[Senate Hearing 115-823]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-823
WHY FOOD SECURITY MATTERS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MULTILATERAL
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT,
MULTILATERAL INSTITUTIONS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC, ENERGY,
AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 14, 2018
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web:
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______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
40-579 PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
BOB CORKER, Tennessee, Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
MARCO RUBIO, Florida BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
CORY GARDNER, Colorado TOM UDALL, New Mexico
TODD YOUNG, Indiana CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
RAND PAUL, Kentucky CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
Todd Womack, Staff Director
Jessica Lewis, Democratic Staff Director
John Dutton, Chief Clerk
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MULTILATERAL INTERNATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT, MULTILATERAL INSTITUTIONS,
AND INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC, ENERGY,
AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
TODD YOUNG, Indiana, Chairman
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
CORY GARDNER, Colorado TOM UDALL, New Mexico
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Young, Hon. Todd, U.S. Senator From Indiana...................... 1
Merkley, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator From Oregon..................... 3
Beasley, Hon. David, Executive Director, World Food Programme,
Society Hill, SC............................................... 4
Prepared Statement........................................... 7
Nims, Matthew, Acting Director, Office of Food for Peace, U.S.
Agency for International Development........................... 17
Prepared Statement........................................... 19
Sova, Chase, Ph.D., Director of Public Policy and Research, World
Food Programme USA, Washington, DC............................. 29
Prepared Statement........................................... 31
Castellaw, Lieutenant General (Retired) John, United States
Marine Corps, Crockett Mills, TN............................... 38
Prepared Statement........................................... 39
Nunn, Michelle, President and Chief Executive Officer, CARE USA,
Atlanta, GA.................................................... 43
Prepared Statement........................................... 45
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Responses of The Honorable David Beasley to Questions Submitted
by Senator Todd Young.......................................... 49
Responses of Mr. Matthew Nims to Questions Submitted by Senator
Todd Young..................................................... 51
(iii)
WHY FOOD SECURITY MATTERS
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2018
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Multilateral International
Development, Multilateral Institutions, and
International Economic, Energy, And Environmental
Policy,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:34 p.m. in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Todd Young,
chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Young [presiding], Merkley, and Coons.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TODD YOUNG,
U.S. SENATOR FROM INDIANA
Senator Young. Good afternoon. This hearing of the Senate
Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multilateral and
International Development, Multilateral Institutions, and
International Economic, Energy, and Environmental Policy will
come to order.
I want to thank the ranking member, Senator Merkley. I
remain grateful for our bipartisan partnership on so many
issues, Senator.
The title for today's hearing is ``Why Food Security
Matters.'' Today we have an impressive group of leaders,
scholars, and experts joining us to discuss this important
issue. We will divide today's hearing into three panels.
The first panel consists of the Honorable David Beasley,
Executive Director of the World Food Programme.
Welcome, Director.
Our second panel will consist of Mr. Matthew Nims, the
Acting Director of the Office of Food for Peace at the United
States Agency for International Development.
And our third and final panel will consist of three
witnesses: Dr. Chase Sova, the Director of Public Policy and
Research at World Food Programme USA; Lieutenant General John
Castellaw, who served with distinction in the United States
Marine Corps; and Ms. Michelle Nunn, President and Chief
Executive Officer of CARE USA.
Given this excellent group of leaders and experts, I am
eager to hear from each of you. But before we do so, allow me
to make a few comments to frame and catalyze our discussion
this afternoon.
I will start with two important statistics. First,
Executive Director Beasley, you note in your prepared statement
that in 2016 the number of chronically hungry people in the
world went up for the first time in a decade, reaching 815
million people. You also note that 108 million people are
acutely hungry.
And second, in December 2017 the United Nations Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs launched its highest
ever global appeal for $22.5 billion to support 2018
humanitarian requirements.
Now, these numbers are staggering. They are also
heartbreaking. When we confront such horrible humanitarian
suffering, most of us recognize a moral imperative to help
wherever we can. I certainly do. As Mr. Nims wrote in his
prepared statement for today's hearing: ``We provide food
assistance because it eases human suffering and represents our
core American values of compassion and generosity.'' You go on
to say that ``helping feed those around the world in their time
of need is the right thing to do.''
I agree. But Mr. Nims does not stop there. He goes on to
say that helping to feed the hungry around the world makes
America and her allies safer. Executive Director Beasley, you
concur, saying feeding hungry people contributes to the
economic and national security interests of the United States.
Lieutenant General Castellaw, you put it succinctly, saying
that food crises grow terrorists.
I find these assertions intuitively compelling, and there
are many anecdotes and case studies that strongly suggest a
correlation and even a causation between hunger and instability
or hunger and conflict.
But at this time of seemingly unlimited threats and
challenges, anecdotes and suggestions are not enough to
effectively help justify the allocation of finite resources for
food security-related programs. We need to look at the
evidence, and I believe a growing body of research, from the
World Food Programme to the U.N. Development Program, the World
Bank, the United Nations, and a number of individual scholars,
conclusively demonstrates the connection between food
insecurity and instability.
Dr. Sova writes in his prepared remarks for today's hearing
that, ``While we have long understood the relationship between
hunger and instability to exist intuitively, research is now
catching up.'' It is this relatively new research in particular
that I look forward to exploring together today.
Despite the risk of spoiling the ending, let me say up
front where I stand. In addition to a clear moral imperative to
fight hunger, I believe there is strong evidentiary and
scholarly justification for concluding that it is in America's
clear national security interests to address food insecurity,
and I am not alone. A 2015 intelligence assessment by our
Office of the Director of National Intelligence asserted a
clear connection between food insecurity and social
disruptions, or large-scale political instability.
More recently, a joint study published this year by the
World Bank and the United Nations entitled ``Pathways for
Peace: Inclusive Approaches for Preventing Violence'' explored
the consequences of food insecurity. And the report concluded:
``Food insecurity can increase the risk of conflict,
particularly when caused by rising food prices, by displacing
populations, by exacerbating grievances, and by increasing
competition for scarce food and water resources.''
Now, these social disruptions and political instability
foster, enable, and create security threats to Americans and to
our national interests. And for those watching this hearing who
may have a decidedly narrow and, I would argue, mistaken
definition of American national security interests and who
focus exclusively on so-called ``hard'' power, I encourage you
to give our witnesses today a fair hearing. Listen to Executive
Director Beasley. He is the former Republican Governor of South
Carolina and he has visited 36 countries, by the latest count,
as the head of the World Food Programme. Listen to Matt Nims.
He spent his professional lifetime working on hunger-related
issues. Listen to Dr. Sova's groundbreaking scholarly research.
Listen to retired Marine Corps General John Castellaw, who
spent decades serving our country in uniform and saw the
consequences of food insecurity firsthand. And finally, listen
to Michelle Nunn, who leads CARE, an organization that has
worked to improve food security since 1945.
I am very excited to hear from our witnesses, and I look
forward to continuing our work together to fight global food
insecurity because it is the right thing to do, and also
because it is one of the best ways to proactively address
threats to Americans and our national interests.
So with those thoughts in mind, I would now like to call on
Ranking Member Merkley for his opening remarks.
Senator Merkley.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator Young. I do
appreciate the bipartisan way that we are undertaking these
issues. There is nothing about starvation in the world or human
suffering that should ever be a partisan issue. I am very
pleased that we have so much expertise being brought into this
room.
I am thinking about how perhaps food aid is not one of the
sexier issues in international affairs. We do not see a room
full of members right now. We do not see a line out the door.
But in terms of the impact on lives around the world, there may
be no more significant discussion than how we approach the
issue of the United States supporting food aid.
Never before have we experienced the number of simultaneous
complex humanitarian emergencies around the world, 65 million
people across the globe displaced, equivalent to the entire
population of France. That includes more than 22 million
refugees, 80 percent of whom live in just four countries:
Lebanon, Ethiopia, Jordan, and Kenya. And half of the 815
million people that you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, in the world
who are facing hunger every day live in conflict zones and
disproportionately are concentrated in Africa, and conflict has
a big role in the challenge of nutrition.
Last July, Chairman Young and I held a hearing in this
committee to discuss the origins and policy prescriptions to
combat famine in the four famine countries of Yemen, Somalia,
South Sudan, and Nigeria. Today's hearing builds on that
foundation, addressing the question of why food aid matters.
Why does it matter? It is certainly a clear expression of the
limitless compassion of the American people, and every food
basket or voucher, be it a source from the United States or
from a market close to the affected countries, is truly from
the American people.
We know that food-secure countries are less likely to
suffer from national, regional, or international instability,
as you so well summarized. And we have an additional
complicating factor driving food insecurity, which is the
impact of human-driven climate chaos. Record global
temperatures and droughts are affecting the production in
location after location, including hundreds of thousands of
small-holder farms spread around the world.
Food aid offers a critical lifeline to those who are caught
in the crosshairs of armed violence, including civil war, and
the critical lesson we have learned is that the most effective
and efficient response to a famine is to prevent one from
occurring in the first place. So we have to focus both on
addressing famines and working to prevent them. Both are
important pieces.
Regrettably, during this period when complex humanitarian
emergencies are on the rise, President Trump's Fiscal Year 2019
budget proposes a reduction by one-half in the Title 2 Food for
Peace Program, and a significant reduction in the International
Disaster Assistance Program.
So I think it is important for us to hold this hearing at
this time to ask and answer the question that is being posed so
that the Article 1 branch of the government can proceed to
weigh in, and that is where your expertise addressing this body
is so valued. Thank you for joining us.
Senator Young. Thank you, Ranking Member Merkley.
I want to once again welcome Executive Director David
Beasley.
In order to keep the lawyers happy, and in light of your
affiliation with the United Nations, I want to emphasize that
you are appearing voluntarily today before the subcommittee as
a courtesy, so thank you.
Your full written statement will, of course, be included in
the record. I welcome you to summarize your written statement
in about 5 minutes, sir.
STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID BEASLEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WORLD FOOD
PROGRAMME, SOCIETY HILL, SC
Mr. Beasley. Senator, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman and
Senator Merkley, thank you very much. It is good to be here.
For the record, I am here voluntarily and should not be
understood to be a waiver, express or implied, of the
privileges of the immunities of the United Nations and its
officials under the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and
Immunities of the U.N.
Now that we have that technically and legally out of the
way, Senator, you are right, I have been here almost a year,
and what I have learned in this year of having traveled to over
36 countries, and many of those countries multiple times, has
been not just eye-opening, it has been quite shocking to see
the realities of what we are facing compared to 30 or 40 years
ago.
We are facing the worst humanitarian crisis since the
creation of the United Nations, since World War II. But the
crisis that we are now facing is different. When the World Food
Programme was created, it was about natural disasters and
earthquakes and very select type wars. But today it is a whole
different ballgame. It is no longer just tsunamis and
earthquakes and hurricanes and climate-impacted disasters, but
it is also protracted wars and conflicts, 19 protracted areas
of conflict; and, as Senator Merkley said, 80 to 82 percent of
our expenditures now are in war zones.
It is a different ballgame, and it is not just war zones.
It is war zones with extremism--ISIS, al-Shabab, Boko Haram,
al-Qaeda. It is a whole different issue, because migration
today out of these war zones brings about extremism.
If you would allow me to sort of cut through, I would
really like to get down to what I think is the most serious
issue of what we are facing: funding, of course. Yes, we need
more funds. That is obvious, because we are facing so many
crises. Why is this in the national interests of the United
States, the security interest of America? Why is it in the
national security interests of the European community?
This was the question that I posed to the Europeans at the
Munich Security Conference just a couple of weeks ago. I said
if you think you had a problem with the migration of a few
million people out of a nation the size of Syria, a nation of
20 million people, you just wait until the Greater Sahel of 500
million people start heading your way.
I say that because of the reality of what we see on the
ground. It is not just crises like we had before. It is a whole
different ballgame. And if we do not get ahead of the curve, it
will cost 10 to 100 times more, we know now, because of the
failure to do the things that we needed to do in the past to
provide the sustainable development to bring about the
resilience that is needed in communities.
It is costing the global economy just last year alone 12
percent of the GDP. Fourteen trillion was the impact of global
conflict. And to think that only the World Food Programme
needed about $18 billion.
So let us discuss a little bit of the reality of what we
are facing, like in Syria, failure to get ahead of the curve,
so to speak, 6 million people that we are feeding on any given
day inside Syria, another 5 to 6 million that we are feeding on
any given day outside of Syria. And because of the support of
countries like the United States, it leads the world last year
alone, because there were a lot of people around the world
concerned that the United States would back down off its
commitment in leading and providing international aid. But what
I can say very proudly to leaders all over the world, the
United States, Republicans and Democrats coming together
clearly said to the world that we will continue to lead and we
will provide the support necessary. And because of that, it is
making a difference.
But when we do not work together strategically, we have the
consequences and the fallout of places like Syria. What we do
know based on our surveys and studies in Syria, for example--
and this is typical of any other country in conflict today--for
every 1 percent increase there is in hunger, there is a 2
percent increase in migration. And when we feed a Syrian in
Syria, it is 50 cents a day, and that is almost twice what it
would normally cost, but it is a war zone. The cost of feeding
a Syrian in Berlin is 50 Euros a day, and the Syrian does not
want to be in Berlin. They will actually move three or four
times inside Syria before they will actually leave their
country, because they want to stay home. People do not want to
migrate.
But the complication now is that when there is migration,
there is also infiltration by ISIS or al-Qaeda, Boko Haram or
al-Shabab. So now that ISIS has been moved out of Syria, well,
guess where they are going? They are going to one of the most
fragile areas in the world, in the Sahel, the Greater Sahel
region, and now they are partnering. We know. We see this on
the ground every day. When you feed 80 to 82 million people on
any given day, you hear a lot and see a lot.
We are the world's experts on what is taking place out
there, and ISIS is cutting deals, partnerships with Boko Haram
and al-Shabab and al-Qaeda and ISIS all throughout the Greater
Sahel region, with the purpose of infiltration for
destabilization, taking advantage of corrupt governments,
mismanaged governments, droughts, climate change, very fragile
communities, with the hopes that through this destabilization
there will be mass migration into Europe so there can be
further chaos.
But while I will say that, let me also add that I am now
very, very concerned about what is happening in Latin America
and South America. Two days ago I was on the ground at the
border of Venezuela and Colombia. It was heartbreaking to see
what is taking place. What we are experiencing with the
possibilities of the Greater Sahel are very well possibilities
that could happen in the Western Hemisphere. Eighty percent of
the people are food insecure in Venezuela. Fifty thousand
people per day are crossing the border, just in Cucuta, per
day. Over 4 million people have already left Venezuela in the
last few years, 1 million this past year; 660,000 stayed inside
Colombia.
The migration today is interesting because about 50,000 in
Cucuta, probably 100,000 across the border of 2,200 kilometers,
50,000 will come across and about 90 percent will go back. But
they are running out of food. It is not a money issue anymore.
There is no food. So there is going to be a tipping point where
the 50,000, the 100,000 that cross per day--sadly, the stories
of prostitution of little girls and little boys, and men and
young boys are signing up with the extremist groups, illegal
armed groups, and the extremists of the right wing are trying
to take advantage of this to try to destabilize Colombia, a
nation that is doing its best to be a tremendous host
community.
But if those 100,000 per day no longer start going back,
you will see the serious potential of destabilizing the entire
South American continent, and the implications for the United
States and its neighbors to the north could be tragic. This is
why I am so proud to see Republicans and Democrats, who might
have differences on what the immigration policies should be,
but to see them coming together to realize if we can address
the root cause of the problems, then people will not want to
move, and when they do, it is for all the right reasons.
Now, Senator, there is a lot I could add. I know we will
answer some questions about some of the things that we are
doing that will make a difference. It is not just about
humanitarian dollars, how do we use every humanitarian dollar
for a development opportunity. What can we do to change the
course of time? What can we do to change the direction so that
more nations work together and we have less silos? And how can
the U.N. be more effective, and how can the United States
Government be more effective working in conjunction with
Germany, the U.K., Canada and other nations around the world?
Because when we partner together in a cohesive way and
collaborate together, we can solve anything on the face of the
planet.
So, yes, we are going in the wrong direction. But I do
believe if we get our act together and get to the root cause of
these problems, we will save our children in such a way that
there will be a brighter future.
Senator, Mr. Chairman, thank you. It is good to be here,
and I will answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Beasley follows:]
Prepared Statement of David Beasley
introduction
Chairman Young, Ranking Member Merkley, members of the Senate
Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multilateral International
Development, Multilateral Institutions, and International Economic,
Energy and Environmental Policy, thank you for convening this hearing
on ``Why Food Security Matters.''
This is a truly important topic and I commend the bipartisan
efforts of this committee and its able staff to explore the issue of
how feeding hungry people contributes to the economic and national
security interests of the United States.
Today, I will provide a briefing relevant to this topic, on the
World Food Program's efforts to bring peace and stability to troubled
regions through not just short-term life-saving assistance, but also
through a focus on long-term economic-development aid.
This brief is being provided on a voluntary basis and should not be
understood to be a waiver, express or implied, of the privileges and
immunities of the United Nations and its officials under the 1946
Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.
I am about to hit my one-year anniversary as the Executive Director
of the United Nations World Food Program, the world's leading
humanitarian agency fighting hunger. Since I took office in April 2017,
I've visited 36 countries. My travel falls into two basic categories:
first, visits to donor countries to meet with leaders who help get us
the funds we need to battle hunger and handle emergencies; and second,
trips to where the real rubber meets the road--our operations that help
feed 80 million people in 80 countries worldwide.
What I see happening out in the field is what I want to talk to you
about this afternoon.
I've been to the four countries closest to famine: Yemen, South
Sudan, northeast Nigeria and Somalia--all filled with hungry people
because of man-made conflict. I've seen the wounds on the Rohingya
refugees from Myanmar. I've talked to those fleeing fighting in Central
African Republic, and people desperate to return to their small farms
in Democratic Republic of the Congo. I've visited hard-to-reach, war-
torn areas of Syria and talked to Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
The link between conflict and hunger is tragically strong. More
conflict leads to more hunger. And it works the other way, too--
persistent hunger creates the kind of instability that leads to more
conflict.
Our fellow brothers and sisters pay the largest price for this
repeating cycle. But nations, regions and continents do too.
Hunger and conflict destabilize and destroy. The inability to feed
your family can force good people to face impossible choices--horrible
choices. With no other options to put food on the table, you may take
on considerable risk and move somewhere else. Or even more horrible
choices, such as trading sex for food. Arranging an early marriage for
your daughter--even though she's still a child. Or joining a violent
radical group. These are just a few of the extreme actions people may
be forced to take when they have no other way to get food.
Hunger and conflict combine forces to create fertile ground for
extremist groups to do even more damage.
We must do more to break this cycle. We must work together on a
pro-active, strategic plan that creates stability and security. A plan
that gives people hope that they can live and work and play in the
place they truly call home.
Last month, I spoke at the Munich Security Conference, the most
prominent gathering of national defense and security experts in the
world. Discussions I had at this conference reinforced my view that
it's time to stop thinking that national security, or global stability,
can be achieved without effective humanitarian assistance.
Fundamentally, as long as there is severe hunger, the world cannot
reach genuine stability and security.
While security actors and humanitarians have different roles, their
work is complementary. As German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen
said in Munich, ``security and development, joined together, create
lasting stability.''
If we don't work together, the consequences are catastrophic. We'll
have more hunger, we'll have more conflict, we'll see stronger
extremist groups and forced migration will increase to numbers I
believe we've never seen. And because of all this, I believe the United
States and other leading powers will need to deploy their military
forces at a greater rate and a much greater cost than they would have
ever had to, if we'd just worked together more to achieve food
security.
state of food security
In 2016, the last year for which figures are available, the number
of chronically hungry people in the world went up for the first time in
a decade--to 815 million, from 777 million the year before.
And 108 million people--up from 80 million the year before--are
acutely hungry. These are people who need emergency assistance because
they have no other way to get the food they need to stay alive.
Conflict is to blame for nearly all this rise in hunger. Ten out of
the 13 largest hunger crises in the world are conflict-driven and today
fighting and violence drives over 80 percent of all humanitarian needs.
In fact, some of the people I meet are more desperate for peace
than they are for food. Just about every conflict-laden area I visit,
the people we are feeding ask for help in creating peace.
These conflict areas are home, unfortunately, to 60 percent of the
food insecure people around the world. And the consequences of conflict
and hunger are most severe on children. Hunger, malnutrition and poor
health often lead to stunting--a phrase used to describe severely
impaired growth in these young bodies. Three out of every four stunted
children in the world lives in a conflict area.
instability
This vast link between food insecurity and conflict contributes to
other serious issues within these nations.
