of times the recommendation was mentioned across all 9 
panels: 35. 

Recommendation: Strengthen rural communities and economies; 
Total number of panels in which the recommendation was mentioned 
(maximum = 9): 9; 
Total number of times the recommendation was mentioned across all 9 
panels: 21. 

Recommendation: Better target or manage nonemergency food aid; 
Total number of panels in which the recommendation was mentioned 
(maximum = 9): 8; 
Total number of times the recommendation was mentioned across all 9 
panels: 14. 

Recommendation: Invest in and improve infrastructure; 
Total number of panels in which the recommendation was mentioned 
(maximum = 9): 7; 
Total number of times the recommendation was mentioned across all 9 
panels: 16. 

Recommendation: Improve natural resource management systems; 
Total number of panels in which the recommendation was mentioned 
(maximum = 9): 7; 
Total number of times the recommendation was mentioned across all 9 
panels: 12. 

Recommendation: Increase access to inputs; 
Total number of panels in which the recommendation was mentioned 
(maximum = 9): 6; 
Total number of times the recommendation was mentioned across all 9 
panels: 10. 

Source: GAO analysis of structured panel discussions with donors and 
NGOs in Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia. 

[End of table] 

The next several sections of this appendix provides some examples of 
interventions that governments, research organizations, NGOs, private 
foundations, and other donors have undertaken to address the factors 
underlying food insecurity. 

Interventions to Improve Access to Markets: 

Our panelists noted that improving markets and farmers' access to them 
is key to improving their food security. Well-functioning markets at 
all levels of the marketing chain, among other things, provide accurate 
price information, buyer contacts, distribution channels, and buyer and 
producer trends. They can be facilitated by encouraging private 
investment and establishing private/public partnerships and developing 
the capacity of agrobusiness and processing focused on value-added 
production. As an early action under CAADP, an Alliance for Commodity 
Trade in East and Southern Africa is being developed to open up 
national and regional market opportunities for staple foods produced by 
millions of smallholder farmers. Agribusiness, in particular, has an 
economic interest in a vibrant agricultural sector. For this reason, 
USAID supports private agribusiness development in Africa, working 
directly with about 900 public/private partnerships to build capacity 
and leverage additional resources in 2006. These include producers, 
exporters, and their associations, such as the East African Fine 
Coffees Association, which is linking buyers from companies like 
Starbucks in the United States with producers and exports of high-value 
coffee, and the African Cotton and Textile Industry Federation, which 
is improving the links of African farmers to the U.S. market through 
the African Growth and Opportunity Act. To facilitate market access in 
arid and semi-arid areas, USAID's Famine Fund[Footnote 50] has been 
supporting a pastoral livelihood program. 

Interventions to Strengthen Rural Communities and Economies: 

Weak rural development contributes to food insecurity throughout sub- 
Saharan Africa. Agricultural productivity growth requires fostering 
linkages between the agricultural and nonagricultural sections. Growth 
in agriculture is more effective if the proper infrastructure is in 
place, rural communities are strong and effective and financial systems 
are able to provide credit to producers to buy, among other things, 
inputs for production. The experts we interviewed noted that efforts to 
strengthen rural communities and economies are essential to increasing 
food security. Interventions that help to increase rural farmers' 
incomes help to strengthen rural economies. We observed the UN 
Millennium Villages helping farmers increase their incomes by using the 
value chain approach to link farmers to markets. For example, in Kenya, 
a local business called HoneyCare Africa trained farmers in beekeeping. 
The farmers were financed to start beekeeping, provide honey, and 
ensure quality control and collection. Beekeepers bring their honey to 
the company's collection center where the honey is weighed and is 
prepared for shipment from Nairobi. After being processed and packaged 
in a Nairobi facility, HoneyCare Africa products are sold in Kenyan and 
overseas retail outlets. The program trained 44 farmers, who produced 
an average of 800 kilograms of honey, generating $1,500 per farmer per 
year. 

Interventions to Better Target or Manage Nonemergency Food Aid: 

The focus of U.S. assistance on commodities creates some problems for 
NGOs and donors that would like to see U.S. Title II assistance better 
managed. The panelists noted that this food aid can be better managed 
by targeting those communities that can absorb the commodities that are 
provided by the United States, so that the commodities do not distort 
markets. Despite the inherent inefficiency of monetization,[Footnote 
51] there are some examples of the successful use of monetized Title II 
funding for food security. An external evaluation of IEHA's use of food 
aid noted that Title II monetization proceeds have a large realm of 
possible uses, including financing small business start-ups; paying the 
costs of training programs; locally purchasing commodities, rather than 
using imported food in particular situations, where there is a 
particularly high potential for disincentives for local producers; and 
providing start-up capital for initiating farmer association-based 
thrift and savings societies. 

Interventions to Invest in and Improve Infrastructure: 

As we have previously noted, improving infrastructure, such as roads 
and power, is key to helping rural farmers. Investment in 
infrastructure links the local economy to broader markets. 
Infrastructure, particularly roads, is important in making technology 
available to farmers and is key to getting commodities to markets. Good 
roads and port facilities reduce the costs of moving products to 
markets. Telecommunications bring consumers and farmers into contact 
and transmit market signals on prices helping markets operate 
efficiently. MCC provides funding to African countries to improve their 
infrastructure. As of February 2008, MCC had signed 16 compacts 
totaling $5.5 billion. Nine of the 16 compacts were with African 
countries, and about 70 percent of MCC compacts ($3.8 billion) funded 
projects in Africa. This includes two of the four countries that we 
reviewed--Tanzania and Mozambique. MCC signed a compact with Tanzania 
in 2008 that will provide $698 million in funding for infrastructure 
investments in energy, water, and transportation, with the largest 
portion (about half) dedicated to transportation. In Mozambique, the 
MCC compact signed in July 2007 will include funds to improve water 
systems, sanitation, agribusiness, roads, land tenure, and agriculture. 
In addition, according to State, while the short-term goal of a WFP 
road-building operation was to facilitate food aid delivery in southern 
Sudan, it also helped contribute to the long-term food security by 
reducing the cost of access to food and markets. 

Interventions to Improve Natural Resource Management Systems: 

Sustainable production increases require resource management. Soil 
fertility, water management, and water use efficiency are important for 
raising agriculture productivity in a sustainable manner. Natural 
resource management, particularly water resources, is key to helping 
farmers maintain productivity, even during times of drought and flood. 
The Ethiopian government's Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) 
provided food and cash assistance to 7.2 million people in 2006, and 
includes water resources development projects. In Tigray, Ethiopia, we 
visited a program focusing on the construction of deep hand-dug wells 
that provide accessible and safe water for rural communities. An 
irrigation program also focuses on harvesting methods and irrigation 
development activities. An IFPRI evaluation of PSNP found that while 
there were some delays in payments made to beneficiaries, the well 
construction and soil and water conservation projects were valuable. 

Interventions to Increase Access to Inputs: 

Increasing access to inputs, such as improved seed and fertilizer, 
helps farmers boost their productivity, which is essential for food 
security. A number of research organizations support African 
agricultural development, including CGIAR, which was established in 
1971 to help achieve sustainable worldwide food security by promoting 
agricultural science and research-related activities. CGIAR has 15 
research centers under its umbrella, including IFPRI, the International 
Livestock Research Institute, and the International Institute for 
Tropical Agriculture (IITA). IITA and 40 NGO partners, including 
Catholic Relief Service, worked on a U.S. government-funded $4.5 
million, 19-month project in 6 countries[Footnote 52] called the Crop 
Crisis Control Project (C3P). Officials from this program said that 
they have introduced 1,400 varieties of cassava and provided 5,000 
farmers with seeds for growing banana trees. In Kenya, beneficiaries of 
the C3P project, especially women, said that the project has directly 
led to more profitable cassava growth and increased banana production. 
In addition, USAID, USDA, and other donors have also been providing 
direct support to African Research Institutions at both the national 
and regional levels, promoting collective action on problems that cut 
across borders, like pests and diseases. 

Participants in GAO's Structured Panel Discussions and Roundtable: 

The following organizations were among those that participated in 
structured panel discussions during our fieldwork and our roundtable in 
Washington, D.C.: 

* Bilateral and multilateral donors:
African Development Bank; 
Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation; 
Canadian International Development Agency; 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark; 
European Community Food and Agriculture Organization; 
Japan International Cooperation Agency; 
International Food Policy Research Institute; 
Ireland Embassy; 
The Netherlands; 
United Nations Development Program; 
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); 
U.S. Agency for International Development; 
The World Bank World Food Program. 

