AID and Universities Have Yet To Forge an Effective Partnership To Combat World Food Problems

The goal of title XII, the Famine Prevention and Freedom from Hunger amendment of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 is to improve and strengthen the involvement of U.S. land-grant and other eligible universities in solving developing countries' food problems. To assist and advise the Agency for International Development (AID) in achieving this goal, a presidentially appointed board, the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD), was established. GAO conducted a review to evaluate AID efforts to implement the provisions of title XII and to identify ways to improve AID/university ability to provide agricultural assistance to developing countries.

In the nearly 6 years since the passage of title XII of the Foreign Assistance Act progress in expanding and improving U.S. university involvement in AID agricultural development activities has been slow. AID and the title XII community have yet to forge a partnership to fight world food problems. AID, BIFAD, and the U.S. university community efforts to improve university involvement in AID technical-assistance projects through such programs as strengthening grants, collaborative research, baseline studies, and other mechanisms, have yet to manifest better project performance abroad. University projects continue to experience costly and time-consuming delays which limit project results and detract from the quality of assistance provided.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Samuel W. Bowlin Team: General Accounting Office: International Division Phone: (202) 275-5790