As your colleague and my friend Senator Pat Roberts says: ``Show me
a nation that cannot feed itself, and I'll show you a nation in
chaos.''
Broadly, as our affiliate WFP-USA reports in ``Winning the Peace:
Hunger and Instability,'' research shows that food insecurity produces
instability, and instability produces food insecurity.
It's not surprising that just about every country near the bottom
of the World Bank's Political Stability Index has a high degree of food
insecurity and near-constant conflict within its borders.
Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Central African Republic . . . the list goes on. They are all plagued
by violence and home to millions of hungry people.
The world spent $27 billion on humanitarian assistance in 2016--but
almost half of it went to just four conflict-laden countries: Syria,
Iraq, Yemen and South Sudan. Forty-four other countries got the rest.
In some cases, what they received covered as little as five percent of
the total need.
Even small improvements in stability would make a difference for
the humanitarian budget. For example, if the Somalia could improve just
enough to be as stable as Kenya, WFP alone would save a total of $80.3
million a year in food assistance costs.
There are countries in sub-Saharan Africa, such as Ghana and
Botswana where humanitarian assistance is zero. And, not surprisingly,
those countries have no conflict and much lower food insecurity.
If we are truly going to get to stability, we need peaceful
resolution of conflicts. But at a very minimum, warring parties must
commit to observe International Humanitarian Law, protect civilians and
allow free-passage of humanitarian goods and services to reach those in
need.
the threat from extremism
The conditions that lead to instability are like fertilizer for
violent extremism. Extremist groups are always looking for new foot
soldiers and hunger makes their recruiting efforts far too easy.
As the United Nations Development Programme said in a report last
year, ``where there is injustice, deprivation and desperation, violent
extremist ideologies present themselves as a challenge to the status
quo and a form of escape.''
Sometimes, it's even simpler than that. These extremist groups
sometimes present themselves as the only way to survive. One woman in
Syria told our researchers, ``The men had to join extremist groups to
be able to feed us. It was the only option.''
Perhaps the most prominent example of how a hunger crisis played
into the hands of extremists came in 2011 in Somalia, where drought, a
food price spike and civil war converged in a famine that killed a
quarter of a million people.
It has been documented by researchers that during this time, al-
Shabaab was keeping humanitarians from getting to hungry people and it
was even offering money to enlist in its movement. One U.N. official
called the famine ``a boon'' for al-Shabaab's recruitment efforts.
The African people are paying the price of this extremism.
Secretary of State Tillerson noted last week that terrorist attacks in
Africa have risen; there were less than 300 in 2009, but in the last 3
years there were more than 1,500 of them each year.
It would be wrong to suggest that all--or even most--hungry people
are violent or immediately given to violent extremism. But we have seen
how hunger, marginalization, and frustration are capable of driving
people--especially youth--into insurgencies and extremist
organizations.
The failure to meet the needs of these people serves to foster
further frustration, increasing the pool of candidates who feel forced
by need and desperation to join these movements, leading to increased
food insecurity from violence and economic disruptions, completing the
circle.
People should not have to choose between feeding their family or
resorting to violent extremism--we have the tools through food
assistance to eliminate that awful choice. Food assistance through WFP
and other U.S. partners can save lives and create the space and time
necessary to arrive at political solutions that avoid or end these
conflicts.
It is also very important to note that the World Food Program is
fully committed to humanitarian law and its principles. We do not take
sides in conflicts; we feed the hungry and vulnerable wherever they
are.
But we are ``on'' the side of security and stability . . . of
conditions that make it possible for people to feel safe . . . safe
enough to know they can live with their families in peace and with
enough food.
migration pressure
Food insecurity and instability also clearly lead to more
migration. Our own research shows that for each 1 percent increase in
hunger, there is a 2 percent increase in migration.
The refugees and asylum seekers are moving because they feel they
have no choice. None of them really want to move. Nearly every single
Syrian we talked to in our report, ``At the Root of Exodus'' said they
wanted to go back to Syria if and when it was secure and stable at
home. And the research shows that people displaced by violence in
Syria, for example, will not move out of the country until they have
moved at least three times inside the country.
They want to stay home. Badly. Here's what one said: ``Lots of
people would rather die in Syria than be a refugee somewhere else.''
It doesn't surprise me: people want to stay with their families,
with familiar surroundings, in the place they call home. Sometimes they
will stay at great risk to their own personal safety.
But sometimes there's a tipping point.
When humanitarian assistance was cut in mid-2015 in Syria, asylum
applications to Europe spiked from 10,000 a month to 60,000 a month.
The risk of moving became lower than the risk of staying.
We're seeing this kind of risk calculation now being made in
Africa. The danger of crossing the Mediterranean is great, but so is
the danger from conflict, hunger and extreme poverty--the established
triggers of migration.
Data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shows
that in 2016, 730,000 people from Africa came to Europe as refugees or
asylum seekers. That's more than double the 360,000 who came in 2010.
Some of the largest increases came from countries in the Sahel or
sub-Saharan Africa--Eritrea, Somalia, Nigeria and Gambia. Asylum
seekers and refugees also came from other countries in dire straits--
the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, for example.
Much of the burden for migration does not actually fall on
wealthier nations--86 percent of refugees worldwide are hosted by
developing countries.
When the refugees do move to places like Europe, though, it
dramatically increases the cost of providing humanitarian assistance.
For example, it costs about 50 cents per day to provide food to someone
who is internally displaced within Syria--still one of the most
expensive places for humanitarian assistance.
But if that same person becomes a refugee in Germany, the German
people spend 50 Euros per day on social support programs. It's not
quite an apples-to-apples comparison because the German assistance
includes more than just food, but the gap is so large that it is still
a valid illustration of how much cheaper it would be if we can easily
and effectively reach people where they want to be--their own homeland.
africa and the sahel
Most of the countries in Africa, including those in the Sahel
region, have abundant natural resources, plenty of arable land and
young populations available to work.
As Secretary Tillerson noted last week, by the year 2030, Africa
will represent about one-quarter of the world's workforce. And the
World Bank estimates that six of the ten fastest growing economies in
the world this year will be African.
But also present in Africa is government neglect and corruption,
high amounts of food insecurity, near-constant conflict in some
countries, climate-related challenges such as droughts, and in some
cases, active violent ideological extremist groups.
In the five countries at the core of the Sahel--Burkina Faso, Chad,
Niger, Mali and Mauritania, acute malnutrition has risen 30 percent in
the past 5 years.
Because of these conditions, a toxic wind blows from the Red Sea to
the Atlantic Ocean. And we've got to have a better, more targeted and
effective strategy to deal with it. If we don't, the migration that
could come would make the Syrian refugee crisis look like a picnic.
the humanitarian-economic development nexus
In some of these areas, food has become a weapon of war. Access to
food is blocked, in part to subjugate other combatants. And in some
cases, as I mentioned, it's become a recruitment tool for groups.
But I believe food can be a weapon of peace. And it shouldn't be
just food.
What is needed is a properly funded, coordinated strategic plan--
one that involves work from other U.N. agencies, NGOs and national
governments alike. It should be implemented over the long-term and
grounded in international humanitarian law and principles.
This work could ensure true stability in the Sahel and sub-Saharan
Africa.
True stability would mean having the conditions that help a family,
a community, a region take care of itself. Of course, that starts with
food. It has to, because nothing else can happen when everyone's
hungry. But it also means schools and water and roads and governance
and a dozen other things.
Simply feeding people and handling emergencies just isn't enough
for long-term success. I do not mean to discount those tasks. Food
assistance is definitely the starting point for any long-term program,
and without food assistance now, we would have several countries in
famine right now.
But the true task ahead requires more than saving lives, it
requires changing them.
A WFP program in Niger is already showing how this works. Since
2014, we have been working with several partner organizations to help
more than 250,000 in about 35 communes, or towns, with a multi-sector
approach that builds resilience and stability.
Among other family assistance aspects, the programs include:
Land regeneration and water harvesting
Working with women's groups to plant tree nurseries and
community gardens
School meals through community gardens
Internal and external research show very positive results from this
effort. Agriculture productivity in these communes has doubled and in
some cases tripled. Because of increased land vegetation--up to as much
as 80 percent in some areas--there is less invasion of animals onto
agricultural lands. Those animal invasions onto someone else's farmland
contribute to inter-communal violence, so that reduction is an
important part of social cohesion. And finally, young men are migrating
less, instead staying home to work in the fields and provide stability
for their community's future.
Thanks to this success, we are now developing a ``transition
strategy'' for some households, helping them move to host-government
and/or partner safety net programs because they will no longer need
WFP's help.
We are encouraging donor governments to work more directly with us
in these kind of programs, instead of doing them in isolation, so we
can achieve these results on a larger scale.
For example, in 2016, we had 10 million people in 52 countries in
Food Assistance for Assets programs. They were building roads, planting
trees, and working on irrigation, water ponds and other agriculture-
related projects. The projects not only gave them hope but enabled them
to build up their own communities.
Another key component of this pro-development strategy starts
younger--with school children.
In 2016, we directly fed 16 million children with school meals in
60 countries, and we gave support that enabled food for another 45
million children.
It's enormously cost-effective--on average, WFP spends $50 to feed
a child in school for an entire year. That means, on average, we spend
25 cents per meal--just 10 percent of the average cost of a school meal
in the United States.
There's something truly important about this school feeding program
that's more than just the food and how cheap we can get it to the lunch
table.
For some parents, the food is the reason they send their child to
school. It's assurance that they will indeed be fed.
And I think it does more than that. Those children sit down, and
talk, and laugh together while eating. I think that time helps these
children see each other as people. That meal binds them together. And
when they're older, those bonds are harder to break.
Just this week, I received a note from Hatem Ben Salem, the
Minister of Education in Tunisia that discussed how help from WFP is
putting school meals at the heart of education reform in his country.
These reforms are designed to keep children in school, a key part of
that country's efforts to improve stability.
But what impressed me most was the Minister's ``warm memory'' of
his own experience with school meals as a child.
``Lunchtime at school offered an opportunity for children from
diverse backgrounds, rich and poor, to sit around a table and share a
hot meal. The image of the two hands shaking, which portrayed the
support and solidarity of the American people through USAID, is still
in my memory as a symbol of equality of opportunity and social cohesion
in my country,'' he wrote.
Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I'd like to submit the note
from Hatem Ben Salem for the hearing record.
The minister's memory reminds me of my own childhood, in a little
town called Lamar, South Carolina. It was a tense, controversial time
back then, in the early 1970s, when schools were being desegregated
across the South.
I stayed in the public schools, because my parents strongly
believed in the power of public education. And like a lot of kids, I
played sports. Most of my friends did too, and a lot of times they'd
stop at our house for dinner as they walked home from practice.
I remember learning that that meal, courtesy of my mother's
Southern cooking, was one of two that some of my teammates would have
that day. The other would be the lunch provided to them for free in
school.
Every so often, I run into one of those teammates when I'm back
home. We see each other as old friends, regardless of our faith
traditions or what our skin color is or who we voted for in the last
election.
A meal cannot solve all of society's problems, but my experience,
and the experience of Minister Ben Salem, suggests that it is
fundamental and does have power to bridge barriers. So, my big dream is
to make sure that every child who gets assistance from WFP gets in a
school meals program. And every able-bodied beneficiary is in a food-
for-assets program.
breaking down bureaucracy
One of the biggest challenges we have is the siloed nature of not
just the U.N., but our donors as well. Those of us in the U.N. can take
some blame for not doing a good enough job of breaking out of boxes.
There's too much worrying about who will get the credit.
We are also trying to break down barriers between donor countries,
so money that comes to WFP can encourage, not discourage, long-term
strategic planning and execution. More than 90 percent of the money we
get is earmarked, not just for specific countries, but specific
activities within them. So, for example, in many cases we can't build
roads to connect farmers to markets, even if we have the qualified
teams who could do just that.
The United States has long been in a leader in delivering flexible
funding--it is by far and away our most flexible donor. I commend the
leadership of President Trump's Administration, including my friends
Sonny Perdue, the Secretary of Agriculture, and Mark Green, USAID
Administrator.
we are your offense and defense
My hope for the near future is that those who work hard on security
issues can draw more attention to the role fighting hunger can play in
reducing security threats. This is happening on the international
front, for example, as the Netherlands and Switzerland are pursuing
Security Council attention on hunger.
Global military spending is now at $2 trillion a year, but I
believe that food and other essential humanitarian assistance can also
be a very cost-effective way of creating stability. Or as Secretary of
Defense Mattis has said, effective humanitarian assistance means he
needs to buy fewer bullets.
The humanitarian and security sectors are of course different, with
different roles. But we are united in the desire for peace and
stability. And I believe that our work at WFP--along with bags of food
stamped, ``from the American People''--makes the work of others
easier--and less dangerous.
Our work towards Zero Hunger is a way to be on offense, because it
paves the way for those in the security sector to set different
priorities, maybe even moving out of some countries or regions.
And if we can truly achieve Zero Hunger, we will be the best
defense for the nations of the world. We'll create stability that
reduces the risk of conflict.
We'll be doing it for people like Nyalam, and her 3-month-old girl
named Rejoice, whom I met when I was in South Sudan last year. She
said, ``I would like God to touch the hearts of the people who are
fighting so they can live in peace and allow us to live in peace.
Because we really don't know what they are fighting for.''
I want Nyalam and her little girl to be able to live, go to school,
work their fields and pursue their dreams. If we can help them do that,
we'll truly be saving lives and changing lives. And it will help
everyone, around the world.
Senator Young. Thank you, Governor, for setting the table
there with that compelling testimony.
You discuss the cost of providing humanitarian assistance
when you have refugees leaving the Middle East, the Sahel, and
traveling to Europe, and how those costs increase when you had
this instability, these refugee flows.
Can you provide some additional details on this and discuss
the policy implications of this cost on receiving countries, if
you would?
Mr. Beasley. Well, multiple ways, but just as I was
mentioning earlier, for example, in the Syrian war, the cost of
feeding a Syrian in Syria is about 50 cents per day. Normally
it is about 30 cents per day in non-conflict zones, but as you
can imagine the increased cost and security of delivering food
in war zones is quite extraordinary. And I must add my
admiration for the men and women that work inside the World
Food Programme and those we partner with. They put their lives
out, as you well know, every single day, whether it is Syria or
Yemen or South Sudan or northeast Nigeria or Somalia, where you
have tremendous conflict and desperate situations.
But the 50 cents per day versus 50 Euros per day for a full
humanitarian cost when you get into declared refugee status. So
when you look at the implications of the cost factor and the
impact it has on nations, and particularly when you consider
that most nations that are impacted are not the wealthy
nations, because most refugees end up in other poor nations;
when you look at South Sudan, you have over a million refugees
in Uganda, in Ethiopia, in Rwanda; or in the Myanmar crisis,
they are in Bangladesh, and the list goes on. This is the
problem when you have, for example, the country of Colombia.
The country of Colombia has made so much progress in the past
15 years on peace, but now you see every bit of that progress
has the potential of being destabilized because of this
extraordinary influx of folks.
Senator Young. So you and I have discussed this before.
Most of these individuals, they do not want to leave their
homes, they do not want to leave their home countries. Correct?
Mr. Beasley. Correct.
Senator Young. Okay. So they are driven out. Does it make
some sense, in light of the increased cost and in light of the
desires of these refugees alike, for the American taxpayer to
be thinking about, gosh, how do we prevent this situation? How
do we help these vulnerable people on the front end as opposed
to the back end?
Mr. Beasley. Effective humanitarian assistance and
development programs save not just money but save lives, and it
is in the national security interests of the American people
and the Europeans.
Senator, I see this every day. I can tell you story after
story of talking to women whose husbands had to sign up with
ISIS or al-Shabab or Boko Haram or al-Qaeda. Why? Because they
had no food. You see, the extremists, the terrorist groups,
will use food as a weapon of recruitment, a weapon of war. We
see food as a weapon of peace or a weapon of reconciliation, of
building bridges. So if you cannot feed your little girl in 2
weeks and the only show in town is a terrorist group, so many
men have signed up because they have no other alternative, and
the costs will be 10 to 100 times what it would be if we did it
right and got ahead of the curve and provided sustainable
development.
Senator Young. So we need timely, we need effective, we
need sufficient resources to be brought to bear to deal with
this issue.
You alluded to the siloed nature of our donor system. I
would like you perhaps to elaborate on that. I know the World
Food Programme, per your testimony, is trying to break down
these barriers between donor countries so that the money that
comes in can encourage, not discourage, long-term strategic
planning and execution. But maybe you can share with us, all
those who are watching here, what barriers exist between donor
countries and how we might play a constructive role--Senator
Merkley, myself, and others on the committee--to encourage
better coordination among donors.
Mr. Beasley. One of the advantages of having been a United
States governor, like you, you see a problem--how do we solve
it? Now, what programs do we have? Sometimes, as you well know,
programs have been defined based in the `60s and the `70s, with
little flexibility. And because the problems that we face today
are different, tremendously different, we need more flexibility
to be able to achieve the objectives.
So we see, for example, every particular food recipient, a
beneficiary out in any given country, and it is a non-short-
term emergency, like a hurricane or an earthquake or something
like that, because now there are protracted conflicts. But how
can we use every humanitarian dollar as a development
opportunity?
For example, last year, just last year alone, we had over
10 million people engaged in a food-for-asset or food-for-work
type of program whereby they were building roads, over 7,000
miles of roads last year, bridges, irrigation ponds, 5,400
ponds and irrigation facilities, just like in Kenya alone,
330,000 acres of land rehabilitated. This was just last year.
In the Tigre area a few years ago we rehabilitated with
beneficiaries approximately 1 million acres. Now, if you go to
that area, money well spent, it is no longer vulnerable to
extremist groups. It is resilient. They have crops. They have
livelihoods. And they are no longer dependent on international
support. That is the type of aid; that is the type of strategic
thinking.
But it is not just a U.S. issue. I believe we need to give
greater flexibility within the programs of the United States
Government, but also the United Nations has to be more flexible
as well, and at the same time other major donor countries have
got to be more flexible.
I do believe, and I have clearly stated this to leaders in
other countries, that the major donors need to collaborate in a
more holistic, comprehensive approach so that we do not have
competing programs that sometimes these governments will take
advantage of that diminishes the opportunities for success with
limited dollars. But I do believe if we can have the food for
asset type of approach, because if you do not have food
security, you are not going to have anything else. I mean, the
migration, the conflict, the chaos, it all starts with food
security. And if people can eat, they will stay home, and young
boys and girls will stay home with a brighter future. We see
that every day in the World Food Programme.
Senator Young. And to ensure that people can eat, I think
your emphasis on flexibility is certainly merited, especially
this statistic that you offered in your written testimony, that
more than 90 percent of the money that the World Food Programme
receives is earmarked not just for specific countries but for
specific activities within them. I do not have anything to
benchmark that against, but that strikes me as very high.
Mr. Beasley. Well, the more flexibility we have, that gives
us the ability to pre-position and truly design the programs
with the right modalities. These countries differ. In certain
countries you want to be bringing commodities, and in certain
countries you want to have a voucher type of system to
stimulate the local market. So how do we do that so we can have
farm to asset or farm to market alliances and create economic
viabilities in countries, versus just coming in and bringing
food aid in whatever capacity it may be?
We know when we can come in and try to align it with
economic viability and opportunities for small-farm holders, it
is a tremendous opportunity. For example, last year with the
United States, out of the $7 billion that we raised this past
year, $2.5 billion came from the United States. Just last year
alone, we actually purchased $350 million worth of food from
small-holder farmers inside Africa, helping stimulate and grow
the economy so that they could have sustainability and
resilience.
Senator Young. Thank you.
Senator Merkley.
Senator Merkley. I am very struck by your vast knowledge
from this past year of visiting so many parts of the world, the
conflict zones, areas affected by drought, all kinds of things,
and I understand there is an opening in the Secretary of
State's office.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Beasley. Senator, if this hearing goes more than an
hour----
[Laughter.]
Senator Merkley. I wanted to focus on a statistic you
mentioned. If I heard it right, 50 cents a day to provide
meals, so roughly the equivalent of 15 cents per meal. I do not
think people realize how much bang for the buck occurs in----
Mr. Beasley. And that is in a war zone. It is actually 31
cents in a non-war zone.
Senator Merkley. Yes. And you also mentioned Myanmar. In
Myanmar, we do not have drought. We did not even have a civil
war. But we had actions of a government that decided to
essentially assault one of its own minority groups in a massive
way. I am not sure how we could have prevented that, but I do
think that the international community needs to respond
vociferously to discourage other dictators from deciding to
take action against unpopular groups. I hope that our
government and many governments in the U.N. will speak up
ferociously about that.
You used a phrase that, while we may see food as an
instrument of peace, for many it is a weapon of war. If I was
taking a look at Somalia, there we have al-Shabab that used a
food shortage in 2011 to boost its recruitment from the local
population by providing salaries and cash payments while
restricting the humanitarian aid that was coming in from
outside. We see all sorts of other things, including al-Shabab
putting taxes on the foreign aid workers who are delivering
food.
As you see these developments where hostile groups are
blocking food--and my colleague made a really concerted point
of that in terms of humanitarian relief in Yemen--or you see
other strategies that involve trying to block food from getting
to people to starve out the opponent, et cetera, what sorts of
things should we be thinking about as an international
community to try to respond to those tactics?
Mr. Beasley. Senator, because it is different than 30 or 40
years ago--and let me say thank you to this committee because I
do believe that because of the efforts of the men and women on
this committee, that we had tremendous change in course of
direction in Yemen. The Saudis, UAE, and others, the support
and cooperation that is taking place in the last couple of
months has been a dramatic improvement in terms of that part of
the war.
Now, unfortunately, from the Houthi side, it has gotten
worse. Our access has gotten more complicated, and, not to go
into all the details, but we are really struggling getting the
access we need to the people that are very vulnerable
throughout a country whereby almost--we are feeding about 7
million people on any given day, and 18 million of the 27
million are very food insecure. It is a desperate situation.
But because of the United States and support of some allies
like the U.K., we have made great progress with Saudi Arabia
and UAE. Now we need to bring the pressure on the Houthis to
give us access we need.
In places where you have Boko Haram or al-Shabab or ISIS
and al-Qaeda, they use food in multiple ways. One, they block
access so that food cannot get to the area. Then they will use
food for recruitment. What is very critical--we are neutral, as
you well know. We are a neutral entity in all regards. I would
highly advise in this very complicated area that we need to
make certain that we can safely move food, and there needs to
be a security and safety component that goes along with these
very fragile and vulnerable areas.
As I was mentioning earlier, whether you are talking about
Somalia, where al-Shabab is primarily engaged now, and more
fragile Ethiopia, particularly in the Somali region of
Ethiopia, and then go all the way to the Greater Sahel area,
people will talk about the Sahel. Well, the Greater Sahel,
which is about 500 million people, from Nigeria and the Red Sea
all the way to the Atlantic, you are talking about an
extraordinarily complex and very fragile area that I am
extremely concerned about in so many ways.
ISIS, who has moved primarily down into this region, are
partnering and cutting deals with Boko Haram in northeast
Nigeria in the Lake Chad Basin, taking advantage of the drought
and the fragile conditions, and this is also being compounded--
and this is really hard to believe. No matter what you may
think of what is causing the weather to change, we all know it
is changing. We all know the impact that is taking place in
this Greater Sahel region.
For example, when I was meeting with the Minister of
Agriculture from Nigeria last week, he told me that in the
Niger-Mali area, that border area, each year 1.5 kilometers of
what was grazing territory is lost to sand, per year. Now, what
does that mean? It may not seem to be that big of a deal,
except guess what? The herders are moving down 1.5 kilometers
per year into the croplands, and the wars and the conflicts and
the killings are absolutely amazing. Couple that with ISIS and
Boko Haram taking advantage of this fragility, just like what
we are seeing in Venezuela, it is an absolute perfect storm
heading our way.
Of course, we know what the extremist groups want to do.
They want to be able to infiltrate the migrants so they can
destabilize the global economy in Europe and the U.S. So it is
in the national security interests of the American people, and
it will save lives and save money, if we get ahead of the curve
and do the things we need to do to provide the resilience
necessary, Senator.
Senator Merkley. Thank you.
Senator Young. I thank you for all your testimony, Mr.
Executive Director. I would only close by noting that you have
indicated that there is a need for a proactive and strategic
plan to help us create security and stability. Since we are,
respectively, Chairman and Ranking Member of the Multilateral
Institutions Subcommittee here, I think it appropriate that
maybe offline we dialogue with you and your team about how we
might constitute such a strategic plan or catalyze the creation
of one, because that seems to make a lot of sense.
So, thank you so much for your testimony, and that will
conclude our first panel.
Mr. Beasley. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Young. I would like to welcome you again to the
subcommittee, Mr. Nims. You serve as the Acting Director of the
Office of Food for Peace at USAID. This is your second time to
testify before the subcommittee, and we are so appreciative of
the time you give us. Your full written statement will be
included in the record.
We are dealing with a somewhat compressed timeframe, which
explains why we are moving quickly between panels. We are very
interested to hear from all of our witnesses. So I welcome you
to go ahead and summarize your written statement in about 5
minutes, sir.
STATEMENT OF MATTHEW NIMS, ACTING DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF FOOD FOR
PEACE, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Nims. Thank you, Chairman Young and Ranking Member
Merkley, and members and other people here today, for the
invitation to speak with you about the link between global food
security and America's economic prosperity. I am honored to be
here and honored to be on the panel with such esteemed
colleagues, as well as to be following my good friend, Governor
David Beasley.
I am Matthew Nims, Acting Director of USAID's Office of
Food for Peace, the largest provider of food assistance in the
world. Last year, Food for Peace reached nearly 70 million
people in 53 countries.
We provide food assistance because it eases human
suffering, as you said, and represents America's compassion and
generosity. Helping feed those around the world in their
greatest time of need is the right thing to do but also makes
America and her allies safer. Hunger and conflict are linked.
Where hunger persists, instability grows. The opposite is also
true: where conflict occurs, hunger often follows. Food for
Peace is uniquely positioned to tackle hunger in both of these
situations.
The U.S. National Security Strategy states, ``We will
partner with our allies to alleviate the worst poverty and
suffering which fuels instability.'' History has proven this to
be true. In 2010, hunger was a catalyst to the Arab Spring, and
today in Venezuela, as the Governor just talked about, economic
instability has made food and other basic supplies unaffordable
and even unavailable, which in turn has led to growing civil
unrest. Where there is conflict, hunger is often a symptom.
Conflict prevents farmers from planting and harvesting crops,
robbing them of their livelihoods and later robbing others of
food to eat. Conflict prevents people from traveling to and
from markets, making the food that is available inaccessible to
some. Over time, conflict prevents people from living full,
healthy lives because they are weakened from lack of food and
fall victim to preventable illness.
I just returned from Uganda, where I saw the effects of
more than 1.4 million refugees from the Democratic Republic of
Congo, South Sudan and Burundi who have all come to Uganda to
seek shelter. The sheer number of refugees is an enormous
burden for a host country that already struggles with its own
poverty and hunger. But Uganda is still thriving, with good
agricultural production, infrastructure development, and good
roads, things that can only really flourish when there is
peace. It was a stark contrast to my visit to South Sudan last
year, where I have seen the effects the war has had, truly
draining the economy.
Conflict forces millions of people to make choices no one
should have to face: stay where they are and starve or head
into unknown danger to find food. We see this today in places
like Yemen, South Sudan and Nigeria, and Somalia, where people
are dependent on humanitarian assistance for survival. For 3
years, conflict in Yemen has hampered commercial trade in a
country that imports 90 percent of its food. As a result, 17.8
million people, the largest number in the world, still face
severe food insecurity.
The years of violence in South Sudan have transformed the
world's youngest nation into the world's most food insecure.
Famine was declared a year ago. A robust international
humanitarian response rolled back the famine 4 months later,
but conflict continues, and famine once again is a risk.
In northeast Nigeria, Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa have
displaced millions. Violence, including deliberate attacks on
and continued kidnapping of civilians and aid workers, prevents
relief groups from reaching the most vulnerable communities.
While drought is a primary driver of hunger in Somalia,
violence also prevents relief groups from reaching some
populations; 2.7 million Somalis face significant hunger right
now.
These are not the only countries facing crises. The
humanitarian system is enormously strained. Tomorrow, March 15,
marks the seventh anniversary, 7 years, of the conflict in
Syria, which has left 10.5 million people unable to meet basic
needs. Last August, violence in Burma forced more than half-a-
million Rohingya refugees to flee to Bangladesh. In the
Democratic Republic of Congo, nearly 7.7 million experience
extreme hunger due to prolonged conflict and widespread
poverty.
In 2018, 76 million people worldwide will need emergency
food assistance. Over half of our humanitarian funding will
likely go to six emergencies, nearly all conflict driven. The
work we do in conflict areas is harder, more expensive, and
more dangerous. Last year, 131 aid workers died primarily in
conflict areas, and numerous more were harassed, attacked, and
kidnapped.
Large, protracted, conflict-driven crises are our new
normal, and USAID needs all the tools possible at its disposal
to respond.
Nutritious food is essential where there is high
malnutrition. So in places like Bangladesh, we use American-
made therapeutic food. For Syrian refugees, who live in urban
environments where markets function, electronic vouchers and
cash transfers make the most sense and have the most impact.
Such flexibility enables us to save the most lives possible and
use taxpayer dollars wisely.
Through our resilience programs and in coordination with
other parts of USAID, we also work proactively to tackle the
underlying causes of hunger which, left unchecked, can lead to
frustration and despair that can be exploited. These long-term
programs are essential to saving lives and livelihoods, growing
national and regional economies, and diminishing the
unsustainable financial burden of recurring humanitarian
spending.
A food-secure world where people are not worried about
their children going to bed hungry is in the U.S. interest.
Stability helps ward off future conflict, and prosperity opens
new markets for U.S. exports and trade.
Thank you for your attention to this and the continued
support Congress has provided to USAID and specifically our
humanitarian programs over the years.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nims follows:]
Prepared Statement of Matthew Nims
Chairman Young, Ranking Member Merkley, and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to speak with you today
about the importance of food assistance and the link between global
food security and America's economic prosperity and national security.
I am grateful you are drawing attention to this subject and especially
for your history of support for humanitarian efforts to help the
world's most vulnerable people.
I am Matthew Nims, Acting Director of USAID's Office of Food for
Peace (FFP), the largest provider of food assistance in the world. We
use a range of tools, including U.S. commodities, locally and
regionally procured food, food vouchers, cash transfers and other
complementary activities, to reach the world's most food insecure with
life-saving assistance. Last year, our food assistance reached more
than 70 million people in 53 countries.
We provide food assistance because it eases human suffering and
represents our core American values of compassion and generosity.
Helping feed those around the world in their time of need is the right
thing to do but also makes America and her allies safer. Hunger and
conflict are inextricably linked. Where hunger persists, instability
grows. The opposite is also true: where conflict occurs, hunger
follows.
The President's national security strategy states that America
should target threats at their source, catalyze international response
to man-made and natural disasters and provide to those in need. As the
2016 Global Food Security Act states, ``It is in the national interest
of the United States to promote global food security.'' A food-secure
world where people are not worried about their children going to bed
hungry is in the U.S. interest: stability helps ward off future
conflict and prosperity opens new markets for U.S. exports and trade.
hunger contributes to conflict
In November 2015, the National Intelligence Council linked hunger
to political instability and conflict. The report stated that ``the
risk of food insecurity in many countries will increase during the next
10 years and declining food security will almost certainly contribute
to social disruptions and large-scale political instability or
conflict.'' Ten years have not passed, but this prediction has likely
already proven true.
Hunger often serves as a measurable warning signal for predicting
conflict. According to the 2014 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S.
Intelligence Community, ``food and nutrition insecurity in weakly
governed countries might also provide opportunities for insurgent
groups to capitalize on poor conditions, exploit international food
aid, and discredit governments for their inability to address basic
needs.'' In every year since, food security has been mentioned at least
once in the assessments. The Fund for Peace Fragile States Index also
uses food and nutrition as an indicator of fragile states. In 2017, FFP
operated in all of the top 10 countries listed in the fragility report
and 21 of the top 25.
Events over the last decade demonstrate that acute hunger can
trigger political instability. In 2008, food prices spiked and sparked
riots and street demonstrations in more than 40 countries around the
world, and may have contributed to toppling governments in Haiti and
Madagascar. In 2010-2011, the first signs of the Arab Spring were riots
in the streets of Tunisia over dramatic increases in food prices.
Spikes in food prices in Algeria and Egypt triggered similar
demonstrations. Hunger was by no means the sole cause of the Arab
Spring, but it was an important catalyst.
Our own U.S. National Security Strategy states, ``We will partner
with our allies to alleviate the worst poverty and suffering, which
fuels instability.'' Tackling the root causes of hunger and
malnutrition--and thus potential drivers of conflict--is essential to
breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and laying the foundation for
stable, inclusive growth. Equipping communities--especially women and
children--with the tools to feed themselves mitigates extremely costly
humanitarian assistance.
Through Feed the Future, USAID also supports long term food
security programs that address the root causes of hunger in areas of
chronic crisis to build resilience and food security of local
communities. USAID's long-term development activities save lives and
livelihoods, grow national and regional economies, and diminish the
unsustainable financial burden of recurrent humanitarian spending in
the same places. A 2013 U.K. study estimates that every $1 invested in
resilience will result in $3 in reduced humanitarian assistance needs
and avoided losses over 15 years. A more recent USAID study confirms
this estimated return, proving true the adage `an ounce of prevention
is worth a pound of cure.'
President Trump has said that economic security is national
security; USAID's development activities are both. Our work not only
helps to stabilize countries, it also creates new friends and allies,
and new customers for American goods.
conflict contributes to hunger
Conflict causes enormous social and economic devastation, and
hunger is one of its first symptoms. Conflict prevents farmers from
planting and harvesting crops, robbing them of their livelihoods and
later robbing others of food to eat. Conflict prevents people from
traveling to and from markets, making the food that is available
inaccessible to some. Over time, conflict prevents people from living
full, healthy lives because they are weakened from lack of food and
fall victim to preventable illness. We see this clearly today in places
like Yemen, South Sudan and besieged areas of Syria.
Around the world, hunger driven by conflict forces millions of
people to face a choice no one should have to face: Stay where they are
and starve, or run for their lives in search of food. They leave their
families and friends behind and head into unknown danger to find food.
More than 65 million people are estimated to be displaced within their
own countries or are refugees in other countries--an unprecedented
number. Whether they stay in their own country or seek hope by crossing
a border, those displaced by conflict are often dependent on
humanitarian assistance to survive.
syria
Tomorrow, March 15th, marks the seventh anniversary of the conflict
in Syria, which began with protests after President Bashar al-Assad
failed to produce promised legislative reforms. This conflict has left
10.5 million people in Syria unable to meet basic needs--1.5 million
more than 2017. Food prices have risen 800 percent since the conflict
began. Displacement and lack of employment have pushed 85 percent of
the country into poverty. Households are cutting back food consumption,
spending savings and accumulating debt--actions that disproportionately
affect the most vulnerable populations, especially children.
Neighboring countries--Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey--
today host 5.5 million Syrian refugees who in many cases lack legal
pathways to work and depend on emergency food assistance. This strains
host communities as they continue to bear the enormous cost of
providing for these refugees.
So far in FY 2018, USAID, through the Office of Food for Peace, has
provided nearly $198 million to support efforts reaching approximately
2.35 million beneficiaries inside Syria and another one million Syrian
refugees in neighboring countries each month. Inside Syria, our
partners provide flour to bakeries, monthly household food parcels,
ready-to-eat rations for recently displaced populations, and food
vouchers. For Syrian refugees, FFP provides electronic food vouchers
for use in supermarkets and local markets.
yemen
Conflict in Yemen has been ongoing for 3 years. Fighting has
hampered commercial trade, which is devastating in a country that
traditionally has imported 90 percent of its food and most of its fuel
and medicine. Food that does make it to market is increasingly
expensive, with some items doubling in price as supplies dwindle. These
price increases dramatically affect the amount of food people can buy,
while inconsistent payment of civil servant salaries reduces the amount
of money families have to spend on food and other essentials.
As a result, 17.8 million people in Yemen are experiencing hunger,
by far the largest food security emergency in the world. Yemen
continues to face the risk of outright famine because--in a worst case
scenario--the conflict could halt imports, disrupt trade and virtually
stop our humanitarian assistance from reaching the populations who need
it.
We have contributed $130 million this fiscal year to support the
U.N. World Food Program emergency food assistance operations in Yemen,
helping WFP reach 7 million people each month. We also provided UNICEF
with American-made therapeutic nutritional products to treat children
experiencing severe acute malnutrition and to support coordination
efforts among humanitarian actors in Yemen.
In addition to directly providing food, USAID is helping improve
access to food. On January 15, four USAID-supported mobile cranes
arrived at Al Hudaydah Port and were first used on February 9. The
cranes, each able to lift up to 60 tons, will bolster port capacity and
speed the unloading of cargo, increasing the flow of goods to
vulnerable populations.
south sudan
Years of violence in South Sudan has transformed the world's
youngest nation into one of the world's most food-insecure nations.
Despite collaborative humanitarian efforts to stave off famine
throughout the conflict, famine was declared in parts of the country in
February 2017. While a robust international humanitarian response--
including U.S. efforts--did help roll back the famine 4 months later,
food security continues to deteriorate across the country. This man-
made crisis is a direct consequence of prolonged political conflict
that ignores the urgent needs of the South Sudanese people. The failure
reach a lasting political settlement makes the return of famine a real
risk in the coming months.
In January 2018, nearly half of South Sudan's population--5.3
million people--required life-saving food assistance. The United States
is the single largest donor to the South Sudan crisis response and our
food reaches an average of 1.4 million people inside South Sudan every
month.
nigeria
Years of conflict perpetuated by Boko Haram and more recently ISIS-
West Africa, have triggered a humanitarian crisis in northeast Nigeria
and surrounding countries in the Lake Chad Basin region. As of February
2018, the insurgency had displaced more than 1.6 million people within
Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states and forced over 214,000 Nigerians to
flee into neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, leaving millions more
across the region in need of humanitarian assistance. A combination of
diminishing household food supplies, rising food prices and declining
purchasing power is leaving more families without enough to eat.
Violence--including deliberate attacks and continued kidnapping of
civilians and aid workers--prevents relief groups from reaching
vulnerable communities and blocks communities' access to medical
facilities and markets. Bureaucratic impediments are delaying the
delivery of food and medical supplies. Thousands of people may have
already experienced famine in hard-to-reach areas of Nigeria's Borno
State, and many communities affected by this conflict remain at an
elevated risk of famine.
USAID's Office of Food for Peace remains one of the largest donors
of humanitarian assistance for Nigeria, providing $68 million in FY
2018 for people affected by the ongoing crisis. With Food for Peace
support, the U.N. World Food Program has reached, on average, 1 million
Nigerians each month since December 2016. Combined with our NGO
partners, we help more than 2 million Nigerians with emergency food
assistance.
somalia
While drought is a primary driver of hunger in Somalia, political
instability and conflict continue to prevent relief actors from
reaching some vulnerable populations in rural areas. The situation is
fragile and, in the absence of humanitarian assistance, 2.7 million
Somalis face significant hunger.
USAID provides food-insecure Somali households and internally
displaced people with emergency food and nutrition assistance. In FY
2018, we've provided more than $59 million to partners for a variety of
interventions including ready-to-use therapeutic foods to treat
malnourished children.
burma
Attacks by armed actors on Burmese security posts in August 2017
and subsequent military operations in Rakhine state, home to the
majority of Rohingya Muslims in the country, have caused a humanitarian
crisis in Burma and neighboring Bangladesh. Lack of humanitarian access
and ongoing population movement have left an unknown number of people
in need of immediate food assistance in Rakhine State.
The violence in Burma has forced approximately 671,000 Rohingya
refugees to flee to southeastern Bangladesh, joining more than 212,000
Rohingya living in the country prior to August 2017, according to the
U.N. Most of these refugees currently reside in temporary settlements
near Cox's Bazar, where they are living in conditions well below
humanitarian standards and suffer from hunger and high levels of
malnutrition.
In response to the current crisis, USAID quickly mobilized
assistance on both sides of the Burma/Bangladesh border. In 2017, USAID
provided $20.8 million to partners in Burma, including food, nutrition,
water, sanitation, and hygiene, health and protection assistance to
vulnerable populations.
In FY 2018, FFP provided more than $26 million to U.N. partners for
refugees and host communities in Bangladesh. This assistance includes
extensive emergency food, nutrition, capacity building, logistics and
coordination support to ensure a rapid, effective scale-up of
lifesaving services.
democratic republic of congo (drc)
Many parts of the DRC continue to experience worsening conflict and
widespread poverty, contributing to a doubling of population
displacement, along with chronic hunger and restricted livelihood
activities. Crises in the Kasai region and Tanganyika, North and South
Kivu, and Ituri Provinces are displacing families, disrupting
agriculture and impeding access to markets, health care and schools.
There are approximately 4.5 million Congolese internally displaced and
more than 540,000 refugees from neighboring countries in the DRC.
Nearly 7.7 million Congolese are experiencing extreme hunger.
USAID provides U.S. in-kind food assistance and locally and
regionally procured food to internally displaced populations, returnees
and vulnerable host communities through general food distributions, as
well as cash transfers for food to refugees in difficult-to-access
areas of the DRC. Furthermore, USAID collaborates with NGOs on longer-
term food security activities that aim to improve agricultural
production, maternal and child health and nutrition, civil
participation and local governance, water and sanitation, natural
resource management and biodiversity, and microenterprise productivity.
These programs seek to strengthen household economic well-being and
generate lasting gains in food and nutrition security.
conflict strains and stresses humanitarian actors
USAID is uniquely positioned to tackle hunger. When hunger is a
driver of instability, our resilience activities connect with a broader
set of food security and resilience investments in America's initiative
to end global hunger, Feed the Future. We're tackling the underlying
causes of hunger that, left unchecked, can lead to frustration and
despair that can be exploited by terrorist groups and criminals. When
hunger is a consequence of conflict, our emergency food assistance
saves the lives of those displaced by violence.
I am proud of the U.S. government's actions, and we will continue
to work alongside other donors, NGOs, U.N. agencies, and others to
avert famine. But we are never focusing on just one country or region
at a time and the scale and nature of the humanitarian crises in the
world right now strains the humanitarian system enormously.
In 2018, the Famine Early Warning System Network estimates that 76
million people worldwide will need emergency food assistance. While
that number decreased slightly from last year, the severity of needs
has increased, largely due to conflict, leaving millions facing life-
threatening hunger. Global chronic malnutrition is increasingly
concentrated in conflict-affected countries and projections indicate
that more than two-thirds of the world's poor could be living in
fragile states by 2030.
Protracted, complex crises are taking up increasing amounts of
scarce humanitarian resources and presenting unique challenges. USAID
estimates that in FY 2018 over half of our humanitarian funding will be
allocated toward just six major emergencies, nearly all conflict
driven. Working in conflict means that the work we do is harder, more
expensive, and more dangerous.
Humanitarian actors work tirelessly and at great personal risk to
deliver life-saving assistance to those who need it most. But in
conflict areas, they have been harassed, attacked, or killed, and
relief supplies looted. According to the Aid Worker Security Database,
131 aid workers died in 2017, primarily in conflict areas. Syria and
South Sudan--both protracted conflicts--were the deadliest locations
(with 48 and 28 aid worker deaths, respectively). Parties on all sides
of conflict must stop impeding relief efforts by ceasing hostilities
and allowing for unhindered access.
food assistance is a band-aid, not a cure to conflict-driven hunger
USAID is committed to assisting as many people as possible,
maximizing the impact of our resources and working to leverage
assistance from others. But humanitarian work involves making tough
decisions. We're continually seeking ways to make our dollars stretch
further, to reach the most people with the assistance they urgently
need.
In order to respond to a world dominated by large, protracted,
conflict-driven crises--our new normal--USAID needs all the tools
possible at its disposal. In Yemen, where nearly all food is imported,
the best way to respond is with U.S. in-kind food. For Syrian refugees,
who are spread across the region and live in urban environments where
markets function, electronic vouchers and cash make the most sense.
Our emergency food assistance does not operate in a vacuum,
separate from others in the U.S. Government. We rely on our sister
office, the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, to provide
support beyond food in times of crisis; we work with the Department of
State to provide non-food support for refugees; and we work alongside
the Department of Defense when humanitarian assistance requires
additional support to reach those who need it. These coordinated
efforts mean that we're more effective than we would be if we tried to
do our work alone. In a world as complex as ours, with our national
security under greater threat than ever, we must bring to bear the
entirety of our statecraft toolbox.
The United States also cannot and should not do it alone--we need
all of our U.N., NGO, affected government, and donor partners working
together to tackle these challenges. Last month, Administrator Green
joined with his counterpart in the U.K. and Grand Challenges Canada to
announce a humanitarian grand challenge, calling for innovators around
the world to submit ideas to save and improve the lives of those
affected by humanitarian crises caused by conflict. We will invest a
combined $15 million over 5 years to enable governments and the private
sector to work together to more nimbly respond to complex emergencies.
In addition to emergency responses, the United States relies on
bilateral and multilateral channels to engage with foreign governments,
international organizations and other partners to address the root
causes of conflict-driven hunger. Only then can we move away from the
dire human cost and financial burden of humanitarian responses to these
conflicts, and toward prosperity and stability.
We are also helping to implement the President's goal of lessening
the burden on the United States to respond by urging other donors,
including non-traditional donors, to increase their share of funding
for humanitarian assistance. The United States will also continue to
challenge international and non-governmental relief organizations to
become more efficient and effective in order to make U.S. taxpayer
dollars go farther by maximizing the benefit to recipients of
assistance.
Thank you for your attention to these issues and for the support
Congress has provided to USAID and specifically our humanitarian
programs over the years. Please know that your support transforms and
saves lives every day.
Senator Young. Well, thank you, Mr. Nims.
I am eager to turn to resilience and stability that comes
with providing food assistance generally, which is something
you spoke to. But you also mentioned the conflict and
associated humanitarian crisis in Yemen, so I want to briefly
touch on that.
There has been some messaging from Riyadh to suggest that
the opening of the Port of Hodeida might be temporary, and I
just want to be clear that I will escalate my efforts here in
the U.S. Senate, and I expect that a number of my colleagues
will join me in those efforts, if Riyadh were to re-impose its
starvation blockade and close Hodeida. As I wrote in my letter
to the President on December 14, ``Suggesting that we must
choose between defeating Iran's efforts in Yemen and permitting
unimpeded humanitarian access is a false choice, as self-
defeating and short-sighted as it is immoral.'' I have not
changed my views.
I do want to get your opinion, Mr. Nims, about the
importance of the Port of Hodeida to humanitarian efforts in
Yemen, and perhaps you could speak to the hypothetical of the
closure of the Port of Hodeida moving forward and what would
the humanitarian consequences of that decision be.
Mr. Nims. Thank you for the question, Senator. As you
probably know, Yemen is 90 percent dependent upon imports to
feed its people. The Port of Hodeida is the crucial link to
ensure that this happens, both for the commercial sector and
also primarily for the humanitarian operations that are based
there. The World Food Programme maintains a large operation in
the Port of Hodeida, and its continued operation is crucial for
humanitarian operations to continue.
As of now, the port is open. However, because of some of
the uncertainty surrounding the port, many shipping companies
around the world are reticent to send ships into the port, and
I think until we can as a humanitarian international community
give a little bit higher degree of certainty, this will
continue to inflect the amount and level of commerce that we
see in the port.
Senator Young. Just to add a measure of certainty perhaps
in the margins of this situation, it would be helpful to get
the Administration's position regarding the need to keep the
Red Sea ports open to humanitarian and commercial supplies,
especially food, fuel, and medicine. Kindly volunteer that to
me, sir.
Mr. Nims. The Administration is unequivocally behind
keeping the Red Sea ports open for humanitarian and commercial
traffic on the Red Sea ports.
Senator Young. Excellent.
So back to the resilience program of USAID and the
importance of ensuring we have a wise use of taxpayer money. In
your testimony you cite a 2013 U.K. study that estimated that
for every dollar invested in resilience, it is going to result
in three dollars of reduced humanitarian assistance needs and
avoided losses in just a 15-year window. I would say that is
money well spent. You also noted that a more recent USAID study
confirms this estimated return.
Can you provide more details on how you believe resilience
investments save money?
Mr. Nims. Most definitely, sir. We have learned through our
programs that taking the time to build the community's as well
as the host government's ability to respond to crisis, saves
money in the long run because of the high cost of emergency
response in these situations.
What we saw very prominently in the El Nino crisis was
places in Ethiopia and Kenya, where we had longer-term
development and resilience programs in place, that the very
large impact that a drought situation was minimized because our
longer-term programs have provided the foundation for
communities to utilize their coping strategies to more easily
respond. It takes a lot of effort and time to put these
programs in place, but when they are done effectively and they
link together both the emergency response aspects combined with
solid development programming, we are seeing a lessening of the
costs.
Senator Young. Are you discovering best practices, and are
those being widely shared among the humanitarian community?
Mr. Nims. There are many lessons that we learned from the
four countries at risk of famine last year, and I think one of
them is the early warning aspect. Our Famine Early Warning
System (FEWS NET), which the USAID funds, has been instrumental
in letting us know when we see the increase of crises coming
and how to best position ourselves.
Number two, similar to what the Executive Director of the
World Food Programme was saying, the dynamic has shifted where
we are not, as a humanitarian community, simply responding to
climactic shocks or to tsunamis or earthquakes. What we are
seeing now is that these are prolonged crises that are taking a
lot of time and effort. Quite honestly, I think that the
humanitarian community is still struggling to be able to more
effectively change our approaches in these situations. Our
excellent partners, like CARE, like the World Food Programme,
are leading the way in some of these longer-term solutions, and
I think we have to double-down on our efforts to be able to do
this effectively.
Senator Young. Thank you, sir.
Senator Merkley.
Senator Merkley. Thank you.
Can you detail how the program, our program Feed the
Future, fits into that vision?
Mr. Nims. Thank you, Senator, for that question. Feed the
Future is, I think, that excellent link from the community-led,
field-based type operations that Food for Peace has been doing
for the last 50 years to that next level of assistance that is
needed. So, for example, our programs and our partners,
primarily CARE, World Vision, CRS, have excellent experience
working these most vulnerable communities in these countries on
protecting food security at that community level.
What Feed the Future is bringing in is being able to then
work with host governments, work with markets in those
communities agriculturally to be able to link many times those
subsistence farmers to a higher level of degree of market
engagement, to then give that next step that is necessary.
Food for Peace has and will continue to work with these
communities, but having that next step to link them to, to the
higher level of development, is crucial, and Feed the Future is
giving us that.
Senator Merkley. Let me translate what I think you are
saying. When you say link them to that next level, are you
talking about farm cooperatives and value added to the
fundamental agricultural products?
Mr. Nims. Most definitely, sir.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. In some places we provide in-
kind food. Others, we provide vouchers. In some places we are
even providing cash payments over electronic messages to cell
phones. Can you talk about what works in what locations, and
how has that cell phone strategy helped to keep, in some cases,
hostile parties from intercepting food aid?
Mr. Nims. Right now, Food for Peace is very fortunate to
have a number of tools available as we look at all the crises.
Our team is very much geared towards looking at what is
happening on the ground and being able to utilize the correct
tool to have the most impact to protect food security.
So you are exactly right. In some places where there is an
absence of food, in-kind U.S. food is a great tool to be using
there, and our partners on the ground, along with our own
famine early warning system, as well as our teams on the
ground, are able to gauge if that is what needs to be done
there.
At the same time, we have the ability to use a voucher-type
program. If you look at our programs in Syria right now,
bringing large amounts of U.S. in-kind food into, let us say,
Lebanon and Jordan to feed refugees would be incredibly
inefficient. Capitalizing on the market system that already
exists there, being able to use a complex voucher program that
allows these refugees to go to local stores, even Safeways or
large supermarkets to receive their ration, is a much more
efficient way to do that.
Our job in Food for Peace is to ensure that what is
happening on the ground is understood both by our partners as
well as our teams to ensure the correct mechanism is utilized
in those situations.
Senator Merkley. You mentioned that one of those tools is a
pre-loaded debit card, and why that fits into the Syria
context?
Mr. Nims. In Syria, for example, we do have actual cash
cards that every month are loaded with an amount of a ration
size to the World Food Programme that allows them to go to
these stores. This is a direct transfer through banking systems
that allows us to monitor this more directly, and it diminishes
other actors' ability to actually access these funds. So it is
a safe system, and it is in many ways safer than other actions
because we are able to go electronically through the mobile
system that gives them a tool that already exists there to be
able to utilize that for their own food security.
Senator Merkley. Bangladesh has accepted 700,000 refugees
from Burma. I had the chance to take a congressional delegation
there to see it firsthand. There is no room in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is about half the size of Oregon, and Oregon has 4
million people living in it. Bangladesh has about 160 million
people. I mean, every piece of land is occupied. The hillsides
are being covered with slip bamboo structures covered with
plastic. High winds will undoubtedly do a lot of damage to
those structures. The surrounding trees are being cut down to
burn to cook. So the hillsides are being quickly denuded,
raising concerns about the coming rainy season, as well as the
risk of measles, cholera, and other diseases.
As one looks at this, it is a massive food distribution as
well as a health care dilemma. It is a dilemma on so many
levels. How are you all engaged?
Mr. Nims. We remain incredibly concerned about the
situation in Bangladesh, with now almost close to 800,000
Rohingya refugees. Over 200,000, as you said, in the camp right
now are actually in places where, with moderate rains, are
going to be subjected to flooding. We need to act quickly to be
able to, in a sense, control the overcrowding that we see in
these camps.
I think that we also need to understand that the U.S. alone
cannot fund this. We need other partners around the world to
step up, and I think with the new humanitarian plan that will
be coming out soon, that this provides a great opportunity for
many of the world to ensure that they also are part of this.
I think another aspect which is very difficult there is, as
this crisis develops, we do not want to be part of any type of
forcing of returnees back into Burma because we want to ensure
that conditions are right for that to happen. Hence, if we are
looking at a large group of people here, we are going to have
to better look at the environmental impact of the situation and
how we can better serve them.
Senator Merkley. So, I appreciate all of that. Are you
helping to crank up a significant international momentum or
more aid from the United States to assist in that situation?
Mr. Nims. Yes, our teams are involved in that right now, in
negotiating with----
Senator Merkley. Thank you. I certainly encourage that, and
as we have transition in our foreign policy leadership, I think
it is an opportunity for the United States to consider how we
might amplify our strategy. This is also a security issue. You
have 700,000 people, including many young men who have seen
their spouses raped, their daughters raped, they have been shot
at, they are ripe for recruitment by international terrorist
operations. So there is a security dimension as well as a
humanitarian dimension, and I just want to see the U.S. in the
forefront of a global effort to take on this challenge,
including the relationship with Burma and how we exercise that.
Mr. Nims. Senator, can I just say how much our teams
appreciate when you all come out to see the efforts that this
humanitarian community and bringing this to light, and from
them, just a note of thanks for that.
Senator Merkley. Thank you.
Senator Young. Thank you, Senator Merkley.
We have been joined by Senator Coons, another leader in the
area of foreign assistance and someone who does not hesitate to
put his boots on the ground.
We are going to finish all the panels out. So we have one
more panel after Senator Coons' questions, and we will be
concluding no later than 4:00 p.m., since we have a 3:45 p.m.
vote.
Senator Coons.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Senator Young and Senator
Merkley. It is great to be with you. I am grateful that you are
dedicating this time and attention to something that matters so
much to hungry people around the world.
To my good friend, Governor Beasley, thank you for what you
are doing to lead the World Food Programme and to be physically
present in so many of the places around the world that need our
help, and with our allies who we hope will be stepping forward
and contributing more to this.
It is great to see you again, Mr. Nims. I think I last saw
you in Uganda in the Bidi Bidi camp, if I am not mistaken.
Mr. Nims. Yes, sir.
Senator Coons. To my dear friend, Michelle Nunn, thank you
for what you and CARE do.
And to General Castellaw and Dr. Sova, thank you for your
service. I hope you do convey to the folks who work in Food for
Peace and in World Food Programme and CARE and in other
organizations how grateful we are for this work. It is
dangerous, it is difficult, it overwhelmingly happens in some
of the most remote, most demanding environments on earth. When
I was in South Sudan, literally in the previous 48 hours there
had been several aid workers kidnapped or killed. So this is
literally the Lord's work, or work that carries forward the
values of the world that care for others. I will put it that
way. I see it both ways, but folks can see it whatever way they
choose.
I am grateful to have had the chance on a bipartisan basis
to work with colleagues on legislation that helps make possible
your important work. I am a co-sponsor of the Global Food
Security Reauthorization Act, which I am hoping we will move
forward to reauthorize, and in particular it reauthorizes Feed
the Future and would give us 5 more years of Feed the Future,
and I am grateful to Senator Isakson for his real leadership on
that.
Today or tomorrow, Senator Corker and I will be introducing
the Food for Peace Modernization Act, which I think is
important at a time when, as you have testified, millions, tens
of millions are food insecure, at risk of starvation. It would
reduce requirements for monetization and for U.S. commodities,
although retaining a key role for U.S. commodities.
Could you just briefly discuss the potential savings we
could expect to see if we passed those kinds of reforms into
law, and how that would help us reach more people with life-
saving food aid?
Mr. Nims. Thank you for that question, Senator. While I am
conversant on and know the bill that you all have been working
on, I do want to say that the continued interest on the Hill on
food insecurity is welcomed. We look forward to being able to
comment on that bill. At this time, the Administration does not
have a position on it.
Senator Coons. Got it.
Mr. Nims. That being said, any efforts to make more
flexible and more efficient the utilization of humanitarian
resources is welcome.
Senator Coons. Let me ask you a different question. The
budget proposes eliminating Food for Peace--it seems a little
more directly targeted--which would then focus on international
disaster assistance to provide emergency food assistance. My
concern is that eliminating Food for Peace would shift our
focus to emergency assistance and put less focus on development
and nutritional support that can help countries and communities
graduate from aid and develop their own ag-based economies. The
animating genius of Feed the Future, as you were just
testifying, is about moving from disaster to resiliency to
sustainability.
How can we assure we are addressing hunger at all stages?
And comment if you feel so inclined and it is appropriate on
the elimination of Food for Peace.
Mr. Nims. So, just to be clear and to give a perspective,
what the Administration's bill does is correct, that the
current request on funding does eliminate the Title 2 aspect of
our funding. However, in the IDA section, it would actually
enable Food for Peace to continue to exist and actually to link
back to the GFSS. The Emergency Food Security Program actually
is authorized in that bill as well, which codifies the fact
that we can use international disaster assistance funds to buy
food even in the United States, as well as locally, and do our
voucher programs.
The Administration's request is through the IDA to support
those life-saving food programs. It is viewed as a much more
efficient way to do this.
Senator Coons. It is viewed based on broad experience as a
much more efficient way to do this?
Mr. Nims. Luckily, my job right now in USAID Food for Peace
is to be able to take the resources allocated to be able to do
the best that I can to stretch them the furthest. What we have
seen is that there are places around the world where we need
U.S. in-kind as well as the flexibility, and with those
resources we work hard with our partners to be able to do that
job.
Senator Coons. Great.
I recognize we have a third panel and we have an impending
vote. I have many more questions, as you know, since I have
harassed you with them overseas as well as here.
Thank you for your service and for the very real and
important work that you and everyone with you does.
Mr. Nims. Thank you for your interest in and continued
support of our programs.
Senator Young. Well, thank you again, Mr. Nims, for your
appearance here today, for your service, and we will look
forward to our continued work together.
This concludes the second panel. We will give the witnesses
for the third panel a few minutes to seat themselves.
[Recess.]
Senator Young. Once again, I would like to welcome the
following three witnesses to our final panel: Dr. Chase Sova,
Director of Public Policy and Research at the World Food
Programme USA; Lieutenant General John Castellaw, who served
with distinction in the U.S. Marine Corps; and Ms. Michelle
Nunn, President and Chief Executive Officer of CARE USA.
Now, your full written statements will be included in the
record. If you could possibly compress your statements as you
present them here today to 3 minutes, that would be wonderful,
affording more time for myself and my colleagues to ask
questions. It would be much appreciated.
So let us go in the order that I announced.
Dr. Sova.
STATEMENT OF CHASE SOVA, PH.D., DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AND
RESEARCH, WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME USA, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Sova. Thank you, Chairman Young and Ranking Member
Merkley. It is an absolute pleasure to be here, especially
alongside this panel. I will do my best to channel David
Beasley here, representing the World Food Programme USA here.
My task this afternoon is to share with you the findings
from a report produced by the World Food Programme USA,
``Winning the Peace: Hunger and Instability.''
Let me say this at the outset. On some issues, it takes
academia to catch up with what we know to be intuitively true,
and I think that that is accurate here with a link between
global hunger and instability.
