Humanitarian food assistance

KEY POINTS

MAIN OBJECTIVES

EU humanitarian food assistance² aims to ensure that sufficient, safe and nutritious food is consumed before, during and after a humanitarian crisis to prevent mortality, acute malnutrition or detrimental coping mechanisms (e.g. where the vulnerable sell off their assets or go into debt).

The specific objectives are:

1. to safeguard the availability of, access to and consumption of adequate, safe and nutritious food for populations affected by humanitarian crises;
2. to protect and restore livelihoods and to help improve the resilience of vulnerable groups to future shocks; and
3. to strengthen the capacity of the international humanitarian aid system in the delivery of food assistance.

This includes:

• providing food assistance in the form of cash, vouchers, food products and other commodities or services, skills and knowledge;
• complementary interventions like access to fuel, water and hygiene;
• restoring basic livelihoods, such as enabling farmers to have access to seeds;
• assisting in preventing and treating malnutrition; and
• strengthening capacity with enhanced and innovative approaches, tools and training.

The choice of the most appropriate response, including transfer means (e.g. cash or kind), is based on the specific context and is regularly reviewed.

PRINCIPLES

In accordance with the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid, interventions in humanitarian food assistance operations:

• must respect the fundamental humanitarian principles of
  • humanity,
  • neutrality,
  • impartiality, and
  • independence;
• must be needs- and results-based, flexible, effective and harmless;
• should be coordinated with other donors and food security development interventions to:
  • ensure an optimal coverage of emergency and development needs, and
  • maximise opportunities for sustainable impact as well as the resilience of food crisis victims.

Assistance operations

EU humanitarian food assistance usually applies when:

• emergency rates of mortality or acute malnutrition have been reached or will be reached due to a lack of food, according to forecasts;
• there are serious threats to the population or risks of extreme suffering due to a lack of livelihood or bad strategies for coping with the crisis (e.g. sale of productive assets, migration or insecure survival practices).

Nevertheless, food assistance can be provided as soon as a crisis begins, and not only once extreme risks occur.

Normally, humanitarian food assistance is not to be used to address chronic food insecurity³, unless:

• the situation presents an imminent and very severe humanitarian risk;
• other actors cannot act;
• the action may have a positive impact within a short time.

Safe, sufficient and local food

People should have access to safe and well-balanced food of sufficient quantity and quality. The type of food proposed should, if possible, conform to local dietary preferences.