European Union

At the World Food Summit in Rome in 1996, heads of state and government and the European Commission committed themselves to reducing the number of undernourished people from 800 million to 400 million by 2015 and to move away from food aid towards more long-term development in order to improve the food security situation. Around the same time, a Council Regulation was adopted aimed at enhancing food security and reducing the recipient countries' dependence on food aid.

The European Court of Audit reviewed the implementation of this food security policy for the period 1997-2001. The Court found that in a number of recipient countries, food security strategies were not integrated in coherent national development strategies and that food security programs were executed as development programs separate from mainstream programs. The Court also found that reliable baseline information on the situation of food security was not available and that the statistics produced by national services were mostly inadequate. Also, the identification of projects was unstructured in many countries, with no formal selection procedures based on clear priorities and criteria. The local population was rarely involved in proposing and selecting projects, and few structures existed to support local communities in managing projects. Most central governments had delegated the management of food security programs to para-statal bodies, which hindered the integration of development actions in sustainable structures.

The Court's recommendations included the following:

* The concept of food security should be integrated in the Commission's overall development policy, and single overall strategies and programs should be developed for and by the recipient countries.

* The Commission should consider supporting developing countries in the production of reliable information on socio-economic household situations and the development of indicators on food security with other donors.

* The Commission should continue to focus its efforts on capacity building and institutional support to beneficiary countries' central and local services.

For further information, please contact the External Relations Department of the European Court of Auditors, tel.: +352-021-36 31 03 (GSM), +352-4398-45410, fax: +352-4398-46430, e-mail: euraud@eca.eu.int: or Web site: www.eca.eu.int.

Copyright International Journal of Government Auditing Apr 2003
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