* NGOs and other organizations:
Agricultural Cooperative Development International and Volunteers in 
Overseas Cooperative Assistance; 
Academy for Education Development; 
ActionAid; 
Adventist Development and Relief Agency; 
Africare; 
Agricultural Consultative Forum; 
The Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and 
Central Africa; 
Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Inc. (CARE); 
CARITAS; 
Catholic Relief Services; 
Christian Council Tanzania; 
CIUSA Mozambique; 
Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET)--Chemonics, Inc. 
Fintrac, Inc. 
International Livestock Research Institute; 
Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection; 
Kenya Agricultural Research Institute; 
Land O'Lakes International Development; 
Michigan State University; 
Oxfam Great Britain; 
Partnership to End Hunger and Poverty in Africa; 
Program Against Malnutrition; 
Project Concern International; 
TechnoServe; 
Tegemeo Institute; 
University of Maryland; 
Western Seed Company; 
World Vision. 

[End of section] 

Appendix V: Additional Development Partners That Implement Food 
Security Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa: 

In addition to the efforts of host governments, multilateral 
organizations, and bilateral donors, NGOs and private foundations play 
an active role in advancing food security in sub-Saharan Africa. 

* Nongovernmental organizations. NGOs or not-for-profit organizations 
may design and implement development-related projects. They are 
particularly engaged in community mobilization activities and extension 
support services. NGOs include community-based self-help groups, 
research institutes, churches, and professional associations. Examples 
include implementing partners for USAID and USDA, such as Cooperative 
for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Inc.; Catholic Relief Services; 
and Land O'Lakes International Development. Additional examples also 
include advocacy groups such as the International Alliance Against 
Hunger, founded by the Rome-based food and agriculture agencies and 
international NGOs in 2003 to advocate for the elimination of hunger, 
malnutrition, and poverty; the National Alliances Against Hunger, 
including a U.S. alliance, which brings together civil society and 
governments in developed and developing countries to raise the level of 
political commitment to end hunger and malnutrition; and the 
Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, which is a coalition 
of U.S. and African organizations formed in 2000 to advocate support 
for efforts to end hunger and poverty in Africa. 

* Private foundations. A number of philanthropic private organizations, 
such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates 
Foundation, provide support for African agricultural development. The 
Gates Foundation recently became one of the largest funding sources for 
agriculture in Africa, announcing in January 2008 a $306 million 
package of agricultural development grants to boost the productivity 
and incomes of farmers in Africa and developing countries in other 
parts of the world. Among the most prominent efforts funded by 
philanthropic private organizations is AGRA, headquartered in Nairobi 
(Kenya) and established in 2007 with an initial grant of $150 million 
from the Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation to help small- 
scale farmers lift themselves out of hunger and poverty through 
increased farm productivity and incomes. 

[End of section] 

Appendix VI: New Food Security Challenges: Rising Demand for Biofuels 
and Climate Change: 

Rising global commodity prices and climate change are emerging 
challenges that will likely exacerbate food insecurity in sub-Saharan 
Africa.[Footnote 53] Rising commodity prices are in part due to the 
growing global demand for biofuels, and this appendix provides further 
information on how biofuels impact food security.[Footnote 54] This 
appendix also provides further information on how climate change is 
predicted to affect food security in sub-Saharan Africa, primarily 
through its impact on agricultural yields. 

Growing Biofuel Demand Projected to Increase African Food Insecurity: 

Driven by environmental concerns and the high price of oil, global 
demand for biofuels is rapidly rising. Total biofuel production has 
been recently growing at a rate of about 15 percent per year, such 
that, between 2000 and 2005, production more than doubled to nearly 
equal 650,000 barrels per day or about 1 percent of global 
transportation fuel use. In the United States, ethanol production will 
consume more than one third of the country's corn crop in 2009, 
according to USDA. The United States and other key producers of 
biofuels have pledged to pursue further growth in production. In the 
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the United States pledged 
to increase ethanol production nearly five-fold over current levels by 
2022. Similarly, the European Commission has announced its intentions 
to expand biofuel production to 10 percent of its transportation fuel 
use by 2020. Although potential growth in biofuel production is 
uncertain, various estimates suggest that global biofuel production 
could grow to supply over 5 percent of the world's transportation 
energy needs.[Footnote 55] 

Growth in biofuel demand potentially creates both positive and negative 
impacts for African agriculture and food security. For example: 

* Rural development opportunities could exist for African communities 
that are able to produce biofuels. Countries with biofuel production 
could also qualify for emission-reduction credits through the 
international market for greenhouse gas emission reductions under the 
Kyoto Protocol. Such credits would allow these countries to attract 
additional investment through the Clean Development Mechanism that 
could assist them in further developing their biofuel industries. 
However, while several African countries are pursuing biofuel 
production, commercial production is not yet widely developed and 
experts suggest that such production risks excluding smallholder 
farmers. 

* African biofuel production may compete with food production through 
competition for land, water, and other agricultural inputs. The UN 
reports concern that commercial biofuel production in sub-Saharan 
Africa will target high-quality lands and push food production to less 
productive lands. The World Bank reports that 75 percent of the 
farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is already characterized by soils that 
are degraded and lack nutrients. 

[Volume of Biofuels Commercially Produced in Sub-Saharan Africa: The 
current volume of biofuels being commercially produced in sub-Saharan 
Africa (with the exception of South Africa) is small. However, Kenya, 
Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are among the 
countries that have enacted pro-biofuel policies. By 2010, these six 
countries will be producing over 700 million liters of biofuels if they 
meet government targets. Implementing successful biofuel programs in 
sub-Saharan Africa will depend on a host of factors, including access 
to markets and technology, agricultural and trade policy, and the price 
difference between biofuels and fossil fuels. [Source: GAO based on 
literature review.)] 

* Rapid growth in demand for grains to produce biofuels has contributed 
to rising agricultural prices. Between 2005 and 2007 alone, world 
prices of grains rose 43 percent. Biofuel growth has also triggered 
increases in the prices of other agricultural commodities as the use of 
land to grow biofuels has decreased land available for other crops. 
Higher grain prices reduce resources for low-income consumers who spend 
a large share of their income on food, farmers who buy more food than 
they produce, and food aid programs. In the long term, while higher 
grain prices provide incentives to expand agricultural production, 
complementary policies and investments in technology and market 
development may be required. 

On a net basis, IFPRI has concluded that current growth in biofuels 
will result in an increase in African food insecurity. Using their 
IMPACT model, IFPRI projects that world prices for maize will rise 26 
percent and world prices for oilseeds will rise 18 percent by 2020 
under the assumption that current biofuel investment plans are 
realized. In this case, total net calorie availability in sub-Saharan 
Africa will decline by about 4 percent. Worldwide, FAO projects a 15 
percent net increase in the 2007 grain import bills of developing 
countries, partly as a result of growing biofuel demand. Concern over 
the negative impacts of biofuels has also been widely noted by 
organizations such as FAO; the World Bank; and the UN Special 
Rapporteur on the Right to Food, who has called for a 5-year moratorium 
on the production of biofuels. 

Climate Change Predicted to Increase African Food Insecurity: 

Although global temperatures have varied throughout history, key 
scientific studies have found that higher temperatures during the past 
century are largely attributable to human activities, and that, as 
such, temperatures are likely to rise further during this century. The 
National Academy of Sciences has found that global temperatures have 
been warmer during the last few decades of the twentieth century than 
during any comparable period of the preceding 400 years.[Footnote 56] 
These assessments also predict rising global temperatures for this 
century, resulting in changed precipitation patterns and increased 
frequency and severity of damaging weather-related events. The 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for example, has 
predicted a rise in global mean temperatures of between 1.8 and 4.0 
degrees Celsius, depending upon human and economic behavior. Assuming 
no fundamental change in that behavior, a comprehensive review of 
climate change models finds a 77 to 99 percent likelihood that global 
average temperatures will rise in excess of 2 degrees Celsius.[Footnote 
57] 

Regarding climates in Africa, key studies also conclude that warming 
has taken place. For example, according to the IPCC, southern Africa 
has had higher minimum temperatures and more frequent warm spells since 
the 1960s, as well as increased interannual precipitation variability 
since the 1970s. The IPCC also reports that both East Africa and 
southern Africa have had more intense and widespread droughts. In the 
future, IFPRI reports that Africa may be the continent hardest hit by 
climate change, with one estimate predicting temperature increases for 
certain areas in Africa that are double those of the global average. 
One climate study predicts future annual warming across the continent 
ranging from 0.2 to 0.5 degrees Celsius, per decade.[Footnote 58] 

Climate is an important factor affecting agricultural productivity and 
experts report that Africa's agricultural sector is particularly 
sensitive to climate change due, in part, to low adaptive 
capacity.[Footnote 59] Experts find that climate change will likely 
significantly limit agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa in 
various ways: 

* Higher temperatures shorten the growing season and adversely affect 
grain formation at night. As a result of climate change, FAO states 
that the quantity of African land with a growing season of less than 
120 days could increase by 5 to 8 percent and the World Resources 
Institute describes projected future declines in the length of the 
growing season by 50 to 113 days in certain areas in Africa. 

