Food Aid

Bangladesh is a least developed, low-income, food-deficit country with an estimated 40 percent of the population living below the poverty line. According to the Poverty Reduction Strategy of the Government of Bangladesh, the key elements in the fight against hunger include improving food security. Based on this priority, the goal of WFP Bangladesh country programme (CP) is to contribute to the achievement the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by improving ultra poor households’ food security, nutritional well-being and livelihoods. A total of 5.1 million beneficiaries were assisted through the country programme in 2007. Beneficiaries included ultra poor women, adolescent girls, pregnant women, lactating mothers, children and men from areas prioritized by highest needs based on vulnerability analysis and mapping including disaster-affected areas.

WFP started providing food aid to Bangladesh in October 1974 through relief assistance to war victims, refugees and victims of drought and famine. The programme evolved gradually into rehabilitation and pilot development programmes between 1979 and 1987.   Based on results achieved by the pilot, development programmes and lessons learned, changes were adopted from 1991 to 1996, and development programmes expanded from 1997 to 2000.

Development Policy, Food Assistance and Development Priorities (FAAD)

From 1975 to 2005 25,000 km of roads, 11,000 km of embankments, 4,000 km of drainage/irrigation canals, 23,000 acres of water bodies and 37 million trees were planted through the social forestry programme under the Rural Development and Integrated Food Security projects. Food-for-work (FFW) activities constituted 35 percent of the total project activities in the country and introduced saving schemes that helped to increase income-earning capacity of the beneficiaries from 7 to 26 percent. The most significant component of WFP’s nutritional intervention started in 2001 under the School Feeding programme by distributing fortified biscuits to school children.  The school feeding assistance resulted in increased school enrollment by 13.4 percent.

WFP has been the major food aid donor in Bangladesh but considerable levels of food assistance were channeled through the NGOs as well. The Vulnerable Group Development (VGD), one of the largest WFP-assisted interventions worldwide, provided support to ultra poor women in highly food insecure areas. Through the school feeding programme, children attending both government and NGO primary schools were given fortified biscuits. In 2007, under the CP the GoB contributed 70,666 MT in-kind contributions (in value US$ 7.5 million) to enable WFP to continue assisting 750,000 vulnerable households through the VGD activity.

Over the past 33 years WFP activities in Bangladesh have received generous support from international donors, in particular: USA, UK, Australia, Japan, EC, Canada, Norway and Sweden. Donor contributions reached their highest levels between 1986-1996. The Government of Bangladesh complemented food assistance programmes funded by donors with substantial in-kind contributions from its own resources and currently provides 100–200,000 tons per fiscal year. From 1980, food assistance programmemes gave priorities to human and livelihood developments to establish sustainable and cost effective solutions to the problem of chronic hunger and poverty.

Traditional food aid donors in Bangladesh are shifting to funding cash-based programmes because: increased rice production, high cost of food aid, existence of functioning markets in parts of Bangladesh, leakage of food aid and the perceived limitations of food aid to sustainable address problems of poverty.

The Government of Bangladesh has been contributing towards the WFP Country Programme (CP) since 1984. Government contributions since 1984 total 1.8 million tons of food. Under the previous CP (2001-2005) GoB’s level of annual contribution was USD 21 million (60,000 tons of wheat, USD 10 million cash equivalent). In addition to programme resources, the Government also pays for local transport, storage and handling costs partly for multilateral resources and fully for bilateral contributions. Under the new CP (2007-2010) the Government has confirmed yearly in-kind contributions of 100,000 tons of cereals.

In 2007, total donor contribution in support of WFP-assisted food aid activities in Bangladesh can be categorized as follows: