Why the US aid freeze could be a moment to reform food aid

The Trump administration’s freeze on U.S. foreign aid is threatening child malnutrition treatment in some of the world’s worst hunger crises. But experts in the field tell Devex this moment could reveal a silver lining by forcing a rethink of the entire humanitarian system and pushing it toward localization and more stable funding streams. Young children are among the most vulnerable to food insecurity, and malnutrition affects them the hardest. That’s why many aid organizations focus on preventing and treating malnutrition within the first critical 1,000-day window from conception to a child’s second birthday. Already, severely malnourished children are dying from lack of care, a direct result of the U.S. foreign aid freeze, said Jeanette Bailey, the global practice lead and director of research for nutrition at the International Rescue Committee. The entire supply chain for treating malnutrition has been disrupted. For example, Edesia and Mana Nutrition, the two U.S.-based producers of a lifesaving peanut paste treatment called ready-to-eat therapeutic food, or RUTF, are each owed tens of millions of dollars in unpaid invoices from the U.S. government, preventing them from resuming production. In the meantime, the local and international NGOs that provide RUTFs and other lifesaving treatments have lost funding and are laying off staff. “We know children are dying,” Bailey said Tuesday at a Devex Pro event. “It's probably in the hundreds every day that these kind of disruptions continue. It's in the thousands every month, and by the end of this year, we can anticipate tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of very young children, toddlers, and babies, who are starving to death, where there should be food available. And where there is food available it's just not getting to them due to all the supply chain disruptions.” “Now, I could never say that this is good, because every single life that is lost has made this entire thing bad,” Bailey continued. “But the opportunity we have right now is to rewrite this system and to really recognize the flaws.” That means building a humanitarian aid system that is resilient and independent — “not just of United States government aid, but honestly, of international governments in general,” she said. This shift would reduce reliance on public opinion or the whims of any particular administration. And within this crisis lies an opportunity to localize humanitarian aid, she added. The U.S. is by far the world’s largest funder of food aid. In the case of RUTFs, international procurement — such as shipping U.S.-made products abroad — can sometimes be faster and cheaper. But the U.S. aid freeze has underscored the importance of producing RUTFs and other lifesaving products closer to those who need them, ensuring a more reliable supply chain. Local producers require more investment so they can scale up and meet demand. One major issue with U.S. food aid is that it has long been “a self-serving venture,” said Mark Moore, CEO of U.S.-based Mana Nutrition. Much of the world’s RUTF supply, for example, is made with U.S.-grown ingredients, purchased by the U.S. government, and shipped abroad on U.S. carriers — creating a market for U.S. farmers and companies throughout the entire supply chain. “I think the interesting thing about the moment is, for the first time ever, that system — which, again, has never been wildly popular with either side — it's at a detente, with the liberals saying, ‘Let's help the world,’ and conservatives saying, ‘Wait, we have our own problems at home.’” But systemic change is all the more important because the funding freeze and aid cuts have turned the U.S. — along with the many humanitarian organizations that relied on its funding — into unreliable partners, said Edesia’s CEO and founder Navyn Salem. Rhode Island-based Edesia, a nonprofit that is owed $24 million by the U.S. government, has had to turn away $1 million worth of peanuts from its suppliers and cancel delivery of 22 truckloads of whey powder due to its financial situation, Salem said during the event. Edesia has also had to lay off 10% of its staff. If efficiency is the Trump administration’s goal, this is the “opposite of efficiency,” Salem said. “Everything that is happening right now is costing jobs, it's costing lives. At every single step of the way, it's costing more money,” she said. “And during this one hour that we're having this conversation, at Edesia, we will not make 415 boxes of RUTF, which is 415 lives.”