* Reduced precipitation limits the availability of water to grow crops. 
The World Wildlife Fund reports that water constraints have already 
reduced agricultural productivity, as 95 percent of cropland in sub- 
Saharan Africa is used for low-input, rain-fed agriculture rather than 
for irrigated production. Models referenced by the United Nations 
Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC) estimate that more than an 
additional 600,000 square kilometers of agricultural land in sub- 
Saharan Africa will become severely water-constrained with global 
climate change. 

* Variable climates lead farmers to shift agricultural production 
sites, often onto marginal lands, exacerbating soil erosion. According 
to the World Bank's 2008 World Development Report, soil erosion can 
result in agricultural productivity losses for the east African 
highlands of 2 to 3 percent a year. 

* Rising sea levels threaten coastal agricultural land. In its national 
communication to the UNFCC, for example, Kenya predicted losses of more 
than $470 million for damage to crops from a 1-meter rise in sea 
levels. 

* Climate extremes aggravate crop diseases and result in crop failures 
and livestock deaths. FAO reports that both floods and droughts have 
increased the incidence of food emergencies in sub-Saharan Africa. 

To quantify expected climate change impacts on African agricultural 
production and food security, a number of studies employ climate models 
that estimate changes in temperature, precipitation, and agricultural 
yields. Results vary widely due to the large degree of uncertainty 
entailed in climate modeling, as well as differences in assumptions 
about adaptive capacity.[Footnote 60] Despite the wide variation in 
results, these studies generally conclude that climate change will 
increase African food insecurity in both the short and long term. For 
example, one study predicts that agricultural revenues in Kenya could 
decline between 27 and 34 percent by 2030. FAO reports a projected 
increase in the number of Africans at risk of hunger from 116 million 
in 1980 to 415 million in 2060. To illustrate potential food security 
impacts from climate change, results from several studies are shown in 
table 4. (The full citation of the sources in table 4 follow the 
table.) 

Table 4: Selected Studies with Negative Projected Impacts of Climate 
Change on African Agriculture: 

Source: Agoumi (2003); 
Year of estimated impact: 2020; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes a reduction in rain-fed 
agricultural yields of up to 50 percent in some African countries, with 
smallholder farms being impacted relatively more. 

Source: Lobell, et al. (2008); 
Year of estimated impact: 2030; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes declines in southern African 
cereal production--maize yields in Zimbabwe, for example, projected to 
decline between 4 and 7 percent for a 1 degree Celsius increase. 

Source: World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4334; 
Year of estimated impact: 2030; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes a reduction in Kenyan 
agricultural revenues of 27 to 34 percent depending upon climate 
scenario. 

Source: CEEPA (2006)[A] Discussion Paper No. 14; 
Year of estimated impact: 2039; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes a loss of 15 percent of 
cropland in East Africa, averaged across scenarios. 

Source: CEEPA (2006) Discussion Paper No. 15; 
Year of estimated impact: 2050; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes a decline in farm 
productivity: 
* Ethiopia: -1.3 percent; 
* Kenya: -9.8 percent; 
* South Africa: -3.0 percent; 
* Zambia: -6.0 percent; 
* Zimbabwe: -4.9 percent. 

Source: UNDP Human Development Report (2007/2008); 
Year of estimated impact: 2050; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes a reduction in potential 
maize yields of over 10 percent in Malawi. 

Source: United Nations Environment Program (2006); 
Year of estimated impact: 2060; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes a reduction in grain yields 
of 33 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Source: CEEPA (2006) - Discussion Paper No. 8; 
Year of estimated impact: 2060; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes a decrease in African 
agricultural revenues from rain-fed production of over $25 billion 
under two scenarios. 

Source: FAO (1996); 
Year of estimated impact: 2060; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes an increase in the number of 
Africans at risk of hunger from 116 million in 1980 to 291 million in 
2020 to 415 million in 2060. For several scenarios, predicts a 20 to 25 
percent decline in cereal production by 2060. 

Source: FAO (2005); 
Year of estimated impact: 2080; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes a decrease in cultivated 
rain-fed land in Africa with 29 African countries projected to lose a 
total of 35 million tons in potential cereal production. 

Source: Fischer, et al. (2005); 
Year of estimated impact: 2080; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes sub-Saharan African cereal 
yields to decline on average by 12 percent in net terms; expansion of 
land with severe climate or soil constraints by 30-60 million hectares, 
and possible disappearance of land suitable for wheat production. 

Source: Warren, et al. (2006); 
Year of estimated impact: 2080; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes an increase in the number of 
people at risk of hunger in Africa by over 150 million under two 
scenarios. 

Source: Tubiello and Fischer (2007); 
Year of estimated impact: 2080; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes an increase of over 220 
million Africans at risk of hunger. 

Source: Arnell (2002); 
Year of estimated impact: 2080; 
Description of estimated impact: Describes cereal yields to decrease 
between 2.5 and 5.0 percent, even with CO2 stabilization, in certain 
African countries. 

Source: GAO. 

Note: Full citations of the sources are listed following this table. 

[A] The University of Pretoria's Centre for Environmental Economics and 
Policy in Africa is coordinating a Global Environment Facility-funded 
project to assess climate change impacts on agroecological systems in 
11 African countries. Assisting with the project are the World Bank, 
FAO, Yale University, University of Colorado, and the International 
Water Management Institute. 

[End of table] 

Additional Source Information: 

Agoumi, Ali. Vulnerability of North African Countries to Climatic 
Changes: Adaptation and Implementation Strategies for Climate Change. 
International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2003. 

Arnell, N.W, M.G.R. Cannell, M. Hulme, R.S. Kovats, J.F.B. Mitchell, 
R.J. Nicholls, M.L. Parry, M.T.J. Livermore, and A. White. "The 
Consequences of CO2 Stabilisation for the Impacts of Climate Change." 
Climatic Change, vol. 53, 2002. 

FAO. Global Climate Change and Agricultural Production. Rome, Italy, 
1996. 

FAO. Special Event on Impact of Climate Change, Pests and Diseases on 
Food Security and Poverty Reduction: Background Document. 31st Session 
of the Committee on World Food Security. Rome, Italy, 2005. 

Fischer, Gunther, Mahendra Shah, Francesco N. Tubiello, and Harrij van 
Velhuizen. "Socio-economic and Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture: 
an Integrated Assessment, 1990-2080," Philosophical Transactions of The 
Royal Society B, vol. 360, 2005. 

Kabubo-Mariara, Jane and Fredrick K. Karanja. The Economic Impact of 
Climate Change on Kenyan Crop Agriculture: A Ricardian Approach, World 
Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4334. Washington, D.C., August 2007. 

Kurukulasuriya, Pradeep and Robert Mendelsohn. A Ricardian Analysis of 
the Impact of Climate Change on African Cropland. CEEPA Discussion 
Paper No. 8, Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa, 
University of Pretoria, July 2006. 

Lobell, David B., Marshall B. Burke, Claudia Tebaldi, Michael D. 
Mastrandrea, Walter P. Falcon, and Rosamond L. Naylor. "Prioritizing 
Climate Change Adaptation Needs for Food Security in 2030." Science, 
Vol. 319, February 2008. 

Lotsch, Alexander. Sensitivity of Cropping Patterns in Africa to 
Transient Climate Change. CEEPA Discussion Paper No. 14, Centre for 
Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa, University of Pretoria, 
July 2006. 

