Food aid needed to save lives, says WPF deputy director

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) rebuffed criticism on Wednesday that food aid was failing to help solve the recurrent crises in Ethiopia. Jean-Jacques Graisse, deputy director of WFP, dismissed claims that sizeable food aid shipments to Ethiopia came at the expense of other key areas like health. Speaking at the end of a four-day visit, Graisse defended his organisation’s approach to averting widespread hunger. “We are definitely part of the solution because when the situation reaches such critical proportions there is no other way but to save people,” he told journalists. “There is no other way than to pour food into this country. We will continue to feed them as much as we can.” International famine experts sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had stated that food aid had failed to avert the continuing crisis engulfing the impoverished African country. A team from Feinstein International Famine Centre at the US Tufts University said too much emphasis has been placed on food “at the expense” of key areas like health, agriculture and water, and that this had exacerbated the crisis. While in Ethiopia, Graisse visited the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region (SNNPR), where some 1.2 million people are facing a serious humanitarian crisis. SNNPR is one of the Ethiopian regions struggling with the effects of severe drought and food shortages – despite misleadingly green, lush fields. Throughout the country, the number of people requiring emergency food assistance in 2003 has reached 13.2 million, according to the government. “There are very few places that I have visited in the world where I have seen such really dramatic poverty as I have seen here,” Graisse said after his visit. However, he dismissed claims by the Tufts researchers that Ethiopia was now in the midst of a famine. Graisse called on donors to provide greater assistance for longer-term development projects, citing WFP’s school feeding and food-for-work schemes, but added that the country could not keep asking for aid without finding solutions to the recurrent crises.