Interview with USAID official Lauren Landis

Lauren Landis is the head of Food for Peace within the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Washington. During a visit to Ethiopia to see the scale of the drought that has hit the country, she told IRIN of the US government’s commitment to a rapid response to emergencies within Ethiopia. QUESTION: The US has made large food contributions to help with this emergency. Do other donors need to contribute more? ANSWER: The US doesn’t plan on taking care of this entire crisis in any way, shape or form. We really rely on the early warning data to help us plan and to help us allocate our resources. And I think we feel very strongly, and our mission has guided us here in Ethiopia, to say that it is really important to get in early to see what we can do to prevent the crisis from worsening. So our strategy has been let's get in there up front and hopefully lessen the load. Then hopefully other donors will be able to come in as the situation becomes clearer. But we will get in before it gets really bad and then if there is a need for us to continue assistance, then we will look at that and provide more assistance based on the priorities we see worldwide. Q: The first signs of problems regarding food in Ethiopia came out in May/June. Could the humanitarian sector have acted sooner? A: I think we are still in time. I think it is still early enough. You have to really watch and monitor which I think we have done really well. But you are never quite sure whether what is going on is a minor blip or whether it will be a major crisis so you really need to watch it for a while before you can mobilise resources and make the big decisions to allocate the big resources. I think it wasn’t that we weren’t paying attention, yes there were other priorities around the world. But we are always very much focused on the situation in the Horn. We just needed to see the situation play out and so maybe we could have been faster but I still think we are in time. Q: USAID is often criticised for the effect of its food aid policy on local markets. Do you agree it has negative effects and what are you trying to do to negate those? A: I guess what I have been really impressed with here in Ethiopia is that there is a really good technical team that has a lot of experience at looking at these issues. In no way, shape or form are we interested in doing anything that would hurt the local market so we rely on the folks in the country to tell us the best and appropriate response mechanism. The message we have been hearing is that local purchases may play an important part in this emergency and we applaud that, but we have also heard the message that imported food may also be very critical. So as we can assist only with imported food, based on the laws of the way we do food aid in the US, we are prepared to provide food, not only in the emergency sense but also in the development sense. And we are very much interested to make sure that we look at the whole spectrum - not just the emergency but also its impact on development in this country. Q: How much impact has the southern African crisis had on the situation in the Horn of Africa? A: I think it has taken a tremendous amount of resources to respond to southern Africa, so it may have had an effect in focusing attention on southern Africa. But I think we are very lucky in that the US has abundant resources, not unlimited, but abundant resources and that it will still be able to provide a substantial contribution to the response in the Horn. And I don’t think Ethiopia will be forgotten due to the situation in southern Africa.