Maddison, David, Marita Manley, and Pradeep Kurukulasuriya. The Impact 
of Climate Change on African Agriculture: A Ricardian Approach. CEEPA 
Discussion Paper No. 15, Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy 
in Africa, University of Pretoria, July 2006. 

Tubiello, Francesco N. and Gï¿½nther Fischer. "Reducing Climate Change 
Impacts on Agriculture: Global and Regional Effects of Mitigation, 2000-
2080." Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol. 74, 2007. 

United Nations Environment Programme. African Regional Implementation 
Review for the 14th Session of the Commission on Sustainable 
Development: Report on Climate Change. Nairobi, Kenya, 2006. 

Warren, Rachel, Nigel Arnell, Robert Nicholls, Peter Levy, and Jeff 
Price. Understanding the Regional Impacts of Climate Change: Research 
Report Prepared for the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate 
Change. Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research Working Paper 90, 
September 2006. 

[End of section] 

Appendix VII: Comments from the U.S. Agency for International 
Development: 

[End of section] 

Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the 
end of this appendix. 

USAID: From The American People: 
U.S. Agency for International Development: 
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW: 
Washington, DC 20523: 
[hyperlink, http://www.usaid.gov]: 

May 16, 2008: 

Mr. Thomas Melito: 
Director: 
International Affairs and Trade: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20548: 

Dear Mr. Melito: 

I am pleased to provide the U.S. Agency for International Development's 
(USAID) formal response on the draft GAO report "International Food 
Assistance: Insufficient Efforts by Host Governments and Donors 
Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015" (GAO-
08-680). 

We appreciate the GAO's examination of USAID's agriculture investments 
in sub-Saharan Africa and its recognition of the significant reductions 
in funding that have occurred over the past decade. Enclosed you will 
find our detailed comments on the draft report. 

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the GAO draft report and 
for the courtesies extended by your staff in the conduct of this 
review. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Sean Mulvaney: 
Assistant Administrator Management Bureau: 

Enclosed: Detailed Comments: 

USAID Detailed Comments on Draft GAO Report: 
International Food Assistance: Insufficient Efforts by Host Governments 
and Donors Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger in sub-Saharan Africa by 
2015 (GAO-08-680): 

USAID concurs with the first recommendation. The 1996 World Food Summit 
clearly identified responsibilities for halving hunger by 2015. Primary 
responsibility resides with the respective nations themselves. In this 
regard, in sub-Saharan Africa (as the report rightly points out), a key 
element is getting African countries to direct 10 percent of their 
national budgets to agriculture and rural development. There has been 
good progress on this, but clearly more progress is needed. 

In 2006, the economy of all sub-Saharan Africa grew by 5.5 percent. As 
noted by the African Development Bank, overall economic growth in 
Africa reached a robust 6 percent in 2007, the highest in the last 20 
years. In many of the non-oil producing countries that have experienced 
growth, agriculture has been a major contributor. [See GAO comment 1] 

The emergence of the African Union (AU), which along with regional and 
sub-regional organizations in Africa, is demonstrating effective 
leadership in the promotion of good governance, peace, and security, 
critical components for ensuring sustained economic development and 
food security. To consolidate our partnership. the United States has 
appointed an ambassador to the AU and is working closely with the AU to 
implement its food security strategy which is part of the New 
Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Comprehensive Africa 
Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). [See GAO comment 2] 

There are additional activities that the USG and the global community 
are undertaking that address the question of food security, namely: 

* In 2006, the USG undertook a major effort in interagency 
coordination, the U.S. Foreign Assistance Reform. 

* In May 2008, a sub-Principals Coordinating Committee (PCC) on Food 
Price Increases and Global Food Security was established to enhance USG 
interagency coordination. 

* A parallel effort at donor coordination, the Development Assistance 
Committee (DAC) Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness was implemented 
by USAID in 2005. 

* In Africa, donors have formed the AU NEPAD CAADP Donor Partner 
Platform to coordinate and align investments in African countries under 
CAADP. 

* USAID has made extensive investments to address long-term agriculture 
production constraints through support of agricultural research by the 
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) (a 
large portion of which is spent on Africa), U.S. land grant university 
programs such as the Collaborative Research Support Programs (CRSPs), 
and research in the area of agricultural biotechnology. These programs 
undertake research in partnership with African research institutions 
and work to build African science and technology capacity. 

The President's Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA) is directly 
addressing food insecurity in Africa. IEHA has played an important 
leadership role in improving the capacity of African governments to 
identify and make the strategic investments necessary to meet the food 
security needs of their people. Through IEHA, USAID is actively working 
with the AU, NEPAD, African countries and other donors. For example, 
the U.S. is collaborating with donors and African partners to design 
the Alliance for Commodity Trade in East and Southern Africa, a multi-
donor effort led by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa 
(COMESA), to build regional cross-border alliances that will strengthen 
innovative market institutions and link chronically food insecure 
smallholder farmers with growing national and regional markets for 
staple foods. [See GAO comment 3] 

The report links the non-food factors of health, rising commodity 
prices, and climate change to food security. Because the report uses 
malnutrition as the basis for measuring hunger, it is important to 
understand the role of additional non-food factors such as water and 
sanitation investments on the level of hunger in sub-Saharan Africa and 
the rest of the world. [See GAO comment 4] 

We are concerned with the report's conclusion (pp. 5-6) that "USAID's 
efforts to shift its focus from emergency food aid to long-term 
agricultural development have not been successful." USAID recognizes 
that food aid is not the solution to chronic hunger and poverty and, 
that, in the longer term, the USG needs to help countries and their 
people achieve food security and reduce the need for emergency food 
aid. However, given the high levels of acute food insecurity in sub-
Saharan Africa, it is important that a shift in focus from relief to 
development not translate into reduced emergency food aid in the short 
term. Rather a shift in focus should signal recognition that investment 
in rural agriculture is the best means of reversing hunger and food 
security and that these investments will likewise reduce the need for 
emergency food aid over time. [See GAO comment 5] 

Finally, the second recommendation that progress on developing and 
implementing an integrated government-wide U.S. strategy on achieving 
food security in sub-Saharan Africa be reported as part of the annual U 
S. International Food Assistance Report, which is required to be 
submitted to Congress by P.L. 480, infers (1) that the key means for 
addressing food insecurity and agricultural and/or economic development 
is - or should be - food aid, and (2) that USAID is not appropriately 
managing this resource by using it primarily as an emergency resource. 
A more appropriate report would capture the various accounts the USG 
uses to invest in African agricultural and economic development such as 
the annual report on progress under the IEHA. [See GAO comment 6] 

Following are GAO's comments on the U.S. Agency for International 
Development letter dated May 16, 2008. 

GAO Comments: 

1. Although some African countries have had robust economic growth in 
recent years, to achieve the WFS and MDG-1 goals, the growth, 
especially in agriculture, needs to be sustained. As we note in our 
report, concerted efforts and sustained growth are needed for many 
years to overcome the numerous challenges facing host governments and 
donors to halve hunger in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015. 

2. While GAO recognizes the various ongoing coordination efforts at the 
international and U.S. government level, our work revealed that 
coordination on improving food security in sub-Saharan Africa has thus 
far been insufficient. In May 2008, following the release of a draft of 
this report, USAID initiated the creation of a sub-Principals 
Coordinating Committee on Food Price Increases and Global Food Security 
to help facilitate interagency coordination. In addition to USAID, 
USDA, State, and Treasury, participating agencies include the Central 
Intelligence Agency, the Department of Commerce, MCC, the National 
Security Council, the Office of Management and Budget, the Peace Corps, 
the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and the U.S. Trade 
Representative. 

3. As we note in our report, while IEHA has undertaken a variety of 
efforts to address food insecurity in Africa, these efforts have thus 
far been limited in scale and scope. IEHA does not integrate with other 
agencies in terms of plans, programs, resources, and activities. In 
addition, many IEHA projects are limited in their impact because they 
may not necessarily address the root causes of food insecurity. For 
example, projects distributing treadle pumps benefit only the farmers 
who receive them, but do not address the larger issue of the 
underdevelopment of agricultural input markets. 

4. While we recognize that clean water and sanitation are important to 
nutrition and food utilization, these issues were outside the scope of 
our study. 

5. We recognize the importance of emergency assistance. However, to 
break the cycle of poverty, food insecurity, and emergencies, 
agricultural development needs to increase in priority. We agree with 
USAID that a shift in focus from relief to development should not 
translate into reduced emergency food aid in the short term. 

