The World Food Program

How the U.S. Can Help Improve It Gao ID: ID-77-16 May 16, 1977

The World Food Program has provided almost $1.8 billion in food aid to developing countries with the United States, its biggest contributor, donating $640 million to the program.

The program is attempting to focus on the poorest nations and on development projects, but it lacks a long-range programming system and a clear system of priorities. This sometimes allows countries better able to administer large volumes of food aid to receive preferential treatment, and results in resources going to projects easier to administer instead of those with greater development uses. Proposals for large-scale projects and expansions, which must be approved by the program's governing body, are often submitted too late for review by member governments. The program relies on recipient governments for data to review project progress, and does not have the right to audit projects at the country level.

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.

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