I think that it is abundantly obvious that war produces
hunger and poverty, but what we explore in ``Winning the
Peace'' is the opposite direction of causation, that food
insecurity can be a driver in itself of instability.
This report essentially tells the story of 53 peer-reviewed
academic journal articles, and across those studies researchers
tested 11 unique drivers of food insecurity, from land
competition to food price spikes to rainfall variability, and
successfully linked them to about nine types of instability,
and this ranged from things like protests all the way up to
interstate conflict.
And if I were to succinctly sum up the findings of this
report, it would be that food insecurity creates desperation
that manifests in many ways, sometimes violent, but almost
always destabilizing.
Sometimes we see this in the form of conflicts between
herding communities and farmers over increasing land and water
competition. Other times this comes in the form of food price
riots, and other times we see food-related instability
occurring because of extreme events.
But what is, I think, important here is that ``Winning the
Peace'' also shows that those drivers of food-related
instability and those drivers of food insecurity must also be
met with individual motivations, and those motivations are a
few things.
First is grievance. Modern conflicts are almost never
driven by a single cause, and food insecurity can be a
contributor. Sometimes it is that grievance. Other times it
provides an opportunity for underlying disagreements to surface
or resurface. Sometimes food insecurity is the straw that
breaks the camel's back in these crises.
The second really is the economic motivation, and the
Executive Director spoke about this. It is obvious that in some
cases, if there is clear economic advantage to resorting to
unrest or violence, people will be willing to do that if they
are compensated. So we see that, obviously, with rebel groups
offering to pay people to participate in these activities,
often taking advantage of people's desperation.
The third here is governance, and this is when the state is
unable or unwilling to prevent food insecurity or they are
unable to enforce rule of law.
So those are the three main individual motivators, and we
can talk more about that. But the findings of ``Winning the
Peace'' make it clear that there is a direct empirical link
between food insecurity and global instability. Food security
is foundational to peace and security, and one of the single
best investments that we can make in global stability is to
help people who cannot feed themselves or their families. We
need to be waging a war on hunger, not its symptoms.
So two things real quickly here that we can do.
Ensure robust funding for food assistance accounts. We
spend $2 trillion every year on military spending, and we were
not able to meet the $9 billion needs of the World Food
Programme last year. So, we can do better than that. When all
you have is a hammer, all you tend to see is nails, and we have
other things beyond hammers in our portfolio.
And second, real briefly, I would call on Congress to
reauthorize the Global Food Security Act, and we can discuss
that in detail here soon.
But I will leave it there and look forward to your
questions regarding the report. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Sova follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Chase Sova
Chairman Young, Ranking Member Merkley, members of the Senate
Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multilateral International
Development, Multilateral Institutions, And International Economic,
Energy, and Environmental Policy, thank you for convening this hearing
today on ``Why Food Security Matters.'' Today, I will share key
findings from a report produced by World Food Program USA, Winning the
Peace: Hunger and Instability. Released in December 2017, this report--
drawing on 53 peer-reviewed journal articles, the highest standard for
sharing scientific work--provides among the most comprehensive reviews
of the link between food insecurity and global instability ever
produced. While we have long understood the relationship between hunger
and instability to exist intuitively, research is now catching up. The
evidence base presented in Winning the Peace clearly shows that food
insecurity creates desperation that manifests in many ways--sometimes
violent--but almost always destabilizing. What is universally true
about modern day conflicts is that they do not respect borders.
Addressing food insecurity in all its forms and places, is an
investment in global stability and the security of the United States.
a fragile world
The timing of this hearing--and the Winning the Peace report--is
critical. As we enter 2018, more than 65 million people have been
displaced because of violence, conflict and persecution, more than any
other time since World War II. Meanwhile, the number of hungry people
is again on the rise, increasing for the first time in over a decade to
815 million people. Over 60 percent of undernourished people in the
world--some 489 million--live in countries affected by conflict. Almost
122 million, or 75 percent, of stunted children under age five live in
these same places. The world has seen a rise in state fragility in
recent years. Ten out of the World Food Programme's (WFP) 13 largest
and most complex emergencies is driven by conflict, and over 80 percent
of all humanitarian spending today is directed toward man-made
conflict. By 2030, between half and two-thirds of the world's poor are
expected to live in states classified as fragile. Fragile states are
defined by ``the absence or breakdown of a social contract between
people and their government. Fragile states suffer from deficits of
institutional capacity and political legitimacy that increase the risk
of instability and violent conflict and sap the state of its resilience
to disruptive shocks.'' While a decade ago, the clear majority of
fragile states were low-income countries, today almost half are middle-
income countries. Roughly 85 percent of countries that were severely
food insecure in 2016 were also considered ``fragile'' or ``extremely
fragile.''
Fragility today is driven in no small part by displacement from
violence, conflict and persecution, affecting entire regions of the
world. Most countries hosting refugees and internally displaced people
today are low-and middle-income countries that are the least equipped
to cope with such pressures. In fact, developing regions host 85
percent of global refugees. Uganda, one of the smallest countries in
sub-Saharan Africa, is hosting more than 1 million refugees from South
Sudan and other neighboring countries. Meanwhile, Lebanon, a middle-
income country, is hosting more than 1 million Syrian refugees,
representing 20 percent of the country's population of 4.5 million. The
average length of refugee displacement is 17 years. These countries are
providing a global public good, yet face considerable challenges in
meeting the immediate needs of their own citizens.
While the state of hunger and fragility continues to evolve, so too
has the nature of conflict. After declining in the immediate aftermath
of the Cold War proxy conflicts, the number of conflicts in the world
is again on the rise. According to a new World Bank and United Nations
publication, the number of major violent conflicts has tripled since
2010. The Council on Foreign Relations is currently monitoring 32
global conflicts affecting U.S. strategic interests. The nation-state--
which has reigned sovereign in the international system since the 17th
century--has further surrendered its exclusive position as the main
belligerent in war. Today, domestic conflicts and civil wars are far
more common than interstate violence. Furthermore, non-state
conflicts--conflicts in which the state is not involved as a
combatant--have increased by 125 percent since 2010, and now represent
the largest category of conflict. Non-state actors, sometimes motivated
by extremist ideologies and facilitated by improved recruiting
capability, have occupied an increasingly larger space in the
international system. A main ``weapon'' of modern conflict is
information, allowing non-state actors to undermine traditional nation
states in more consequential ways, attacking their legitimacy rather
than--or in addition to--their military power. Non-traditional security
threats like food insecurity can create the conditions for instability.
Such threats cannot be addressed through military responses alone.
hunger and instability: the anecdotal base
The instruments of U.S. foreign policy are sometimes referred to as
the ``3D's''--defense, diplomacy and development. Within the
``development'' sphere, the U.S. has increasingly adopted a
comprehensive approach to global food security. Throughout the history
of U.S. food assistance and agricultural development programs, the
United States has acted on a triad of moral, economic and security
grounds. Moral justification implores the United States to lead with
its values, relying on the power of its example, rather than the
example of its power. Ensuring that no child goes hungry is consistent
with our values and represents the best of who we are as Americans. We
also invest in global food security for economic benefit. Over 95
percent of consumers live outside of the United States. In fact, 11 of
our 15 top trading partners were former recipients of food assistance.
Food assistance and global agricultural development programs, at their
core, are investments in the American economy, building a world of
consumers for American products and stable environments for American
businesses. Investing in global food security for stability purposes--
the third rationale--has traditionally received less attention. This is
the ``gap'' that Winning the Peace set out to fill.
Political and military leaders have long recognized the importance
of ``smart power'' in the form of foreign assistance, especially food
assistance and agricultural development. ``Show me a nation that cannot
feed itself,'' remarked Senator Pat Roberts, ``and I'll show you a
nation in chaos.'' Perhaps the most widely cited development-security
reference comes from the current U.S. Secretary of Defense, General
James Mattis. In Congressional testimony in 2013, when he was serving
as Commander of U.S. Central Command, the General remarked, ``If you
don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more
ammunition.'' Senator Lindsey Graham, meanwhile, has commented in a
State, Foreign Operations and Related Agencies Appropriations
Subcommittee markup: ``And we are going to deal with these kids now--
help them get back on their feet--or fight them later.'' Consequently,
development--and food security, specifically--has become an
increasingly strong consideration in stabilization and countering
violent extremism efforts from the United States.
Food insecurity is both a consequence and a driver of global
instability. The former--food insecurity as a byproduct of war--is well
understood. People living in conflict-affected countries are more than
2.5 times more likely to be undernourished than people living in other
settings. ``War,'' after all, as famously stated by Paul Collier, ``is
development in reverse.'' Conflict displaces people, topples markets
and destroys critical infrastructure, each undermining agricultural
production and access to food. WFP, in an analysis of food prices in
conflict-affected countries, Counting the Beans: The True Cost of a
Plate of Food, estimates that the cost of a simple meal valued at $1.20
in New York would cost $321.00 in South Sudan. WFP estimates that the
increased costs of its operations as a result of instability, lack of
access and poorly functioning food systems amounted to $3.45 billion in
2015.
That war, instability and violence adversely affect food security
is widely documented. However, the other direction of causation is
decidedly more complex. Given that food insecurity is intimately
related to other forms and causes of extreme poverty and deprivation,
the relationship between hunger and instability is most often cited
anecdotally. The failure to respond adequately to drought conditions,
for example, is widely accepted as a contributing factor to political
regime change in Ethiopia both in the 1970s and the 1980s. More
recently, food price riots contributed to the toppling of governments
in Haiti and Madagascar in 2007 and 2008 and violent protest in at
least 40 other countries worldwide. Production shocks and price spikes
in 2011 were similarly linked to the social unrest of the Arab Spring,
and the ongoing Syria crisis has clear links to prolonged, historic
drought conditions affecting food supplies. Meanwhile, the War in
Darfur has been branded the ``first climate change conflict'' by many
observers.
results
Yet with rigorous analysis, we can move beyond the anecdotal with
respect to the relationship between food insecurity and instability. In
the production of Winning the Peace, the Web of Science academic
database was accessed--containing 90 million peer-reviewed journal
articles--to exhaustively catalogue the relevant literature. Our word
search combinations yielded 3,000 articles with varying degrees of
proximity to the desired topic. This sample was reduced to 564 priority
articles describing the relationship in both directions (i.e.
instability causing food insecurity and food insecurity leading to
instability), and 53 high-priority articles that explicitly test the
relationship between food insecurity and instability, in that direction
of causation. The results of the review demonstrate that 77 percent (41
of 53) of high-priority studies determine food insecurity and
instability to be positively correlated, 17 percent (9 of 53) partially
correlated, and 6 percent (3 of 53) without correlation. Importantly,
almost 75 percent of these studies were published in the last 5 years,
in the period between 2012 and 2016. While these 53 studies are
invaluable on their own, it is when they are combined into a
comprehensive, collective body of work that results become most useful
in understanding this complex phenomenon. Across these studies, Winning
the Peace surfaced 11 unique drivers of food insecurity examined by
researchers--from land competition and food price spikes to rainfall
variability--linked to nine separate types of instability--ranging from
peaceful protest to violent interstate conflict.
These results demonstrate the complexity of the relationship
between food insecurity and instability. Modern conflicts are almost
never driven by a single cause. Sometimes the responses to food
insecurity can be a more powerful driver of food-related instability
than shock-events themselves. For example, in an increasingly
globalized food system, actions taken by governments to alleviate their
own domestic food insecurity--like reduced import tariffs and export
restrictions and other market distortions--can inadvertently undermine
the stability of other nations. The social, political and economic
drivers of food-related instability also vary widely between contexts.
Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is home to a complex colonial past,
ongoing ethnic strife and persistent poverty--each of which can serve
as a primary driver of instability that is multiplied by food
insecurity (i.e. food insecurity as a ``threat multiplier''). These
results also serve to warn against the dramatic oversimplification that
``all hungry people are violent and all violent people are hungry.''
Food-related instability is not limited to instances of violence, let
alone violent extremism. Food price protests, for example, among the
most common manifestations of food-related instability, can be non-
violent and often occur among more affluent populations suffering from
transitory food insecurity, but not chronic hunger. The world's
chronically hungry, meanwhile, are disproportionately located in rural
areas characterized by vast geographies and limited communication
technology--these populations very often suffer in silence. In short,
food-related instability occurs in both urban and rural settings;
manifests in violent and non-violent ways; and occurs across various
geographies and levels of economic development.
While local context must always be considered, instances of food-
related instability can be broadly categorized according to three main
drivers of food insecurity and three interrelated individual
motivations that prompt people to engage in social unrest or violence.
Drivers include: (1) agriculture resource competition; (2) market
failure; and (3) extreme weather. Motivators, meanwhile, include: (1)
grievance; (2) economic or ``greed;'' and (3) governance. A combination
of drivers and motivators create the conditions for every instance of
food-related instability to occur.
drivers of food-related instability
Agricultural Resource Competition
The first driver is agricultural resource competition. In the last
half century, some 40 percent of civil wars have been linked to natural
resource competition. Across much of the developing world, and
especially sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture constitutes a large
percentage of total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs up to 80
percent of the rural population. When permanent resources like land and
water (i.e. lakes, rivers and aquifers) are inadequate to sustain
agricultural livelihoods, the risk of instability rises markedly. This
commonly manifests in conflicts between pastoral and sedentary
agricultural communities, but also through land grabs, inadequate land
tenure laws and state-run land redistribution measures, among others.
Resource competition is exacerbated by increased human migration,
especially between ethnically diverse communities.
Land competition has long manifested in conflicts between pastoral
and sedentary communities. Nomadic herders traditionally operate in
territory unfit for sedentary agricultural production. Pastoralists
rely on their mobility as a coping mechanism against short-term weather
and market variations. Yet as long-term climatic conditions deteriorate
and lands become further degraded, pastoralists--especially in the
African Sahel--are encroaching on agricultural lands where rains are
more reliable and temperatures more suitable for livestock production.
Widespread drought erodes nomadic adaptation strategies like clan-based
support since a large swath of the population is affected
simultaneously. The relationship between resource competition and
migration is mutually reinforcing. Migration can place new stresses on
rural economies and resources, and resource competition can, in turn,
lead to increased migration. Recent research with migrants from East
and West Africa, Asia and the Middle East by WFP's Vulnerability
Analysis and Mapping Unit shows that for every 1 percent increase in
food insecurity, there is a 2 percent rise in migration.
In a salient example of agricultural resource competition, in the
decades leading up to the 2003 outbreak of the war in Darfur, the Sahel
region of northern Sudan had witnessed the Sahara Desert advance
southward by almost a mile each year and a decrease in annual median
rainfall of 15 to 30 percent. These long-term climatic trends had
significant consequences for Sudan's two predominant--and sometimes
competing--agricultural systems: Smallholder farmers relying on rain-
fed production and nomadic pastoralists. Agriculturalists in Sudan are
predominantly ethno-African, while pastoralists are disproportionately
of Arab ethnicity. These factors led then U.N. Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon to comment in 2007, ``Almost invariably, we discuss Darfur in a
convenient military and political shorthand--an ethnic conflict pitting
Arab militias against black rebels and farmers. Look to its roots,
though, and you discover a more complex dynamic. Amid the diverse
social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological
crisis.'' Importantly, the risk of agricultural resource-based
instability is magnified with each consecutive growing season lost.
Resource competition is not always driven by natural phenomenon,
however. Proposed large-scale land acquisitions by Daewoo, for example,
led to the toppling of the government in Madagascar in 2009, currently
the first example of an agricultural ``land grab'' contributing
directly to political instability. Similarly, re-distributional land
reform has been historically responsible for considerable unrest, with
at least one study in Winning the Peace showing that the risk of coup
rises considerably when policy changes like land reform are introduced.
Notable examples include Soviet agricultural collectivization and land
reform in China's ``Great Leap Forward,'' but land reform-related
unrest has also been documented in North Korea, Uganda, South Africa,
Zimbabwe, Cambodia and Guatemala, among others. Finally, while we
intuitively think of social and political unrest resulting from
agricultural resource scarcity, the likelihood and duration of conflict
can be partially dependent on the abundance of resources. Supplying a
successful rebellion is a resource-intensive process, and even if
rebels have the motive to fight, they also require the means; after
all, ``an army marches on its stomach.'' Several authors in this review
identified resource abundance as a condition for certain types of
conflict onset and duration.
Market Failure
The second category of food-related instability is market failure.
The global food price spikes of 2007-2008 and 2011 have increased the
profile of this form of food-related instability, especially food price
riots. Between 2000 and 2008, global wheat prices tripled and corn
prices doubled, accelerating rapidly in late 2007 and leading to social
unrest in at least 40 developing and middle-income countries in what
has been termed the ``silent tsunami.'' Food price spikes are widely
recognized as leading to regime change in Haiti and Madagascar during
this period. A second wave of price spikes owing to agricultural
commodity production shocks on the Eurasian continent in 2011 has also
been linked to the rise of the Arab Spring in the Middle East. The
relationship was thrust into the media with the dramatic protest of
Mohammed Bouazizi, a vegetable vendor in Tunisia whose immolation
epitomized the desperation felt by many in the region and served as a
catalyst for wider unrest. Food riots are an intuitive result of
commodity price fluctuations given the relative economic inelasticity
of food--there is no substitute for food, even when prices are high.
Yet food price spikes and social unrest are mediated by a variety of
factors, including import dependence, cultural significance of the
affected food commodities and political regime type, among others.
Food price riots, for example, are more likely to occur in urban
areas of countries with high reliance on food imports. Riots in
response to price shocks are enabled by the high density of people
living in urban centers with adequate channels of communication that
allow for mass organization--this is often referred to as the
``contagion effect.'' The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) imports
over half of the food it consumes, the highest import dependency on the
planet. That production shortages in one part of the world can affect
social and political instability in another is what Sternberg refers to
as the ``globalization of drought.'' In the direct aftermath of the
2007-2008 food price crisis, 31 percent of 105 surveyed countries put
in place export restrictions and half reduced food import taxes. Foods
that tend to have cultural significance, especially those consumed by
the rich and the poor alike, are also more likely to incite widespread
unrest. This is why staple products of national significance--e.g. the
``pasta riots'' in Italy or ``tortilla riots'' in Mexico--often lend
their names to social unrest. In the Middle East, bread has
considerable cultural significance across social strata, meaning the
rise in global wheat prices (and high import reliance in MENA) was
especially predictive of conflict in this setting. Political regime
type (i.e. democracy versus autocracy) also plays an important role in
mediating the relationship between food price and social unrest. Short-
term unrest is more likely to occur in democracies with permissive
political opportunity structures that allow for popular uprising and
government protest. This demonstrates the point that not all
instability is bad, especially if it leads to meaningful social change.
While the likelihood of demonstrations and riots is reduced in
oppressive regimes, more organized persistent forms of conflict are
more likely to occur in these settings.
Ultimately, the link between food price shocks and instability is
dependent upon the country, the level of import dependence, the
perceived reason for the price increase, the agricultural commodity,
the model of government and the level of pre-existing social grievance,
among other considerations. Even so, while the conditions that
determine the relationship between food prices and stability are
complex, the dynamic is not devoid of causation. When the globalization
of crises meets with burgeoning urbanization and the contagion effect
facilitated by widespread access to mass communication, the potential
for conflict rises considerably.
Extreme weather
The third category of food-related instability is extreme weather.
This driver underpins agriculture resource competition and market
failure, but represents a sizeable body of literature in and of itself.
Agriculture is an obvious interlocutor between climate and conflict
given that the sector is strongly affected by climatological conditions
like rainfall variations and temperature fluctuations. It is estimated
that 80 percent of agricultural production in developing countries does
not employ any form of irrigation. Furthermore, the impacts of climate
change will be most severe in low-latitude countries in tropical,
equatorial environments, disproportionately affecting the Global South.
Extreme weather events as a driver of food-related instability is
apparent in a variety of modern-day conflicts. In the lead-up to the
civil war in Syria, for example, the country experienced ``the worst
long-term drought and most severe set of crop failures since
agricultural civilizations began in the Fertile Crescent many millennia
ago.'' In the 3-year period from 2006 to 2009, more than 1 million
farmers were affected by crop loss. This long-term drought--combined
with government policies on well-water pumping--placed unsustainable
pressure on groundwater aquifers. As a consequence, the southwestern
city of Dara'a, situated in one of the traditionally fertile areas of
Syria, saw a large influx of migrants and was one of the first sites of
social unrest in the country in 2011. Meanwhile, the rise of Boko Haram
in northern Nigeria has been linked by several authors to prolonged
drought conditions in the Lake Chad Basin area of West Africa. In
recent decades, the water surface of Lake Chad has shrunk by over 90
percent compared with its size in the 1960s, contributing to a loss of
livelihoods and threatening food security in the region.