6. We disagree with USAID's comment that a report such as the annual 
progress report on IEHA (which is not congressionally required), 
instead of the congressionally required International Food Assistance 
Report (IFAR), be used to report on USAID's and other agencies' 
implementation of our first recommendation. Public Law 480, section 407 
(f)(codified at 7.U.S.C. 1736a(f) requires that the President prepare 
an annual report that "shall includeï¿½an assessment of the progress 
toward achieving food security in each country receiving food 
assistance from the United States Government." Expanding the scope of 
current reporting to include progress on achieving food security would 
enhance the usefulness of IFAR, while making it unnecessary to 
recommend the promulgation of a separate report. 

[End of section] 

Appendix VIII: Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: 

Note: GAO comment supplementing those in the report text appears at the 
end of this appendix. 

United States Department of Agricultural: 
Foreign	Agriculture Service: 
Washington, D.C. 20250: 

May 14, 2008: 

Mr. Thomas Melito: 
Director, International Affairs and Trade: 
United States Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20548: 

Dear Mr. Melito: 

Thank you for providing the Department of Agriculture (USDA) with this 
opportunity to comment on the Government Accountability Office's draft 
report "International Food Assistance: Insufficient Efforts by Host 
Governments and Donors Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger in sub-Saharan 
Africa by 2015" (GAO-08-680). This timely report is of great interest 
within and beyond USDA, especially as reduced food stocks and high 
commodity prices raise the anxiety of millions of people worldwide who 
are concerned about their health and livelihoods. 

The draft report contains useful information and recommendations. The 
Department is also pleased with the role it plays in meeting the short- 
and long-term food needs in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, USDA 
participates in a food aid policy coordinating process with the
U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department of State, the 
Office of Management and Budget, and other government agencies, to help 
ensure the effective coordination and distribution of food aid 
resources. [See GAO comment 1] 

USDA remains committed to utilize its full range of authorities and 
programs to address the need for improving the effectiveness of global 
food assistance and development. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Michael W. Yost: 
Administrator: 

Following is GAO's comment on the U.S. Department of Agriculture letter 
dated May 14, 2008. 

GAO Comment: 

1. We acknowledge the role that USDA plays in meeting short-and long-
term food needs in sub-Saharan Africa. Although an interagency Food 
Assistance Policy Council provides a forum for the discussion and 
coordination of U.S. food aid programs, a similar forum to address food 
security issues had not been established until May 2008 after the 
issuance of a draft of this report. Finally, although USDA administers 
food assistance programs, including food aid programs for development, 
we note in this report that these are not included in IEHA. 

[End of section] 

Appendix IX: Comments from the Department of State: 

Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the 
end of this appendix. 

United States Department of State: 
Assistant Secretary for Resource Management and Chief Financial 
Officer: 
Washington, D.C. 20520: 

May 16, 2008: 

Ms. Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers: 
Managing Director: 
International Affairs and Trade: 
Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20548-0001: 

Dear Ms. Williams-Bridgers: 

We appreciate the opportunity to review your draft report, 
"International Food Assistance: Insufficient Efforts by Host 
Governments and Donors Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger in sub-Saharan 
Africa by 2015," GAO Job Code 320503. 

The enclosed Department of State comments are provided for 
incorporation with this letter as an appendix to the final report. 

If you have any questions concerning this response, please contact John 
Menard, Foreign Affairs Officer, Bureau of Economic, Energy and 
Business Affairs at (202) 663-2505. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Sid Kaplan (Acting): 

cc: GAO - Phil Thomas; 
EEB - Dan Sullivan: 
State/OIG - Mark Duda: 

Department of State Comments on GAO Draft Report: 

International Food Assistance: Insufficient Efforts by Host Governments 
and Donors Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger In sub-Saharan Africa by 
2015 (GAO-08-680, GAO Code 320503): 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on your draft report entitled 
International Food Assistance: Insufficient Efforts by Host Governments 
and Donors Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger in sub-Saharan Africa by 
2015. The Department of State, and its interagency partners, have been 
and continue to be engaged on the important issues of food aid and food 
security. The report provides timely information on this issue, which 
has become more critical in recent months with the sharp increase in 
food prices. 

The Department of State acknowledges the main findings of the GAO 
report. Although there are no recommendations to the Department of 
State in the report, we would like to provide some formal comments. 

On page 43, the report states that, "...Our meetings with officials of 
other agencies demonstrated that there was no significant effort to 
coordinate their food security programs." State believes this statement 
is inaccurate, as we engage in ongoing coordination with USAID and USDA 
on food security issues. Specifically, various bureaus within State 
such as the Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance (F), Bureau of 
Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), the Bureau of Economic, 
Energy, and Business Affairs (EEB), Bureau of African Affairs (AF), 
Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO), and others work 
closely with our colleagues at USAID and USDA to coordinate food 
security issues. [See GAO comment 1] 

We would also note the following issues should be addressed: 

* The issue of post-harvest food spoilage and market delivery, 
particularly in developing countries, needs to be examined and 
incorporated. [See GAO comment 2] 

* Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) issues/access requires attention and 
further study. The African countries regularly complain about the 
negative effects EU SPS rules have on their agricultural production. We 
understand that, technically, such rules would affect production for 
export, but the effects of the rules usually spill over into the 
domestic market as well. [See GAO comment 3] 

* Despite GAO's acknowledgement that FAO's surveys and studies are 
methodologically faulty and out of date (pages 39-41), GAO appears to 
rely on them to come up with its own analyses, noting in Appendix 1 
that FAO survey/data is reliable enough to use. (This would seem to 
produce data that is even less reliable than FAO's original data.) [See 
GAO comment 4] 

* The report relies solely on FAO reports/data regarding 
undernourishment. Other UN organizations, including UNHCR and WFP, do a 
good job of tracking malnutrition, etc., however, their data is not 
referenced in the report, neither is it clear what standard FAO employs 
for its assessments. Is it using SPHERE standards or standards that it 
has developed? No mention is made of WFP food assessments/surveys 
and/or the results of UN Joint Assessment Missions (JAMs). [See GAO 
comment 5] 

* The report fails to fully describe (take into account) WFP's work in 
the agriculture and infrastructure development sectors (see footnote 
14, page 14) and host governments' support of such projects. (For 
example, the Government of South Sudan (GOSS) contributed $55M to a WFP 
infrastructure-road building/improvement operation in 2007; since the 
operation began in 2004, the GOSS has contributed over $85M. The 
operation's short-term goal was to make it easier to deliver food 
assistance in southern Sudan; the long-term benefits to the region's 
economy will be its lasting contribution to food security including 
reducing the cost of access to food and markets in which to sell 
food/agriculture products. The operation has been so successful that at 
the GOSS' request WFP has extended it through mid-2009. The USG has 
contributed over $72.55M to this operation. (Note: Neither the GOSS or 
any other government entity in Sudan has ever contributed to a WFP 
feeding operation.) [See GAO comment 6] 

* Although the report's authors acknowledge role of trade policies in a 
footnote on page 16 of the report, in order for the report to be 
comprehensive it should take into account the important role trade 
(access to markets; subsidies, etc.) has on food security and the goal 
of halving hunger. It is clear that under-investment in agriculture is 
a global phenomenon that is one of the biggest factors in preventing 
food security. [See GAO comment 3] 

* When discussing the causes of hunger in Africa, the report does not 
mention such key issues as a prolonged period of warfare and civil 
strife, and inadequately addresses such important host government 
issues as good governance, and a commitment to agricultural and rural 
development. [See GAO comment 7] 

* To further address the causes of hunger in Africa, especially in 
light of rising food prices, the USG is pursuing an integrated policy 
response. [See GAO comment 8] 

* On May 1, the President announced his request to the Congress for an 
additional $770 million in funding for food aid and agricultural 
development programs to help address global food insecurity issues. The 
additional $770 million will support a three-pillared response to the 
food crisis: (1) increasing food assistance to meet the immediate needs 
of the most vulnerable ($620 million); (2) augmenting agriculture 
productivity programs, especially in Africa and other key agricultural 
regions, to boost food staple supplies ($150 million); and (3) 
promoting an international policy environment that addresses the 
systemic causes of the food crisis. 

