Our Purpose

The Alliance for Food Aid seeks adequate resources for food aid and the adoption of government policies that support the use of food aid in multi-faceted programs that address the underlying causes of hunger. Food security is negatively affected by a wide range of issues, including poor agricultural productivity; high unemployment; low and unpredictable incomes; remoteness of farm communities; susceptibility to natural disasters, civil unrest and instability; wide discrepancies between the well-off and the poor; chronic disease; and lack of basic health, education, water and sanitation services. Well-planned and well-executed food aid programs address these underlying causes of hunger.

The world’s efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goal of cutting hunger in half by 2015 is far from reach. The number of people suffering from chronic hunger increased from 1996 to 2004 from under 800 million to 842 million. Besides these unmet chronic needs, international appeals for emergency food aid are constantly under-funded. While food aid alone cannot resolve the sad and complex problem of hunger, it is a critical component of an international food security strategy. It is particularly effective in countries with chronic food deficits and for vulnerable, low-income populations.

MEMBERS: Members are non-profit, private voluntary organizations and cooperatives (called “PVOs”) that conduct development and relief programs in partnership with local communities and institutions in developing countries. Food aid is an important part of their efforts to alleviate hunger, to build local capacity, and to foster agricultural, economic and human development.