Peacekeeping and the UN Agencies by Jim Whitman

Author:Jim Whitman [Whitman, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780714648972
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 1999-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

Thomas G. Weiss, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, The Graduate School and University Center, The City University of New York.

Complex Emergencies, Peacekeeping and the World Food Programme

Raymond F. Hopkins

The World Food Programme’s largest mission has evolved in the last decade from development to disaster relief. In particular, the rise of emergency food aid delivered in response to civil disorders has presented new challenges. This has led to substantial organizational challenges. Coordination with UN and NGO humanitarian agencies has grown, logistical capacity has adapted to difficult requirements, and strategies for working in an insecure environment have been developed. The reliance on emergency relief makes WFP operations and funding more dependent on unpredictable political events. Owing to this evolution and the variability of emergency needs, WFP’s future direction and role in the UN system remain important issues.

The demand for UN intervention to provide emergency feeding to refugees and displaced persons fleeing domestic wars in the 1990s has substantially altered the World Food Programme. WFP’s modal mission has evolved from development to disaster relief. In 1977, 19 per cent of its food aid commitments were for emergencies. Over three-quarters of this food was targeted to respond to physical calamities such as droughts. Twenty years later, in 1997, 85 per cent of WFP commitments went to emergency operations. Furthermore, three-quarters of these resources were committed in response to ‘man-made’ disasters.1

WFP was perhaps the most affected of UN agencies as a result of the growth of emergency responses. Growth in emergency operations also changed WFP far more than it changed the organizations of bilateral food aid providers such as the US government or the European Union, or NGOs such as World Vision or CARE. Thus, while world-wide food aid donations shifted towards humanitarian response, this shift was far less pronounced among bilateral donors. Global food aid flows for emergency relief moved from 15 per cent in the 1970s to 30 per cent in the mid-1990s, doubling the share; for WFP the resource shift was nearer four-fold.

This essay reviews the dramatic shift in WFP orientation towards emergency feeding, particularly in ‘complex emergencies’ in which political, military and humanitarian missions are undertaken. It considers the effects of this shift on the WFP as an organization and on the efficient use of food aid for recipients. The transformation of WFP from a development organization towards a humanitarian response agency, while still on-going, has already had substantial consequences for its operations. It has entailed a greater attention to shorter-term, more costly interventions. There has been an attendant reduction in capacity-building collaborations with developing countries. More poor countries that are relatively stable are getting fewer resources. Uses of food aid for targeted, sustainable hunger reduction projects have been curtailed. In this regard, while WFP operates in ways that are similar to other parts of the UN system, the special nature of food aid as a less fungible resource than cash, and one more conventionally linked to immediate relief, makes the changes in WFP more pronounced.

Two external factors in particular have driven WFP away from its original mandate.

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