* Emergency assistance funds will target those regions most severely 
affected by the food shortage crisis, including Ethiopia, Kenya, 
Mauritania, Niger, Somalia and Zimbabwe. Non-emergency assistance funds 
to help boost agriculture productivity will also target countries in 
Africa, including Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Mali, Uganda, Ethiopia, 
Kenya, and Rwanda. 

* The President's announcement is in addition to his previous request 
for an additional $350 million for emergency food aid in FY 2008, and 
the $200 million drawdown of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bill 
Emerson Humanitarian Trust announced two weeks ago. The President 
stated that, with these additional resources, the U.S. will contribute 
a total of almost $5 billion to the fight against global hunger in FY 
2008 and FY 2009. 

* Critically, the U.S. strategy goes beyond the immediate impacts of 
the food price crisis to address the underlying causes of commodity 
market fluctuations. We have outlined steps the U.S., the international 
community, and the affected governments can take to increase 
agricultural productivity, as well as the systemic international policy 
issues that distort the international food market. 

* The second pillar of the U.S. approach is to jump-start a substantial 
supply response in key developing countries where we can rapidly double 
production of key food staples. At the same time, we will work to break 
the transportation chokepoints and bottlenecks that inhibit the 
efficient flow of food across key points in Africa. Together this will 
target some of the most fundamental challenges facing agricultural 
development that are contributing to high food prices. 

* Finally, the U.S. will strongly promote an international policy 
environment that facilitates a truly global market for food. This 
includes a strong push for the conclusion of the Doha Round this year 
that contains a strong agreement on agricultural market access. In 
addition, the U.S. will work with countries to remove harmful export 
restrictions that result in higher global food prices and deny poor 
farmers access to global markets. We will also press for countries to 
abide by global trading rules and accept science based evaluations of 
food production methods. Advanced crops developed through biotechnology 
have an important role to play in increasing productivity, and lifting 
agriculture export restrictions that contribute to higher food prices 
is essential. 

Following are GAO's comments on the Department of State letter dated 
May 16, 2008. 

GAO Comments: 

1. We maintain that U.S. agencies' efforts to coordinate food security 
programs have thus far been insufficient. Efforts to date are focused 
primarily on food aid, as opposed to food security, and there is no 
comprehensive U.S. governmentwide strategy for addressing food 
insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa. 

2. A major reason for food spoilage and poor market delivery is poor 
infrastructure, as we note in our discussion of rural development. 

3. As we note in our discussion of our objectives, scope, and 
methodology (see app. I), although we recognize the multifaceted nature 
of factors affecting food security, we excluded some factors, such as 
international trade, from the scope of our study. While international 
trade is important to global food security, its relative importance to 
sub-Saharan Africa is considerably lower. Many smallholder farmers in 
sub-Saharan Africa are not in a position to benefit from international 
trade due to high transaction costs, and they generally produce 
products, such as cassava, that are not traded internationally. 

4. We did not generate data from FAO's original estimates of 
undernourishment. We relied on FAO's estimates to assess progress 
toward the WFS and MDG goals. As we note in our previously mentioned 
objectives, scope, and methodology, we discussed the reliability of 
FAO's undernourishment estimates with cognizant FAO and U.S. government 
officials in Washington and in sub-Saharan Africa, and we determined 
that these estimates are sufficiently reliable for our purpose, which 
is to show overall trends over time at the aggregate level. 

5. FAO's estimates are the official indicators used to track progress 
toward the WFS and MDG-1 goals. In addition, they are the only 
estimates available to assess undernourishment at the global level. 
Other UN agencies, such as WFP, conduct assessments and collect other 
data on food supply and nutrition for their respective missions. 
However, they do not do so at the global level, and their data cannot 
replace FAO's estimates on undernourishment to track long-term progress 
toward the WFS and MDG-1 goals. 

6. We added language in appendix IV to reflect the recent experiences 
in southern Sudan. 

7. As we previously mentioned in our objectives, scope, and 
methodology, although we recognize the multifaceted nature of factors 
affecting food security, some factors, such as conflicts, were excluded 
from the scope of our study. We disagree with State's assertion that we 
did not adequately address host government issues. Our report points 
out that host government policy disincentives are a main factor in food 
insecurity. We also note that the lack of the sufficient investment in 
agriculture by the host government is one of the challenges hindering 
progress to halving hunger by 2015. 

8. In May 2008, the President announced a $770 million initiative that 
aims to (1) increase food assistance to meet the immediate needs of the 
most vulnerable ($620 million); (2) augment agricultural productivity 
programs, especially in Africa and other key agricultural regions, to 
boost food staple supplies ($150 million); and (3) promote an 
international policy environment that addresses the systemic causes of 
the food crisis. However, as of the time of this report, Congress had 
not passed legislation implementing this proposal. 

[End of section] 

Appendix X: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Thomas Melito, (202) 512-9601 or [email protected]: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the person named above, Phillip J. Thomas (Assistant 
Director), Carol Bray, Ming Chen, Debbie Chung, Martin De Alteriis, 
Leah DeWolf, Mark Dowling, Etana Finkler, Melinda Hudson, Joy Labez, 
Julia A. Roberts, Kendall Schaefer, and Elizabeth Singer made key 
contributions to this report. 

[End of section] 

Related GAO Products: 

Somalia: Several Challenges Limit U.S. and International Stabilization, 
Humanitarian, and Development Efforts. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-351]. Washington, D.C.: 
February 19, 2008. 

The Democratic Republic of the Congo: Systematic Assessment Is Needed 
to Determine Agencies' Progress Toward U.S. Policy Objectives. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-188]. Washington, 
D.C.: December 14, 2007. 

Foreign Assistance: Various Challenges Limit the Efficiency and 
Effectiveness of U.S. Food Aid. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO-07-905T]. Washington, D.C.: May 24, 2007. 

Foreign Assistance: Various Challenges Impede the Efficiency and 
Effectiveness of U.S. Food Aid. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO-07-560]. Washington, D.C.: April 13, 2007. 

Foreign Assistance: U.S. Agencies Face Challenges to Improving the 
Efficiency and Effectiveness of Food Aid. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-616T]. Washington, D.C.: March 
21, 2007. 

Darfur Crisis: Progress in Aid and Peace Monitoring Threatened by 
Ongoing Violence and Operational Challenges. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-9]. Washington, D.C.: November 
9, 2006. 

Foreign Assistance: Lack of Strategic Focus and Obstacles to 
Agricultural Recovery Threaten Afghanistan's Stability. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-607]. Washington, D.C.: June 
30, 2003. 

Foreign Assistance: Sustained Efforts Needed to Help Southern Africa 
Recover from Food Crisis. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO-03-644]. Washington, D.C.: June 25, 2003. 

Food Aid: Experience of U.S. Programs Suggest Opportunities for 
Improvement. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-02-
801T]. Washington, D.C.: June 4, 2002. 

Foreign Assistance: Global Food for Education Initiative Faces 
Challenges for Successful Implementation. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-02-328]. Washington, D.C.: 
February 28, 2002. 

Foreign Assistance: U.S. Bilateral Food Assistance to North Korea Had 
Mixed Results. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/NSIAD-
00-175]. Washington, D.C.: June 15, 2000. 

Foreign Assistance: Donation of U.S. Planting Seed to Russia in 1999 
Had Weaknesses. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/NSIAD-
00-91]. Washington, D.C.: March 9, 2000. 

Food Security: Factors That Could Affect Progress toward Meeting World 
Food Summit Goals. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO/NSIAD-99-15]. Washington, D.C.: March 22, 1999. 

Food Security: Preparations for the 1996 World Food Summit. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/NSIAD-97-44]. Washington, D.C.: 
November 7, 1996. 

International Relations: Food Security in Africa. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-T-NSIAD-96-217]. Washington, 
D.C.: July 31, 1996. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] GAO, Food Security: Factors That Could Affect Progress Toward 
Meeting World Food Summit Goals, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO/NSIAD-99-15] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 22, 1999). 

[2] FAO defines "undernourishment" as the condition of people whose 
food consumption is continuously below a minimum dietary energy 
requirement for maintaining an acceptable minimum body size, living a 
healthy life, and carrying out light physical activity. While we 
recognize that there are different technical definitions for "chronic 
undernourishment," "food insecurity," and "hunger," we use these terms 
interchangeably in this report. 