Since 2010, the United States has recognized climate change as a
``threat-multiplier'' in its Quadrennial Defense Review. Meanwhile, the
United Nations estimates that approximately 1.3 billion people in the
world also live on ecologically fragile land. While the defining
challenge facing the humanitarian system today is the proliferation of
violent conflict, each year some 22.5 million people are displaced by
climate-related extreme events, in part because of inadequate
responses, a lack of safety net protection systems or insufficient
investments in resilience-building and disaster risk reduction. It is
estimated that climate change could force as many as 122 million people
into poverty by 2030.
Motivators of food-related instability
While it is one thing to correlate two variables, it is entirely
another to identify the individual rationale for observed human
behavior. Truly understanding the hunger-instability nexus means first
answering the fundamental question: Why do food-insecure people resort
to violence or other forms of social unrest? In the food-related
instability literature, several causal mechanisms are identified, often
summarized as ``grievance, economic, or governance'' motivations. While
individual motivations for involvement in food-related social unrest
and violence vary between contexts and people, they generally fall into
these interrelated categories.
First, the ``grievance'' motivation refers to actions motivated by
a perceived injustice. The grievance motivation is especially potent
when food insecurity provides an impetus for the airing of longstanding
societal divisions, allowing a population to cleave along pre-
established lines. When food insecurity ``breaks the camel's back,''
exacerbating longstanding tensions, the grievance motivation is at
play. A food-related instability event--like price riots or pastoral
encroachment on sedentary agriculturalists--provides an opportunity for
groups to settle preexisting conflicts or disagreements. Research by
Mercy Corps with youth in Afghanistan, Colombia and Somalia found that
experiences of injustice, like discrimination and corruption, were
among the strongest drivers of conflict. It is also true that one of
the strongest indicators of the likelihood of violent conflict is a
history of it. Over 40 percent of countries that have experienced civil
war will see it again within a decade. This is sometimes referred to as
the ``violence trap.''
Second, the economic motivation occurs when there is a clear
economic advantage to resorting to violence. This motivation is often
reduced to a simplified equation: Does engaging in violent conflict or
revolt yield a higher economic and social return than the status quo
(i.e. is there a compelling opportunity cost of inaction)? This often
plays out with rebel groups paying wages--or offering food--as a
recruitment incentive, effectively taking advantage of the desperation
felt by those unable to feed themselves or their families. Reflecting
this commonly held view, former U.S. Senator Richard Lugar remarked,
``Hungry people are desperate people and desperation can sow the seeds
of radicalism.'' In other words, that there is an important distinction
between involvement with an armed group and being an ``extremist.'' In
Somalia in 2011, while denying access to international humanitarian
agencies, al-Shabaab was reported to offer cash-payments or even
salaries in exchange for enlistment to its movement. In fact, former
militants describe al-Shabaab enlistment as a commercial venture, not
an ideological one. Meanwhile, in Colombia, the FARC provided
protection to local farmers and guaranteed a minimum price for a
variety of agricultural products. This same phenomenon has played out
in Syria, northeast Nigeria, and Sudan, among other settings.
Third, the governance motivation occurs in the context of
unachieved expectations or a failure of the state to prevent food
insecurity. Additionally, when the state's ability to enforce rule-of-
law is diminished or non-existent, it is easier for economic or
grievance-motivated individuals to make the decision to engage in
conflict without fear of punitive repercussion. Many parts of the
developing world, in particular, are home to huge tracks of ungoverned,
lawless spaces existing outside of the policing arm of the state. These
places are simultaneously unreached by social services and lack
investments in critical infrastructure. In agricultural-based
economies, the food production shocks that can initiate rebellion
simultaneously reduce the state's ability to respond appropriately
through a loss in the agricultural tax base. The governance motivation
is further reinforced by interviews conducted by the United Nations
Development Programme with 495 individuals that voluntarily joined
extremist groups in Africa. The results of their analysis demonstrate
that while religious and economic motivators are strong drivers of
recruitment, a lack of trust in government (e.g. police, politicians or
the military) is the single strongest driver, especially when a family
or friend is killed or arrested by the government.
severing the link
Since the drivers of food insecurity and instability are many--
ranging from calorie availability to more structural issues around land
tenure and livelihood opportunities--disrupting the link between food
insecurity and instability requires a diverse toolbox of integrated
actions. In other words, we must meet complexity with complexity. In
practice, this means investing more heavily in development and
humanitarian activities (i.e. meeting immediate lifesaving needs);
implementing comprehensive food security programs that address the many
faces of hunger; and pursuing improved communication between defense,
diplomacy and development efforts so as to break the cycle and vicious
feedback loop between hunger and instability.
First, we must meet the immediate lifesaving needs of those
suffering from hunger as the result of conflict and natural disasters.
Food assistance and agricultural development programs can be especially
effective tools in preventing extremism from taking root. We must
respond to humanitarian crises before they become something else
entirely. At present, the global community is simply not meeting the
immediate lifesaving and stability-producing needs of vulnerable people
around the world. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) consolidated appeal--the most comprehensive
of assessment of annual humanitarian funding needs--increased by over
62 percent between 2011 and 2018, from $8.5 billion to $22.5 billion,
with the 2018 appeal becoming the largest in history. Needs are growing
faster than contributions. On average over the past decade, OCHA
appeals have been funded at only 64 percent, leaving many vulnerable
populations without assistance. Specific to emergency food assistance,
WFP's 2017 operational requirements were funded at only 76 percent
(approximately $6.8 of $9 billion). In analysis ranging back to 2010,
WFP has never had the entirety of its operational needs met by donors.
Second, we must implement comprehensive global food security
programming. There are several food-specific strategies that can break
the food insecurity-instability relationship. The response has to be
comprehensive, commensurate with the complexities of food-related
instability and addressing emergency food assistance, agricultural
development, child nutrition and social safety net systems. U.S.
assistance programs should focus increasingly on the special needs of
conflict-affected fragile states. U.S. humanitarian assistance has
traditionally taken a lead role in U.S. response to the needs of
vulnerable people in conflict situations. U.S. development aid,
however, has not always been sufficiently available to fragile states
seeking long-term solutions to their underlying food security and
development challenges. Only when immediate humanitarian assistance is
combined with appropriate medium-to long-term development programs can
we build resilience and reduce the risk of future state fragility and
conflict. The U.S. has made significant strides in this regard with the
passage of the Global Food Security Act (GFSA) and associated strategy.
The GFSA is up for reauthorization in 2018, and ensuring that this
important legislation continues to guide U.S. food security policy
should remain a top priority for Congress.
Emergency food assistance provides immediate relief from the
impacts of manmade and natural crises, serving as the last line of
lifesaving assistance to those in need and decreasing the desperation
felt by people suffering from extreme hunger. When administered
effectively, food assistance can reduce food price volatility and
uncertainty, building trust in food systems; can provide livelihood
opportunities that increase the ``cost'' of engaging in violent
conflict; and can be effective tools in the battle for hearts and minds
(e.g. U.S. food aid is branded ``From the American People''). Food
assistance has also been successfully deployed as a means to entice
combatants to lay down their arms and reintegrate into society.
Food assistance alone cannot prevent conflict or the re-emergence
of conflict once peace has been achieved. Almost half of the world's
hungry are subsistence farmers. GDP growth in the agricultural sector
is more than twice as effective at reducing extreme hunger and poverty
than growth in other sectors in developing countries. Investments in
subsistence farmers--especially women--can have a deep impact in
reducing hunger and extreme poverty and improving self-sufficiency,
with positive spillover effects into the wider economy. Agricultural
development, for its outsized effect on economic growth, can be
especially effective at deterring recruitment for violent uprisings and
delivering peace dividends.
Early childhood nutrition can have lifelong effects on health and
prosperity. Lacking proper nutrition at an early age, physical growth
and intellectual development can be permanently damaged, leading to
long-term consequences on individual achievement as well as broader
economic growth and stability. More than 50 percent of those displaced
from their countries by conflict, violence and persecution are under
the age of 18. Children who do not receive adequate nutrition face
physical, emotional and economic ``stunting'' that plagues them
throughout their lives and makes them more prone to violence and
aggression.
School meals are a particularly effective way of ensuring children
receive proper nutrition and social protections. One of the strongest
incentives for sending a child to school is the promise of a school
meal. These programs have been demonstrated to increase school
enrollment and attendance (especially for girls), and improve
nutrition, health and cognitive development of children. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture is WFP's largest multi-year donor to school
meals programs, providing on average $80 million per year through the
McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition
Program. Through this support, WFP reached 2,260,791 children in
FY2016. Cost benefit analysis conducted in over 15 countries where WFP
is providing school meals demonstrates that every dollar invested in
these programs yields a return of $3 to $10 dollars from improved
education and health outcomes. When food for school meals programs is
purchased from local farmers (i.e. home-grown school feeding), this has
the added benefit of supporting local agriculture and establishing
supply chains that can serve as an exit strategy for donor assistance.
School meals are just one form of safety net. Safety net systems--
the predictable transfer of basic commodities, resources or services to
poor or vulnerable populations--protect against societal shocks and
episodic bouts of food insecurity, allowing people to preserve
productive assets and preventing vulnerable populations from further
descending into extreme poverty. ``Food-for-work'' asset-building
initiatives have been promoted as effective deterrents of terrorist
recruitment, providing viable livelihood opportunities for vulnerable
populations. Food and cash transfers have also proved successful in
deterring riots, as evidenced in the 2007-2008 food price crisis where
most affected countries that had cash-or food-based social safety nets
in place avoided widespread food riots.
Third, while we should pursue improved communication between
defense, diplomacy and development actors, we must also recognize that
they have distinct roles to play. The ``firewall'' between the military
and humanitarians, in particular, exists to ensure humanitarian
worker's neutrality and safety and ability to respond to objective
need--they must not be seen as an extension of U.S. political or
military force. Acknowledging the security dividends of humanitarian
assistance does not simultaneously imply that we abandon our core
principles for providing international assistance based on objective
need, neutrality and impartiality. In the U.S. and beyond, the
rationale for supporting food assistance programs has been
predominantly based on moral and economic considerations. Acknowledging
the security dimension of food assistance does not elevate this
rationale above others, but is simply a recognition of food
insecurity's contribution to global instability and the security of all
nations.
The ``3D's'' of U.S. foreign policy must, at the very least, learn
to speak the same language. Defense, diplomacy and development are too
often perceived as iterative steps--one to be followed after another.
When diplomacy fails, we deploy kinetic force, at which point
development actors are tasked with rebuilding. While we have often said
that ``today's humanitarian crises do not have purely humanitarian
solutions,'' it can also be said that today's military engagements do
not have purely military or kinetic solutions. As noted in a 2012 USAID
report, Frontiers in Development, ``the security challenges posed by
fragile and failing states and the deprivation that accompanies them
makes it all but inevitable that soldiers and humanitarians, diplomats
and development experts will find themselves operating in increasing
proximity to one another, often addressing the same issues with
different tools and for complementary purposes.'' There is evidence
that this is beginning to occur. USAID has humanitarian and development
advisors at each of the U.S.'s six Geographic Combatant Command
centers. Furthermore, an institutional structure is being established
with cooperation between U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Conflict
and Stabilization Operations, USAID's Office of Civilian-military
Cooperation, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Civil Affairs Units. These
steps are important and should be further shepherded. It is imperative
that we see food security as fundamental to peace and security. One of
the best investments we can make in peace and security is to help
people who cannot feed themselves or their families.
Thank you Chairman Young and Ranking Member Merkley for the
opportunity to testify on this important topic. I look forward to
answering your questions.
Senator Young. Thank you, Dr. Sova.
Lieutenant General Castellaw.
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL (RETIRED) JOHN CASTELLAW,
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS, CROCKETT MILLS, TN
General Castellaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Merkley. I will try to reduce this to a frag order, which I am
sure you are familiar with, Chairman Young.
If I were to summarize my career, I would say that I was in
the post-Vietnam generation that included Jim Mattis, and what
we did was we saw the demise eventually of the Soviet Union and
symmetrical warfare, and what we saw was asymmetrical warfare,
which we are dealing with now. I have seen this in the Horn of
Africa, in West Africa, the Lake Chad Basin, in the Asia
Pacific.
It is clear that food security should be an element of our
national security. And when we talk about diplomacy,
development, and defense of our military, we should look at how
we balance our expenditures, our allocation of resources, how
we take a strategy that puts all this together.
The number, the piece of information that is most important
to me, comes in the casualty figures. Ten thousand Americans
have been killed in the global war on terror. Over 50,000 have
been wounded. They constitute the most precious treasure we
have in the United States, which is the blood of the men and
women who serve. Anything we can do that eliminates the
requirement for them to do what they are willing to do, which
is give up their lives, is worth the money. To think about
cutting the international development budget by 30 percent, I
would submit to you, is unacceptable.
One of the great things--and I have had the opportunity
over the last day or two to talk to a number of senators and
Administration officials--is the fact that now we are starting
to see Jim Mattis at Defense, hopefully we will see the new
Secretary of State and then people like Mark Green at AID come
together, sit down, look at what the situation is, and together
come up with a strategy that includes food security and
allocates the resources accordingly.
Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Castellaw follows:]
Prepared Statement of Lieutenant General John Castellaw, USMC (Ret.)
Chairman Young, Ranking Member Merkley, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today about the importance of global food
security to our national security, and for your strong support for
America's development and diplomacy programs.
food security is critical to our national security
The United States faces many threats to our National Security.
These threats include continuing wars with extremist elements such as
ISIS and potential wars with rogue state North Korea or regional
nuclear power Iran. The heated economic and diplomatic competition with
Russia and a surging China could spiral out of control. Concurrently,
we face threats to our future security posed by growing civil strife,
famine, and refugee and migration challenges which create incubators
for extremist and anti-American government factions. Our response
cannot be one dimensional but instead must be nuanced and
comprehensive, employing ``hard'' as well as ``soft'' power in a
National Security Strategy combining all elements of National Power,
including a Food Security Strategy.
An American Food Security Strategy is an imperative factor in
reducing the multiple threats impacting our National wellbeing. Recent
history has shown that reliable food supplies and stable prices produce
more stable and secure countries. Conversely, food insecurity,
particularly in poorer countries, can lead to instability, unrest, and
violence. Food insecurity drives mass migration around the world from
the Middle East, to Africa, to Southeast Asia, destabilizing
neighboring populations, generating conflicts, and threatening our own
security by disrupting our economic, military, and diplomatic
relationships. Food system shocks from extreme food-price volatility
can be correlated with protests and riots. Food price related protests
toppled governments in Haiti and Madagascar in 2007 and 2008. In 2010
and in 2011, food prices and grievances related to food policy were one
of the major drivers of the Arab Spring uprisings.
These conclusions are based on my decades of experience while
serving as a Marine around the world and from a lifetime as a steward
of the soil on my family farm in Tennessee. I see food security
strategy in military terms as either being ``defensive'' or
``offensive''. ``Defensive'' includes those actions we take to protect
our agricultural infrastructure including crops, livestock and the food
chain here in the United States. Conversely, the ``Offensive'' side of
food security takes the initiative to deal with food security issues
overseas and this is where I will spend most of my time today.
There is a good reason for our success on the ``defensive'' here at
home in ensuring our own food security. As my good friend and former
Tennessee Deputy Agriculture Commissioner Louis Buck points out to me,
American agriculture has always been about public/private enterprise.
The Morrill Act of 1862--showing our Country's foresight and confidence
in the future even in the dark days of our Civil War--created our Land
Grant University model of teaching, research and extension. And equally
importantly, we have a private sector that values individual
initiative, unleashing an unparalleled vitality. With that vitality
driving innovation, our farmers and ranchers leverage the expertise and
information from the public sector to manage risks and seek profits
from deployed capital. But above all, American farmers and ranchers are
our ``citizen soldiers'' on the front lines here at home fighting to
guarantee our food security.
America is also blessed with fertile soil, water availability,
moderate climate, and the advanced technology to successfully utilize
our abundance. Whether I walk the corn fields of Indiana or the cotton
fields of Tennessee, I see agricultural technology in use that is
amazing. Soon after I retired from the Marines and came home to the
family farm, I climbed into the cab of a self-propelled sprayer.
Settling into the seat was like strapping into the cockpit of one of
the aircraft I flew, except the sprayer had more computing power and
better data links. All these factors, public and private, natural and
manmade, hard work and innovation, combine to provide the American
people with the widest choices in the world of wholesome foods to eat
and clothes to wear.
enormous challenges face us around the world
But sadly, the world now faces the largest humanitarian crisis
since the end of the World War II, with over 800 million hungry, 500
million of them in countries in conflict, 65 million displaced from
their homes, and more than 30 million people living on the brink of
starvation. For the first time in a decade, deteriorating humanitarian
conditions have led to an increase in the number of hungry people in
the world. The conditions are going to get worse with total world
population growing to over 10 billion, and with a ``youth bulge'' in
the most fragile and food insecure countries. These conditions lead to
hopelessness and despair among the most at risk populations.
Senators, during my military career I have seen those looks of
hopelessness and despair in the faces of men and women scavenging in
piles of garbage to find food for their families. These daily personal
struggles to survive do create the incubators for terrorists and their
supporters. According to the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence (ODNI), ``the overall risk of food insecurity in many
countries of strategic importance to the United States will increase
during the next 10 years . . .. In some countries, declining food
security will almost certainly contribute to social disruptions and
political instability.''
It was not that long ago, in our own country, that we had armed
clashes over grazing rights and competition for water between crop and
livestock communities. In fragile and conflict affected states, access
to water, pasture, and agricultural land is often the spark that
ignites conflicts between ethnic groups, tribes and clans. The lack of
farming income, in turn, forces young men off the land and into urban
slums, where their alienation makes them willing recruits for extremist
organizations. Food insecurity is also a lever for those same extremist
groups to exert control over the population and gain financial
advantage from their control of food resources. I saw this in the early
90s during the conflict in Bosnia where groups with guns exercised
power by seizing food supplies and controlling the distribution to the
population.
We can see this in play today in such places as the Lake Chad Basin
where a growing conflict between cattle herders, farmers, and fishermen
competing for ever decreasing water resources brought on by climate
change and misuse of water sources is providing openings for Boko Haram
to establish themselves. I recently flew over Lake Chad and the
decrease in lake's area from the last time I visited is more than
alarming.
Executives surveyed at the World Economic Forum highlighted in
their 2016 Global Risk Assessment the likely impact of climate change
on food security and noted that the ``simmering tensions between social
groups are more likely to boil over into community violence. Armed non-
state actors, including insurgencies and terrorist groups, will be able
to leverage this new source of insecurity (stresses on water and food)
as an additional grievance on which to build their narratives, finding
new recruits among those made destitute.''
This is an especially serious issue in the Middle East and North
Africa. The Center for Climate and Security, a non-partisan think tank
of national security and military experts--where I serve as a member of
its Advisory Board--identified a significant connection among climate
change, drought, natural resource mismanagement, food security and
conflict in the region in its seminal ``Arab Spring and Climate
Change'' report. In that region, a ``Catch 22'' phenomenon is
occurring. Egypt, for example--heavily dependent on the global wheat
market--is highly vulnerable to bread price spikes that result from
countries like China panic-buying in the wake of their wheat harvests
being devastated by extreme weather events (and countries like Russia
cutting off wheat exports for the same reasons). Other nations in the
region, like Syria under Assad before the outbreak of civil war, have
tried to grow wheat locally and unsustainably, to avoid Egypt's
dilemma. But that hasn't worked.
Coupled with climate change-exacerbated extreme drought from 2007-
2010, Syria's agricultural practices (and malpractices) decimated the
country's water table, left millions of Syrians ``extremely food
insecure,'' and displaced around 1.5 million farmers and herders,
heightening the likelihood of tension and conflict in the country.
empowering all our national security tools
I grew up in the Marine Corps with now Defense Secretary Jim
Mattis; there is no one in whom I have more personal confidence and
trust as a steward of our Nation's security than him. He has time and
again forcefully advocated using the totality of American power--
diplomacy, development, and military--to prevent conflicts and ensure
our security.
Another fellow Marine, General Joe Dunford, Chairman of the Joint
Chief of the Staff sets the tone for those continuing to serve in
uniform; he has said, ``There's no challenge that I'm currently dealing
with that the primary factors in our success won't be diplomatic,
economic. And certainly, even in our campaign in Iraq and Syria, USAID
plays a critical role in stabilization, to secure the gains that our
partners are making on the ground in Syria and Iraq, as one example.