[3] In its report on The State of Food and Agriculture (2006), FAO 
reported undernourishment estimates for 39 countries in sub-Saharan 
Africa: 6 countries in Central Africa, 8 in East Africa, 11 in southern 
Africa, and 14 in West Africa. FAO makes a composite estimate for 
countries for which it lacks country-level data and uses that estimate 
in developing its overall undernourishment estimates for sub-Saharan 
Africa. FAO uses the average of the period of 1990 to 1992 as the 
baseline in measuring progress toward the WFS goal, and its most recent 
official statistics available for undernourishment are for the period 
of 2001 to 2003. 

[4] Between January 2007 and April 2008, 15 countries reported food 
riots and protests, according to WFP. These countries are Burkina Faso, 
Cameroon, Cï¿½te d'Ivoire, Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Italy, 
Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, and Yemen. 

[5] We selected East Africa and southern Africa for fieldwork because 
these are the regions where food insecurity is most severe and 
widespread. All four countries that we selected had undernourishment 
rates of more than 30 percent. We also selected countries that could 
serve as illustrative examples of regional USAID activities (e.g., 
Kenya), U.S. Presidential Initiative to End Hunger in Africa priority 
countries (e.g., Mozambique and Zambia), Millennium Challenge 
Corporation compact countries (e.g., Tanzania), and UN Millennium 
Villages (e.g., Kenya). 

[6] These included representatives from the missions of Canada, France, 
Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. 

[7] In this report, we use the Organization for Economic Cooperation 
and Development's Development Assistance Committee statistical 
definition of aid to agriculture. This definition includes agricultural 
sector policy, planning, and programs; agricultural land and water 
resources; agricultural development and supply of inputs, crops, and 
livestock production; agricultural services; agricultural education, 
training, and research; and institution capacity building and advice. 

[8] FAO's estimates on undernourishment are the only global-level 
estimates currently available. 

[9] Pub. L. No. 480, section 407(f), states that "the President shall 
prepare an annual report concerning the programs and activities 
implemented under this law for the preceding fiscal year." The U.S. 
International Food Assistance Report, which USAID prepares and submits 
to Congress annually, provides a report on USAID and USDA international 
food assistance programs that are aimed at reducing food insecurity. 

[10] The term "pastoralists" refers to nomadic communities--including 
an estimated 15 to 20 million people in East Africa--who depend on 
raising and herding livestock for a living and who move with rainy and 
dry seasons in search of water and grazing land. In some instances, 
nomadic families become agropastoralists, with some family members 
raising agricultural crops to meet a portion of their household food 
needs and others moving with their herds of livestock in search of 
water and grazing land. 

[11] MDG-1 has two targets: first, between 1990 and 2015, to halve the 
proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day; and second, 
between 1990 and 2015, to halve the proportion of people who suffer 
from hunger. The second target is measured by two progress indicators: 
(1) the prevalence of underweight children under 5 years of age on the 
basis of United Nations Children's Fund and World Health Organization 
data and (2) the proportion of the population below the minimum level 
of dietary energy consumption. In this report, we focus on the latter 
indicator, which is based on FAO's WFS goal estimates. 

[12] FAO, Rome Declaration on World Food Security and World Food Summit 
Plan of Action, World Food Summit (Rome: Nov. 13-17, 1996). 

[13] Instability caused by conflict is one of the major contributors to 
the increase in the undernourished population in sub-Saharan Africa. 
According to FAO, the increase in undernourished people since 1990 was 
mainly driven by five war-torn countries (Burundi, Democratic Republic 
of Congo, Eritrea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone). 

[14] The New Partnership for Africa's Development, formerly known as 
the New African Initiative, was established by the AU in July 2001. 

[15] According to officials from USAID's East Africa Mission, support 
to CAADP is coordinated by a partnership platform, a group of senior 
representatives of multilateral and bilateral donors. 

[16] FAO was one of the first international organizations established 
at the end of World War II in recognition of the importance of ensuring 
food for all as a precondition to security and peace. Among its varied 
functions, FAO also sets international standards and provides technical 
assistance to developing countries. 

[17] Although the majority of WFP's funding goes toward relief food aid 
to address emergencies, a small proportion of its funding is geared 
toward development projects, such as community-based food-for-work and 
food-for-assets programs, to help communities build or rebuild food 
security and enhance their resilience to shocks. Funding for WFP's 
nonemergency development projects worldwide has gradually declined over 
the last 15 years, from about 30 percent of WFP's operational budget in 
the early 1990s to about 10 percent in recent years. Some of WFP's work 
in the agriculture and infrastructure development sectors contribute to 
long-term food security. 

[18] Members of the G8 are Canada, the European Commission, France, 
Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United 
States. 

[19] To meet its commitment to double aid to sub-Saharan Africa between 
2004 and 2010, the United States launched MCC, with the aim of 
providing up to $5 billion a year; the $15 billion President's 
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; an initiative to address humanitarian 
emergencies in Africa that cost more than $2 billion in 2005; and a new 
$1.2 billion malaria initiative. 

[20] Title II of Pub. L. No. 480 (the Agricultural Trade Development 
and Assistance Act of 1954, as amended, 7 U.S.C. ï¿½ 1701 et seq) is the 
largest U.S. food aid program, representing approximately 74 percent of 
total in-kind food aid allocations from fiscal years 2002 through 2006. 
This program is managed by USAID. 

[21] In addition, Nigeria and South Africa receive biotechnology 
funding through IEHA but do not have a comprehensive IEHA agenda. 

[22] Although trade reform was beyond the scope of our review, we 
recognize that it is an important factor to both food security and the 
goal of halving hunger. However, its relative importance to sub-Saharan 
Africa is considerably lower. 

[23] Cassava plants provide an essential part of the diet of more than 
half a billion people. Cassava roots are high in calories, and their 
leaves are a source of protein and vitamins A and B. Cassava plants 
grow in poor soils with minimum amounts of fertilizer, pesticides, and 
water. Because cassava roots can be harvested from 8 months to 24 
months after planting, they are an important safeguard against 
unexpected food shortages. 

[24] World Bank, World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for 
Development (Washington, D.C.: 2007). 

[25] Grain yield, which is measured by kilograms of cereal production 
per acre, is a commonly used measure for agricultural productivity. 

[26] Microcredit involves giving small, low-interest start-up loans to 
poor entrepreneurs to assist them in developing small business 
enterprises. 

[27] United Republic of Tanzania, Ministry of Agriculture, Food 
Security and Cooperatives, Agriculture Sector Review and Public 
Expenditure Review for 2007/2008. 

[28] Biofuels are combustible fuels produced from biomass. Current 
biofuel technology uses agricultural feed stocks, such as maize and 
sugar, to produce ethanol and rapeseed, and uses soybean and palm oil 
to produce biodiesel. 

[29] Economic development has diversified diets away from starchy foods 
to meat and dairy products, with increased demand for feed grains. FAO 
reports that it takes about 7 to 8 kilos of grain to produce 1 kilo of 
beef. 

[30] USDA, for example, ranked 70 low-income countries by grain import 
dependence and daily calorie consumption. Several agriculture- 
producing countries, including Eritrea and Zimbabwe, depend on grain 
imports for more than 40 percent of calories consumed. 

[31] WFP's food aid budget shortfall increased from $500 million in 
February 2008 to $755 million as of April 2008. However, on May 23, 
2008, WFP announced a $500 million donation from Saudi Arabia, which 
effectively closed the shortfall when combined with $460 million in 
donations from 31 other countries. WFP now estimates having an 
additional $214 million for other urgent hunger needs. According to our 
earlier estimates, if WFP's shortfall had not been met, the agency 
would have been required to cut rations or reduce the number of 
beneficiaries, and may have had to reduce the amount of food aid it 
planned to deliver by as much as 35 percent. 

[32] For the purposes of this report, climate change refers to any 
change in the climate over time, whether due to natural variability or 
as a result of human activity. 

[33] For a discussion of models from the National Academy of Sciences 
and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, see GAO, Climate 
Change: Financial Risks to Federal and Private Insurers in Coming 
Decades Are Potentially Significant, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO-07-285] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 16, 2007). 

[34] FAO is planning a high-level conference in June 2008 entitled 
"World Food Security: Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy on 
Food Security." For information on the conference, see the following 
Web site: [hyperlink, http://www.fao.org/foodclimate]. 

[35] We reviewed eight joint assessments of PRSPs for eight countries 
in East Africa and southern Africa, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, 
Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. 