But, every place I've been over the past 15 or 16 years, in Iraq and
Afghanistan, a key partner has been USAID.''
Our other military leaders are following their lead. There is a
strong consensus that America's civilian programs--as key interagency
partners--must not only be adequately resourced but also empowered to
more effectively engage private sector expertise and investment.
Military officers are speaking up in support of funding for the State
Department and USAID because they recognize that the military alone is
not sufficient to ensure our national security, sustain global economic
growth, and tackle development challenges like the growing food
insecurity.
The 2016 Rand Corporation Report: ``Lessons from Afghanistan''
provided lessons learned on the Pentagon's Task Force on Business and
Stability Operations and noted: ``For an innovative, entrepreneurial
organization within government, success is about finding a delicate
balance--between freedom to take risks and necessary oversight, between
quick-turn project delivery and long-term development outcomes, and
between pursuing a disruptive business model and remaining a team
player. Thus, we recommend that the U.S. policy community plan for
future organizational solutions to address the lessons from
Afghanistan.'' In the words that a Marine would use, we need all our
national security partners empowered to be more agile with an improved
capability to ``improvise, adapt, and overcome'' the challenges faced.
In addition to our nation's highest-ranking officers currently
serving, I joined more than 150 retired three- and four-star flag and
general officers--all members of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition's
National Security Advisory Council--in writing to Congress to urge
support for the International Affairs Budget and renewed American
global leadership. For us the bottom line is our diplomatic and
development professionals, public and private, have the expertise and
resources to help tackle the root causes of conflict--by empowering
smallholder farmers to increase their productivity, improving maternal
and child health, and helping rebuild dysfunctional economies among
other important efforts.
And it is not just about employing our own national programs, it is
also about participating as a member of the global community. I
recently traveled with a U.N. Foundation group to observe the United
Nations employment of hard and soft power against a simmering conflict
in the Central African Republic (CAR). There the combination of
international development programs (soft power) as well as military
force (hard power) is addressing the root causes (population, climate
change, extremism, food insecurity) of conflict. Support by the United
States of such world community efforts reduces the need to deploy our
own military forces. We must remember that American Military
interventions require the expenditure of our most precious national
resource--the blood of those who serve.
food security advances america's economic interests
Food security is critical to reducing conflict, but it is also
vital to establishing economic security. Almost no country--from South
Korea to India to the United States--has achieved rapid economic
development without first investing in agricultural development. And we
know from our experience that smallholder farmers can become productive
and escape poverty once they gain access to education, markets, and
technologies.
That is also my personal story--in my family's history this step
enabled my grandparents and parents to rise from a lineage of small-
acreage subsistence farmers to the American Middle Class, to feed and
educate our family, and to live with dignity. American and world
efforts to tackle global poverty have been successful. Since 1990,
global extreme poverty has been more than halved with over a billion
people lifted out of poverty.
These efforts pay dividends for the U.S. economy. Today, 11 of our
top 15 export markets, including Germany, Japan and South Korea, are
former recipients of U.S. foreign assistance, as well as being among
our staunchest allies. Many of the fastest growing economies reside in
the developing world and those markets comprise almost 60 percent of
global GDP, a threefold increase since 1990. These developing countries
also account for more than half of all U.S. agricultural exports.
In 2016, the U.S. exported nearly $135 billion of agricultural
products supporting 1.1 million full-time American jobs, making these
developing markets an important source of our jobs and economic growth.
When our economy is strong, it amplifies the awesome power of our
military might while deterring our enemies from undermining America's
national security and economic interests abroad.
maintain u.s. leadership in agricultural development
Today, America is well positioned to maintain our global leadership
in the fight against hunger and poverty, ultimately helping to bring
much needed peace and stability to a volatile world. To achieve this
goal, the United States should sustain America's focus and investment
in agricultural development and do it in the right way over the long
term.
While serving in the Pacific, I traveled to the island of Ponape in
the Federated Republic of Micronesia, formerly the Caroline Islands in
the South Pacific, to attend, as the U.S. military representative, the
inauguration of their new President. These islands were the scene of
much combat in World War II and afterward the United States was heavily
involved in reconstruction and development. However, the people were
soon plagued with diabetes and other food related health issues. When I
asked the reason, the American consul replied that instead of helping
the people develop a healthy, sustainable agricultural and fishing-
based economy, we taught them how to open cans of imported food which
created massive unintended consequences.
We know that a robust agricultural support system requires constant
``care and feeding.'' Failure to establish and maintain such
infrastructure and services as irrigation systems, soil conservation
programs, storage and transportation facilities, and research and
extension services, because of threats or lack of funding, can
exacerbate food insecurity, increase instability, and intensify
conflict.
As another expert in business development, Gerry Brown, who served
on the Department of Defense's Task Force on Business and Stability
Operations with Louis Buck, notes, farming is not just a profession but
a way of life. Part of fighting and winning against violent extremists
is convincing the local population that the government cares about, and
will defend, the local population and their homes and possessions from
their enemies. For example, crops such as dates in Iraq and raisins in
Afghanistan have significance beyond the income they generate for the
farmers. They are national symbols and restoring and protecting them
can convince local populations that the government has their best
interests at heart.
I also spent some time In Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, where I
saw an example of how infrastructure, even the most basic, can have a
major impact on reducing the conditions for insurgency. We were in
heavy combat in Afghanistan at the time with a limited amount of forces
available for deployment to the Horn requiring an Economy of Force
operation there. One of the most effective military task forces, at the
least cost, I have seen employed was one composed of a well drilling
attachment and a veterinarian team. The task force operations began by
drilling a well closer to the village reducing the time and effort
required for the women of the village to obtain water for their
families. The veterinarian vaccinated the goats reducing disease and
the mortality rate while increasing the health and value of the herds.
The combination of easier access to water and an increase in the
economic base generated confidence in the government reducing the
conditions for building an insurgency.
Continuing in this vein, let me talk about ``Feed the Future'', a
current program that is contributing to our national security. It is
America's global hunger and food security initiative and was signed
into law with widespread bipartisan support from Congress. It has
helped smallholder farmers increase production and productivity through
country-led, results-based strategies. Feed the Future has helped lift
more than 9 million people out of poverty and prevented the lack of
food in childhood from permanently stunting the growth of nearly 2
million children. In FY2016, the initiative helped nearly 11 million
farmers in developing countries adopt new technologies like high-
yielding seeds. As a result, these farmers made more than $900 million
in new agricultural sales and stimulated nearly $630 million in new
agricultural loans.
With farming accounting for nearly 55 percent of total employment
in places like sub-Saharan Africa--and the agricultural sector
representing the single largest employer of the labor force in lower
middle-income countries--empowering smallholder farmers in developing
countries is the most effective way to reduce hunger and poverty, build
resilience, generate inclusive economic growth, and achieve long-term
stability.
Actions taken now to increase agricultural sector jobs can provide
economic opportunity and stability for those unemployed youths while
helping to feed people. A recent report by the Chicago Council on
Global Affairs identifies agriculture development as the core essential
for providing greater food security, economic growth, and population
well-being. Repeatedly, history has taught us that a strong
agricultural sector is an unquestionable requirement for inclusive and
sustainable growth, broad-based development progress, and long-term
stability.
In summary, a food security strategy is critical to our overall
national security. While many challenges face us, America and our
global partners have the capability to meet those challenges by
employing all the elements of our national power to include diplomatic,
developmental, economic, and, yes, military when required; a balanced,
thoughtful melding of soft and hard power. Now is the time to take a
long-term approach, make the needed changes in agencies and
organizations supporting our overseas engagements, address climate
change, and support and sustain our commitment to global food security.
By doing so, we can help countries transition from aid-recipients to
full-fledged partners, moving toward the day when they will no longer
depend on foreign aid.
In my view, failure to act will jeopardize the progress we have
made, risk continual recurring food crises that grow terrorists, and
allow development of conflicts that will eventually require deploying
the men and women of our military.
Thank you again to the Chairman, Ranking Member and the Committee
for inviting me to speak. I look forward to your questions.
Senator Young. Thank you, General. I think we are breaking
through on this issue from the national security standpoint,
and we are grateful for your leadership.
Ms. Nunn.
STATEMENT OF MICHELLE NUNN, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, CARE USA, ATLANTA, GA
Ms. Nunn. Chairman Young and Ranking Member Merkley, thank
you for the opportunity to be here today and to be with this
terrific panel.
I represent CARE, which traces its roots back to 1945 when
a small group of Americans invented the original CARE packages,
food rations for starving survivors of World War II in Europe.
And today the CARE package is an icon of American generosity.
It is inspiring to consider the compassion that let us not only
support our allies but also our former enemies. And it was part
of a multi-pronged effort that ensured a stable and prosperous
Europe as a critical U.S. ally and partner.
From the delivery of those first CARE packages, CARE's work
has evolved and now stretches across 94 countries, reaching
more than 62 million people annually.
In addition to emergency aid, our programs now focus on
long-term development and building resilience among populations
to permanently lift people out of poverty. We prioritize the
empowerment of women and girls in our work because we know they
are disproportionately affected by poverty, and they are the
key to overcoming it.
In my testimony I want to share why we invest in women, the
proven impact of U.S. investments, the consequences of a world
without U.S. leadership, and a path forward.
So, why women? When food is in short supply, women and
girls are often the most impacted and are regularly the last to
eat. Girls' poor access to food results in stunting and much
worse during pregnancy. In times of crisis, girls are the first
to be pulled out of school to help with household chores or
earning an income. Also in times of drought, famine, or natural
disaster, families often seek to safeguard their daughters by
placing them in child marriages, which, of course, dramatically
diminishes their future. Finally, women are often denied the
same basic rights as men, such as owning land or having access
to inputs as small-holder farmers, which compounds their
vulnerability and diminishes the overall security of families.
But while women are the most impacted, they also have the
capacity to create disproportionate change. We know, for
instance, that if women had the same access to resources as
men, there would be 150 million fewer hungry people in the
world. At CARE, we have seen how building food security and
prioritizing women's empowerment can transform communities.
In Ethiopia last year, just as some areas of the country
began to recover, they were hit again by a devastating drought.
Yet famine was never declared. This was not only because the
U.S. leveraged emergency assistance but also because of
investments in long-term resilience, such as those included in
the Feed the Future Initiative. These resilience programs,
including CARE's GRAD program in Ethiopia, improved
participants' skills, provided financial literacy, and
diversified livelihoods. We have seen tremendous results. For
instance, within 5 years, annual household income increased by
87 percent, and 62 percent of GRAD families have graduated off
government assistance altogether. These results show that we
can break the devastating cycles of extreme food insecurity
through long-term investments in resilience and capacity
building, and this is the best spirit of America's leadership.
Yet despite these clear and well-documented results, the
President's latest budget proposes severe cuts to programs that
build resilience, including Feed the Future. These cuts could
translate to more than 5 million farmers losing access to
programs that help them grow their way out of poverty.
It does not take much to imagine what will occur should
these proposals become a reality. Without resilience programs
droughts, floods, and climate disruptions will wreak havoc on
small farms. It will drive up food insecurity and poverty. We
know that these vulnerable populations are most at risk of
falling into crisis and instability.
There is another path forward, and it is imperative that we
take it. With last year's passage of the Fiscal Year 2017
omnibus, Congress made clear that the U.S. will continue to
lead in responding to crisis and in the fight to end extreme
poverty. And the work being done through Feed the Future shows
us that we can end poverty for good.
Congress can continue their commitment by reauthorizing the
Global Food Security Act, which is set to expire this year. The
Global Food Security Act assures that the great work being done
through Feed the Future and the U.S. Government's Global Food
Security Strategy continues.
I look forward to your questions, and thank you very much
for the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Nunn follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michelle Nunn
Chairman Young, Ranking Member Merkley, and members of the
Subcommittee, good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to
testify today.
CARE traces its roots back to 1945, when a small group of American
citizens galvanized 22 organizations to join forces to rush emergency
food rations to the starving survivors of World War II in Europe. They
invented the concept of the ``CARE Package'' --an icon of American
generosity. It is hard to imagine both the compassion and
farsightedness that called upon the American public to invest not only
in our hungry former allies but also our hungry former enemies. It was
a part of a multi-pronged effort that ensured a stable, secure, and
prosperous Europe as a critical U.S. ally and partner.
From the delivery of those first CARE packages, our work has
evolved and now stretches across 94 countries, reaching more than 62
million people in 2017. In addition to humanitarian response, our
programs now focus on long-term development and building resilience
among populations to permanently lift people out of poverty. We
prioritize the empowerment of women and girls in our work because we
know they are both disproportionately affected by poverty, and they are
the key to overcoming poverty and unlocking transformation within
communities.
why women
In countries throughout the world, when food is in short supply and
families experience times of need, women and girls are often the most
impacted. They are regularly the last to eat, jeopardizing their
health, nutrition, and well-being. Girls' poor access to food is
responsible for stunting and other forms of malnourishment that impact
their health and ability to participate in other endeavors, such as
education or livelihoods. Pregnant women and their babies, when poorly
nourished, are at significantly higher risk.
In times of crisis, girls are the first to be pulled out of school
to help with household chores, feed the family, or earning income,
which impedes them from reaching their full potential. Also, in times
of drought, famine, or natural disaster, families may seek to help
their daughters avoid hardship by placing them into child marriages
with wealthier or more secure men. Additionally, women are often denied
the same basic rights as men, such as the right to own land or access
inputs as smallholder farmers, which all compounds their vulnerability
and diminishes the security of their families. At the same time, we
know that if women had access to the same resources as men, there would
be 150 million fewer hungry people in the world.
the impact of u.s. investments
U.S. Government investments and our work on the ground have given
us a firsthand look at how building food security and prioritizing
women's empowerment can transform communities and the trajectory of
nations. Take Ethiopia--last year, just as some areas of the country
began to recover from the most devastating drought in 50 years, another
drought hit. Yet famine was never declared. This is not only because of
the actions of the Ethiopian government and the U.S.'s ability to
leverage emergency assistance, which was delivered in time to prevent
the worst consequences, but also in large part due to investments in
long-term resilience programs, such as those included in the Feed the
Future Initiative.
These resilience programs helped local Ethiopian farmers increase
their yields and incomes, created fortified grains to combat
malnutrition in children, and expanded agricultural businesses to
create job opportunities. A USAID study found that households in
communities reached by these resilience programs were able to maintain
their levels of food security in the face of drought, whereas
households in communities outside the program areas experienced a 30
percent decline in food security.
CARE's GRAD program in Ethiopia worked to improve participants'
skills, provide financial literacy training, and diversified
livelihoods. Within 5 years, annual household income increased by 87
percent, and 62 percent of GRAD families had graduated off government
assistance. 90 percent of women participating in GRAD reported having
an increased role in decision-making, and 61 percent of women reported
greater equality in their homes.
From 2012 to 2016, another CARE program in Ethiopia, called
LINKAGES, focused on food security, women's empowerment, and access to
markets. Farmers earned a $3.27 return for every dollar invested. At
the end of the 4-year program, families increased their annual income
by 80 percent, and 66 percent of families in the program were able to
graduate off food assistance.
These results show that we have the opportunity to break
devastating cycles of extreme food insecurity through long-term
investments in building the capacity and resilience of local
communities. This is in the best of the spirit of American leadership,
and it also generates economic benefits, as we have seen with countries
like South Korea--once a war-torn nation and aid recipient, their
annual trade with the U.S. now totals more than $43 billion.
South Sudan offers a different type of example. With a famine
declared in February 2017, and the conflict entering its fifth year in
2018, 7 million people, or approximately half of the population, are in
urgent need of food assistance. This declaration prompted Congress to
generously and appropriately provide almost $1 billion in supplemental
funding to South Sudan and similarly affected countries--funding that
played a key part in rolling back famine 4 months after it was
declared.
The United States has always been a catalytic leader in responding
to crises and helping populations in need. Our actions and responses
encourage other countries to act and provide their own support. We were
one of the first to respond to Ethiopia's drought 2 years ago, which
mobilized other donors and was instrumental in preventing a famine
declaration. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the U.S.'s
declaration of a disaster in the Kasai regions spurred the U.N. and
other governments to elevate the level of their responses. We see
consistently that when the U.S. leads, other countries follow.
proposals from the administration
Despite these clear and well-documented results, the President's
budgets for FY18 and FY19 proposed eliminating programs that provide
emergency food aid, such as Food for Peace, and severe cuts for
programs that build resilience, including Feed the Future.
In fiscal year 2016, almost 11 million farmers were reached with
improved technologies, management practices, and increased market
access. A funding cut of 48 percent to Feed the Future programs, as
proposed by the Administration, could translate to approximately 5.28
million farmers being cut from or losing access to programs that help
them grow their way out of poverty and decrease dependency.
Also in fiscal year 2016, approximately 56.1 million people were
reached with emergency food aid through the Emergency Food Security
Program (EFSP) and through emergency Food for Peace programming. Under
the Administration's proposal to eliminate Title II food aid and only
provide $1.5 billion for the EFSP, approximately 20 million people in
crisis could lose access to lifesaving food assistance as compared to
fiscal year 2016.
a world without u.s. leadership
It doesn't take much to imagine the local, regional, and global
impacts should these cuts become a reality. In 2015, the regional needs
emanating from the conflict in Syria rapidly outpaced available
resources. The World Food Programme was forced to halt aid to 230,000
Syrian refugees in Jordan living outside of camps. Those who were not
wholly cut off from WFP assistance received $7 per person per month.
Without the ability to meet the most basic needs of their families,
countless Syrian refugees found their way to Turkey, climbed into
rafts, crossed the Mediterranean, and then walked from Greece to
Germany and other European destinations. Hundreds of thousands of
Syrians arrived that year in Germany and applied for asylum, with the
simple hope of finding a way to support their family's most basic
needs.
a path forward
But it doesn't have to be this way. With last year's passage of the
FY17 omnibus, Congress made clear that the U.S. will continue to lead
in responding to crises and in the fight to end poverty. And the work
being done through Feed the Future and programs like LINKAGES show us
that we can end poverty for good.
Congress can continue their commitment by reauthorizing the Global
Food Security Act (GFSA), which is set to expire this year. The GFSA
assures that the great work being done through Feed the Future and the
U.S. government's Global Food Security Strategy continues. At CARE, we
stand ready and willing to continue our partnership with the U.S.
government to end global hunger and poverty.
Senator Young. Well, thank you, Ms. Nunn.
I am going to request that our witnesses answer my
questions over the next few minutes fairly concisely in light
of time constraints.
Dr. Sova, I want to congratulate you on the publication of
your World Food Programme USA report, ``Winning the Peace:
Hunger and Instability.'' You sought to examine the link
between food insecurity on the one hand and global instability
on the other, and you found a very direct link. Surveying all
the research, 53 peer-reviewed journal articles----
Dr. Sova. That is correct.
Senator Young. --you discuss the reasons why food-insecure
people sometimes resort to violence or other forms of social
unrest, identifying several causal mechanisms in the scholarly
literature, including grievance, economic, or governance
motivations.
General Castellaw, does Dr. Sova's research, drawing that
linkage between food insecurity on the one hand and global
instability on the other, reflect your real-world experience as
a United States Marine?
General Castellaw. Sir, it certainly does. Whether we are
talking about what we saw in the Horn of Africa, what we have
seen in Syria, what is developing in Venezuela, all of it shows
at least one of the contributing factors is food insecurity. I
will always remember being in Southern Africa, watching men and
women scavenge on piles of garbage to find stuff to feed their
family. The looks of depression and hopelessness are what
drives instability.
Senator Young. Ms. Nunn, when combined with the moral
imperative, from your perspective what are the policy
implications of this clear link between food insecurity and
instability or violence?
Ms. Nunn. We absolutely also experience and see this
correlation between food insecurity and instability on the
ground in the countries where we work. In particular, what we
see is how displacement due to food insecurity is often a
trigger for further insecurity that is destabilizing and must
be addressed in order to really ensure stability.
Senator Young. And a softball here for either Ms. Nunn or
the General. What are the implications of these conclusions for
the international affairs budget and for the food security
programs within it?
General Castellaw. Terrible. What we have to do is make
sure they are fully funded in order to reduce the opportunity
that may occur later to have to introduce our forces. It is
absolutely essential.
Ms. Nunn. I think we just have to ensure--and we know what
works. We have evidence that if we invest early in resilience,
that we can prevent not only human suffering but also future
conflict.
Senator Young. So, I cannot resist, General Castellaw. As
the Chairman's prerogative my time is winding down, but I am
going to shoehorn one more question in. Just give me your
unadulterated Marine Corps language, a sense of what the impact
would be on our nation's security, as we conventionally define
it, if we have a powerful and well-resourced military without
equally effective diplomatic and developing capabilities.
General Castellaw. I think it is pretty clear, those of us
that have spent our lives in defense of our country understand
that it is not just about guns and bullets. It is also the
human factor. And when we are talking about a situation where
we have the youth bulge, we have people who are hungry, the
instability that comes from it, all the bullets in the world
are not going to be able to deal with that.
Senator Young. Senator Merkley.
Senator Merkley. General, in that context, we do not have
nominees for some places like Somalia and DRC, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, that are very complex, very riven by both
food insecurity and strife. Would you recommend to the
Administration that they forward nominees for us to consider
here?
General Castellaw. One of the privileges that I have had is
to work with individuals from other agencies, including the
Department of State, as well as other agencies. What we need to
ensure is that we give them the resources, that we provide the
good people, make their ability to act agile with those
resources. So we have to have those people in place.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. You wrote in a U.S. News
editorial in February, the Blue Helmet piece, that keeping
operations are more affordable and sometimes more effective as
compared to the commitment of U.S. Armed Forces to conflict
areas.
The GAO, Government Accounting Office, did a study, and
they found that U.S. contributions to peacekeeping operations
in the Central African Republic is about an eighth of what it
would cost for us to deploy the U.S. military for the same
purpose.
So we have a proposed budget cut of $710 million to
international peacekeeping operations. In your opinion, should
we continue to maintain our current investment, or possibly
increase it?
General Castellaw. We need to maintain it. I have been to
the Central African Republic. I have been among those U.N.
peacekeepers. They are capable. They need the resources to do
it.
Again, I go back to the fact that our most precious
resource is the blood of the men and women who serve. When we
can get others to go and share the burden, then we reduce the
need to send our sons and daughters.
Senator Merkley. I am just going to ask one last question
because we are in the middle of a vote right now, assuming it
started.
Senator Young. It started.
Senator Merkley. Ms. Nunn, thank you so much for your
leadership of CARE. You mentioned addressing some of the
challenges for women. One of the programs that you have
supported has been assisting women through their pregnancies
and the early stages of childhood to give those children a good
start in life. There are many other challenges that can come
beyond that, but have you found that to be an effective
strategy that we should continue to invest in?
Ms. Nunn. We know that investing in the first thousand days
of a child's life, and ensuring that mothers have antenatal and
postnatal care, is critical to child survival and also to their
thriving and success. We also know that stunting can have long-
term implications not only on the child but also on the
capacity for economies and nations to thrive.
So these are very smart, low-cost investments that have
tremendous return.
Senator Merkley. Well, I love that way of framing it, the
first thousand days. I was trying to remember what the title
was, and that was it. That certainly gets kids launched into
life and supports the mothers, and thank you for the tremendous
work that CARE is doing.
Ms. Nunn. Thank you.
Senator Young. Well, there are no further questions from
the panel.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today.
I want to thank you for your leadership, and we look forward to
continued dialogue so that we can improve existing programs,
make sure that those programs which are effective remain
effective, and we prevent this linkage which has been
identified from groundbreaking research between food insecurity
on the one hand and instability on the other.
So, thank you all. Have a great day.
I will add that, for the information of members, the record
will remain open until the close of business on Friday,
including for members to submit questions for the record.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:56 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
----------
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Responses of The Honorable David Beasley to Questions
Submitted by Senator Todd Young
Question. In your prepared testimony, you note that you have
visited Yemen. The World Food Programme is active there and has helped
feed millions. Can you provide an update on the humanitarian situation
in Yemen, has humanitarian access improved, and what challenges does
WFP continue to confront there?
Answer. The war that began in March 2015 has destroyed people's
livelihoods and the ability to purchase food, making it difficult for
many Yemenis to meet minimal food needs. Food insecurity levels
continue to rise, with a record 17.8 million Yemenis (61 percent of the
population) estimated to be food insecure. Out of these, approximately
8.4 million people (29 percent of the population) are estimated to be
severely food insecure. That's up from 6.8 million in 2017, a worrying
24 percent increase.
WFP food assistance has prevented Yemen from falling into a full
famine. We are now scaling up assistance to eventually provide help to
7.6 million people per month. But the scale of food insecurity now
means a significant portion of the Yemeni population has virtually
exhausted all coping strategies, putting them on the brink of famine.
Yemen is also grappling with outbreaks of cholera--more than 1 million
suspected cases in the largest-ever outbreak in a single year--and
diphtheria.
Moreover, since the blockade, there have been no commercial fuel
tankers allowed to berth and discharge in the Red Sea northern ports of
Yemen. The lack of fuel has become a major risk factor for humanitarian
operations and the delivery of basic services.
WFP is also facing a funding shortfall. For April-September 2018,
the emergency operation's shortfall is USD $364 million. This means WFP
must prioritize resources, such as providing full rations to only the
areas where the most food-insecure people live. Under this mechanism,
about half of beneficiaries are receiving 60 percent rations.
Question. In your prepared testimony, you note that Yemen, South
Sudan, northeast Nigeria, and Somalia are filled with hungry people
because of man-made conflict. While we will continue to do all we can
in the meantime, would you agree that significant and durable
improvement in the humanitarian crisis in Yemen will require an end to
the civil war?
Answer. The short answer is yes. We simply cannot completely end
the humanitarian crisis in Yemen without ending the war.
It is abundantly clear--not just in Yemen, but around the world--
that conflict is one of the main causes of food insecurity and hunger
globally today, forcing millions of people to abandon their land, homes
and jobs and putting them at risk of hunger or even famine. Elsewhere
in the world, where there is more stability and peace, countries are
making significant progress toward reaching Zero Hunger--including in
some of the world's poorest and least developed nations. So we know
that progress is possible, and we are working to find ways to
accelerate and amplify that progress. But if conflict continues, it
will reverse progress, making it truly impossible to reach our goals.
At the same time, there is a growing understanding that hunger may
contribute to conflict when coupled with poverty, unemployment or
economic hardship. Food is foundational. Food shortages deepen existing
fault-lines and fuel longstanding grievances. Addressing food
insecurity is therefore paramount in the pursuit of stability and
peace. If we want to end hunger, we have to end conflict. But the
reverse is also true--if we truly want to end conflict, we have to
fight hunger at the same time.
Question. In your prepared testimony, you argued that one of the
biggest challenges you confront is the ``siloed nature'' of donors. You
note that the World Food Programme is ``trying to break down barriers
between donor countries, so money that comes to WFP can encourage, not
discourage, long-term strategic planning and execution.'' Can you
further describe these barriers between donor countries? How can we
encourage better coordination among donors?
Answer. We will never truly beat back hunger unless we can build
long-term resilience in countries facing severe, chronic food
insecurity. To do that, we design and develop programs that are
multiyear, multisectoral and multipartner. Through this approach, we
are achieving success, for example in Niger, where we work with
multiple partners to deliver an integrated package of support across
different sectors for a sustained time period. The results are clear:
Agriculture production in areas where we are working on these programs
has been doubled and in some cases tripled, young men from poor
families are migrating less or even not at all, and land vegetation is
increasing dramatically. But donor approaches--too often divided into
silos of ``development'' and ``humanitarian'' sectors, and/or focused
on shorter-term project cycles--have not evolved to support this kind
of integrated programing, where investment in humanitarian support, in
addition to alleviating immediate suffering and hardship, also works
toward longer-term development objectives. Some of our donors are doing
their own resilience programs in isolation--and not achieving the
results we are seeing. Funding mechanisms should encourage long-term
and multi-partner approaches, rather than pursuing goals in isolation.
Question. In your prepared testimony you note that ``More than 90
percent of the money [WFP receives] is earmarked, not just for specific
countries, but specific activities within them.'' While I know WFP is
grateful for the donations, how could WFP make better use of the money
and better address food insecurity if there were fewer restrictions on
how the money is spent? How can we work together to encourage
commonsense reforms in this area and encourage more donors to follow
America's lead in flexible funding for WFP?
Answer. When contributions have fewer restrictions, WFP has greater
ability to respond rapidly and maximize its efforts for the largest
short- and long-term impact. Flexible funds enable proper planning,
including investing in early warning and emergency preparedness systems
that enable a more rapid and cost-efficient response. Also, with more
predictable funding that includes fewer restrictions, operations are
not subjected to ``start-stop'' resource flows and food procurement
comes with lower transaction costs. These funds also contribute to
higher cost efficiency in areas such as staffing contracts and partner
agreements. The United States is one of the leading donors committed to
the principles of what is called the Grand Bargain, which was signed at
the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016. In that agreement, donors
committed to progressively reduce earmarking, with an aim of achieving
a global target of 30 percent of humanitarian funding with fewer
restrictions by the year 2020.
Question. In your prepared testimony, you made clear that we must
break the cycle between hunger and conflict. You write, ``We must work
together on a pro-active, strategic plan that creates stability and
security.'' Later, you write, ``What is needed is a properly funded,
coordinated strategic plan--one that involves work from other U.N.
agencies, NGOs and national governments alike.'' How can we play a
constructive role in encouraging the development of this type of
strategic plan that you think is necessary? Do you have any specific
suggestions?
Answer. Continued support and flexibility from the United States
toward this type of approach would be most welcome. We need to
demonstrate that, working together, the international community can
break that cycle through a focused effort, where a multipartner team
focuses on one specific area with a multipronged, multiyear program
that receives significant funding from public and private sectors. This
approach would require both the commitment to a coordinated and well-
resourced multi-sector program to tackle humanitarian and development
challenges, and also the sustained political engagement needed to end
the conflict or insecurity at the root of that crisis. The program
should be designed so it achieves the ultimate aim: the end of need for
major international humanitarian assistance in that locale. The world
is so very distracted these days, and I believe that in our
distractions, we end up doing too little in too many places. But with a
laser-targeted, strategically focused effort, maybe even in just one
country, we could truly prove what beats back hunger, what creates
stability, what saves lives and changes lives.
______
Responses of Mr. Matthew Nims to Questions
Submitted by Senator Todd Young
Question. In your prepared testimony, you discussed the
humanitarian situation in Burma and Bangladesh with respect to the
Rohingya. What are your key humanitarian concerns for the Rohingya?
I also note in your prepared testimony you wrote, ``Lack of
humanitarian access and ongoing population movement have left an
unknown number of people in need of immediate food assistance in
Rakhine State.'' It is noteworthy that USAID doesn't know how many are
in need in Rakhine State and it underscores your point about
humanitarian access. Can you speak to the lack of humanitarian access
in Rakhine State, and what is your message to the Burmese government
regarding humanitarian access?
Answer. The United States' priorities for the humanitarian crisis
in Burma are ensuring access for humanitarian partners so they can
provide life-saving assistance to those who need it; preventing and
responding to protection violations, such as gender-based violence; and
promoting accountability.
While USAID partners in Burma continue to provide nutrition,
protection, health, food, and water, sanitation and hygiene services
wherever possible, humanitarian access in northern Rakhine State
remains unacceptably restricted. These restrictions impede USAID's
partners from adequately assessing the needs and responding
appropriately. USAID strongly encourages the Government of Burma to
provide humanitarian actors immediate, unfettered access in order to
assess needs and appropriately respond in Rakhine, especially in
northern Rakhine State.
In addition to supporting vulnerable populations inside Burma,
USAID is also assisting the influx of approximately 671,000 Rohingya
who have arrived in Bangladesh since August 25, in addition to
assisting the estimated 303,070 Rohingya who were already in country.
This population is highly vulnerable and living in conditions well
below humanitarian standards. Malnutrition, overcrowding, disease, poor
sanitation, trafficking, and protection issues are of particular
concern.
In addition, the U.N. estimates that up to 200,000 refugees in
Cox's Bazar are living in flood and landslide-prone areas, at risk of
losing shelter, loss of access to life-saving services, and loss of
life during the upcoming April-October monsoon and cyclone seasons.
Additional assistance, including decongestion of camps and relocation
of vulnerable households, is urgently needed to safeguard lives and
infrastructure during this precarious timeframe.
The magnitude of the crisis has also placed an enormous burden on
Bangladeshi host communities in Cox's Bazar. In some areas where host
community populations are now far outnumbered by refugees, they are
facing increased competition for labor and other livelihoods
opportunities, while seeing market prices increase and wages decrease.
Question. In your prepared testimony, you mention Yemen, continuing
to call it ``by far the largest food security emergency in the world.''
Can you provide an update on the humanitarian situation in Yemen? Would
you agree that we will not make significant and durable progress in the
humanitarian crisis in Yemen if we cannot bring the civil war to a
close? In order to bring that about, would you agree both sides in the
civil war must come to the negotiating table and make concessions?
Answer. The humanitarian situation in Yemen remains dire. More than
75 percent of the population--22 million people--require humanitarian
assistance and nearly 18 million people are severely food insecure.
Despite ongoing interventions, the number of people requiring
humanitarian assistance increased by nearly 3.5 million in the past
year as a result of escalating violence, port restrictions, and the
resultant deterioration of food security conditions and basic service
provision.
Import levels at Yemen's Red Sea ports have yet to recover
following November 2017 Coalition-imposed closures, as shipping
companies remain concerned about the potential reinstatement of port
restrictions. The risk of famine remains persistent in areas heavily
reliant on Red Sea imports. Decreased purchasing power, rising staple
food and fuel prices, and the continued depreciation of the Yemeni
riyal have made basic food commodities too expensive for many food-
insecure households, prompting some to resort to negative coping
mechanisms, such as forced marriage. Many Yemenis will likely continue
to face Crisis-level food insecurity in 2018.
In addition, Yemen's incapacitated health system and lack of
routine vaccinations are driving the resurgence of previously contained
diseases. Since April 2017, Yemen has been impacted by the world's
largest cholera outbreak, which has resulted in nearly 1.1 million
suspected cases and 2,300 deaths. A diphtheria outbreak that began in
August 2017 has now affected nearly 1,400 people.
Only an end to the conflict will end the humanitarian crisis. We
stand with the humanitarian community in calling on all parties to the
conflict to safeguard civilians and aid workers, minimize casualties,
and bring an end to this devastating conflict.
We welcome the arrival of the new U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen
Martin Griffiths, and believe the international community must give
Special Envoy Griffiths a chance to work toward political progress. We
echo U.N. Secretary-General Guterres' statement that a negotiated
political settlement through inclusive intra-Yemeni dialogue is the
only way to end the conflict and address the ongoing humanitarian
crisis.
Question. In addition to any necessary delays associated with the
U.N. Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen (UNVIM), does the
Saudi government (or the Evacuation and Humanitarian Operation Cell
(EHOC)) continue to impose additional delays on vessels carrying vital
cargo (including food, fuel, and medicine) into Yemen's Red Sea Ports?
What kind of additional delays are being caused by the Saudis, and what
can be done to reduce or eliminate those unnecessary delays?
Answer. UNVIM commits to processing all clearance requests within
48 hours of receipt. During February, UNVIM clearances took up to 36
hours. Because shippers typically submit clearance requests en route to
but prior to arriving at port, this processing time does not
necessarily translate into any delays for the ship. However, the Saudi-
led Coalition continues to conduct its own clearance process through
EHOC. During the week of March 28, this clearance process took an
additional 55 hours on top of the UNVIM process. In addition, there are
sometimes delays in EHOC communicating the clearance to the Saudi-led
Coalition ships controlling the holding area, and some ships face
delays receiving Coalition permission leaving port.
Many of these delays can be reduced through better coordination
between UNVIM and EHOC and more efficient EHOC communications
processes. The Saudi-led Coalition, UNVIM, and U.N. OCHA have improved
their coordination in recent weeks and were able to identify concrete
steps the Coalition can take to reduce delays. The Coalition also
committed to processing clearances with 78 hours. While not all of
these steps have been implemented, we are seeing signs of progress;
during the week of March 14, the EHOC clearance process took 92.5
hours, an improvement from the 55 hours it took the week of March 28.
Unfortunately, this has not yet translated into an increase in traffic
to Hudaydah and Saleef ports, where food imports in particular remain
low.
Question. In your prepared testimony, you note that Jordan is one
of several countries that is hosting an enormous number of refugees
from Syria. Jordan is a close and important ally, and Amman is helping
the international community (providing a global common good) in hosting
these refugees. Can you describe the refugee situation in Jordan, the
resulting strain on the government and society there, what we are doing
to help, and what more we can do to help?
Answer. Jordan hosts nearly 660,000 UNHCR-registered Syrian
refugees. The Government of Jordan (GOJ) estimates the number of
Syrians in Jordan is as high as 1.4 million.
USAID supports the GOJ to address these issues and to build more
resilient host communities, in addition to providing significant
humanitarian resources for refugees which has a secondary positive
impact on the local economies of host communities. USAID has reoriented
existing programs to account for the refugee situation and has
dedicated additional funding to help the GOJ focus on the stresses
caused by the Syria crisis.
Since the beginning of the crisis, the United States has provided
nearly $1.1 billion in humanitarian assistance through Department of
State and USAID to support Syrian refugees in Jordan. This includes
support to activities like the World Food Programme's electronic
voucher program, which has not only provided life-saving food
assistance to 500,000 vulnerable refugees but has also injected over
$581 million into Jordan's economy.
USAID assistance in economic growth, democratic governance,
education, water, and health supports the GOJ and host communities in
areas that face the greatest challenges in responding to the influx of
refugees. USAID strengthens economic stability in host communities in
northern Jordan by providing training for Jordanians with micro- and
small-sized enterprises and supporting their access to finance. USAID
also supports the GOJ in its efforts to decentralize, strengthening the
capacity of municipal governments to identify and respond to the needs
of their communities.
To ensure access to quality education for Jordanian and Syrian
students alike, USAID is expanding, building, and renovating schools to
accommodate additional students and training teachers. To address the
psychosocial and remedial needs of students returning to school after
fleeing conflict, USAID has trained over 4,000 teachers in psychosocial
support. To expand access to quality health services for Jordanians and
Syrians, USAID is financing and renovating health facilities, such as
the expansion of the emergency department of the largest public
hospital in Jordan, which serves 50,000 emergency patients per month.
USAID addresses the dire water needs of the country, providing access
to clean, safe water by supporting the construction of 27 of Jordan's
most critical water supply facilities and networks, and through the
construction and rehabilitation of eight wastewater treatment
facilities.
On February 14, 2018, the United States signed a new 5-year (FY
2018-FY 2022), non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the
GOJ, which indicates our support for providing a minimum of $1.275
billion per year in U.S. bilateral foreign assistance to Jordan.
Question. In your prepared testimony, you note that according to
the Aid Worker Security Database, 131 aid workers died in 2017,
primarily in conflict areas. Syria and South Sudan--both protracted
conflicts--were the deadliest locations (with 48 and 28 aid worker
deaths, respectively). Can you discuss the targeting of aid workers in
Syria and South Sudan? In both countries, who is primarily responsible
for targeting aid workers?
Answer. In Syria, both targeted and indiscriminate violence
continues to affect humanitarian and stabilization workers and
facilities, particularly in opposition-controlled areas. The Syrian
Arab Republic Government (SARG) and the Government of the Russian
Federation have consistently conducted airstrikes which have impacted
civilian infrastructure and humanitarian missions, most notably medical
facilities. There has been a pattern of SARG attacks against health
workers dating back to the earliest days of the conflict. At least 12
aid workers have been killed thus far in 2018 in Syria.
Aid workers in South Sudan continue to risk their lives to deliver
humanitarian assistance, battling harassment, threats, intimidation,
violent attacks, and expulsion. Attacks against relief workers are
rarely an attempt to stop the delivery of humanitarian assistance, but
are either the result of the broader violence between armed groups that
continues to plague most parts of South Sudan, or due to rising
criminality as a result of economic collapse. Non-governmental
organizations and their employees are often seen as a source of money,
food, or equipment and commodities that can be sold or consumed in an
environment where nearly half of the population faces severe food
insecurity and the economy has collapsed. Attacks against aid workers
occur in both government- and opposition-controlled areas and in a
context of impunity. Three aid workers have been killed thus far in
2018 in South Sudan, all in the midst of wider attacks.
Targeted and indiscriminate violence against aid workers in Syria
and South Sudan effectively curtails access for humanitarian actors to
respond to the populations' needs. Aid actors in both contexts must
constantly think about mitigation measures to keep their facilities,
staff and beneficiaries safe from attacks due to the lack of
protection. The rampant violence and dangerous environment for
humanitarian personnel and assets has deprived the Syrian and South
Sudanese populations from safely seeking access to aid amidst the dire
humanitarian situation.