[36] In recognition of the lack of political and financial leadership 
for agricultural development by African governments, and the importance 
of agriculture to poverty reduction and food security, CAADP was 
designed to (1) guide country strategies and investment, (2) allow 
regional peer learning and review, and (3) facilitate greater alignment 
and harmonization of development efforts. 

[37] The CAADP process requires (1) a country assessment of progress 
and performance toward CAADP targets and principles; (2) establishment 
of a country CAADP compact that includes needed actions and commitments 
by national governments, the private sector, the farming community, and 
development partners; and (3) a policy dialogue and arrangement to 
monitor commitments and progress. 

[38] The 13 countries are Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, 
Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia. 

[39] For example, the World Bank estimated that $54 to $62 billion per 
year is needed worldwide to meet MDG-1. UNDP estimated that $46 billion 
per year is required among Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC)-- 
which is an initiative that was established in 1996 as a bilateral and 
multilateral effort to provide debt relief to poor countries to help 
them achieve economic growth and debt sustainability. HIPC currently 
identifies 41 countries, of which 32 countries are in sub-Saharan 
Africa, as potentially eligible to receive debt relief. 

[40] In 2006, 53 percent of the projects were rated satisfactory in 
sustainability. 

[41] Despite adverse conditions during the postelection turmoil, 
according to a UN official, as of May 2008, the Millennium Villages in 
Kenya have been able to continue activities as planned due to community 
ownership and holistic development strategies that ensure the villages' 
long-term sustainability. 

[42] In 2006, 132 countries were members of the Committee on World Food 
Security. The 17 sub-Saharan African countries that submitted progress 
reports in 2006 were Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic 
Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, 
Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. 

[43] Although ODA may be limited relative to the size of a recipient 
country's economy, foreign assistance is important to agricultural 
development for some African countries. According to the 2008 World 
Development Report, for 24 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, ODA 
averages 28 percent of total agricultural spending, and for Mozambique, 
Niger, and Rwanda, ODA averages more than 80 percent. 

[44] This high-level forum of aid effectiveness was composed of leaders 
of government ministries responsible for development and heads of 
multilateral and bilateral development institutions. The forum met to 
reform the delivery and management of aid in preparation for the 5-year 
review of the Millennium Declaration and MDGs in late 2005. 

[45] According to the 2008 World Development Report, the government of 
Tanzania has been overcoming this challenge by pooling donor resources. 

[46] The other pilot countries were Albania, Cape Verde, Pakistan, 
Rwanda, Uruguay, and Vietnam. 

[47] This ODA funding includes the U.S. Presidential Initiative to End 
Hunger in Africa. 

[48] These programs include, for example, Food for Progress, which 
involves donations or credit sales of commodities to developing 
countries and emerging democracies, and the McGovern-Dole Food for 
Education and Child Nutrition, which involves the donation of 
commodities and provision of financial and technical assistance in 
foreign countries. In fiscal year 2007, USDA assistance totaled $130 
million and $99 million to these two programs, respectively. 

[49] Our analysis applied the following criteria: (1) these 
recommendations and lessons, both positive and negative, were mentioned 
in at least 6 of the 9 panels, and were mentioned at least 10 times or 
more overall, and (2) these criteria were consistent with the natural 
breaks in the data. 

[50] This Famine Fund is also known as the International Disaster and 
Famine Assistance Fund, which provides funding for famine prevention 
and relief, as well as mitigation of the effects of famine by 
addressing its root causes. One of the projects USAID has funded is the 
Regional Enhanced Livelihoods in Pastoral Areas (RELPA), a $19.8 
million program to increase the resiliency of pastoralists in drought- 
prone areas by stabilizing and improving their livelihoods. 

[51] Monetization is the use of food aid as a means to raise cash to 
fund development projects. It requires food to be procured, shipped, 
and eventually sold--incurring costs at each step in the process. For a 
discussion of this practice, see GAO, Foreign Assistance: Various 
Challenges Impede the Efficiency and Effectiveness of U.S. Food Aid, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-560] (Washington, 
D.C.: Apr. 13, 2007). 

[52] The 6 countries are Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and 
Uganda. 

[53] For the purposes of this report, climate change refers to any 
change in the climate over time, whether due to natural variability or 
as a result of human activity. 

[54] Biofuels are combustible fuels produced from biomass. Current 
biofuel technology uses agricultural feed stocks, such as maize and 
sugar, to produce ethanol and rapeseed, soybean, and palm oil to 
produce biodiesel. Biofuels reduce world dependence on oil in the 
transportation sector and are a renewable energy. They generate less 
smog-producing carbon monoxide and less greenhouse gas emissions than 
oil. 

[55] Most biofuel producers require government subsidies to be 
commercially viable, and the potential positive environmental impacts 
from biofuel production have also been questioned. World Resources 
Institute estimates that it took 13 percent of the U.S. corn harvest in 
2005 to displace less than 3 percent of fuel needs. It further reports 
that, since planting, fertilizing, and harvesting; fermentation; 
distillation; and transportation of 1 gallon of corn-based ethanol 
requires between 60 and 75 percent of the energy that is produced by 
that gallon, global greenhouse gas emissions are only reduced by about 
25 to 40 percent relative to oil. 

[56] Furthermore, most observed increases in global average 
temperatures since the mid-twentieth century are likely caused by human 
activity, principally the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, 
which have increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. 
For a discussion of models from the National Academy of Sciences and 
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, see GAO, Climate Change: 
Financial Risks to Federal and Private Insurers in Coming Decades Are 
Potentially Significant, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO-07-285] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 16, 2007). 

[57] Stern, Sir Nicholas, Stern Review: Economics of Climate Change, 
Report to the Prime Minister, United Kingdom Government Economic 
Service (October 2006). 

[58] Hulme, Mike, Ruth Doherty, Todd Ngara, Mark New, and David Lister, 
African Climate Change: 1900-2100. Revised manuscript for Climate 
Research (April 2000). 

[59] Development of adaptive capacity is costly. African agriculture's 
ability to adapt to climate change could improve through agronomic 
research (including biotechnology, which may result in drought and pest 
resistant crops), improved irrigation and water management, expanded 
access to credit and information, and development of appropriate risk 
management. However, such efforts are costly. The United Nations 
Framework for Climate Change, for example, has established several 
funds to help poor countries adapt to climate change, though the World 
Bank reports that current adaptation funding, with contributions at 
$150 million to $300 million a year, are insufficient to finance 
adaptation costs estimated at tens of billions of dollars in developing 
countries. 

[60] Climate change impact modeling entails significant uncertainty due 
to the complexity of weather systems, limited statistical precision of 
projections of future precipitation changes, and the potential for 
changes in adaptive capacity. While regional climate change models are 
now being developed, global climate models have also been criticized 
for not adequately accounting for the El Niï¿½o effects that are 
important drivers of African climate variability. 

[End of section] 

GAO's Mission: 

The Government Accountability Office, the audit, evaluation and 
investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting 
its constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance 
and accountability of the federal government for the American people. 
GAO examines the use of public funds; evaluates federal programs and 
policies; and provides analyses, recommendations, and other assistance 
to help Congress make informed oversight, policy, and funding 
decisions. GAO's commitment to good government is reflected in its core 
values of accountability, integrity, and reliability. 

Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony: 

The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no 
cost is through GAO's Web site [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. Each 
weekday, GAO posts newly released reports, testimony, and 
correspondence on its Web site. To have GAO e-mail you a list of newly 
posted products every afternoon, go to [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov] 
and select "E-mail Updates." 

Order by Mail or Phone: 

The first copy of each printed report is free. Additional copies are $2 
each. A check or money order should be made out to the Superintendent 
of Documents. GAO also accepts VISA and Mastercard. Orders for 100 or 
more copies mailed to a single address are discounted 25 percent. 
Orders should be sent to: 

U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street NW, Room LM: 
Washington, D.C. 20548: 

To order by Phone: 
Voice: (202) 512-6000: 
TDD: (202) 512-2537: 
Fax: (202) 512-6061: 

To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs: 

Contact: 

Web site: [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm]: 
E-mail: [email protected]: 
Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470: 

Congressional Relations: 

Ralph Dawn, Managing Director, [email protected]: 
(202) 512-4400: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street NW, Room 7125: 
Washington, D.C. 20548: 

Public Affairs: 

Chuck Young, Managing Director, [email protected]: 
(202) 512-4800: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street NW, Room 7149: 
Washington, D.C. 20548: 

*** End of document. ***