From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Targeting International Food Aid to Vulnerable Groups Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with Tom Melito, Director, International Affairs and Trade Related GAO Work: GAO-12-862: International Food Assistance: Improved Targeting Would Help Ensure US Aid Reaches Vulnerable Groups Released: September 2012 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's September 2012. Last year, USAID targeted $1.7 billion of food assistance to address hunger and malnutrition for more than 46 million people in 48 countries. A group led by Tom Melito, a director in GAO's International Affairs and Trade team recently reviewed the effectiveness of USAID's food assistance targeting practices. GAO's Jeremy Cluchey sat down with Tom to learn more. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Your report is about targeting food assistance to vulnerable populations. Can you talk about who these vulnerable groups are that USAID is typically trying to reach? [ Tom Melito: ] Yes, generally they're the very young. They're pregnant mothers, and people with health issues—especially HIV/AIDS. One of the concepts that's being advanced right now is the notion that you really need to reach children during their 1000 days. So that's during gestation and up to two years. For, if you have good nutrition during that period of time, you'll have much better life outcomes. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] And can you talk about some of the techniques that USAID and its partners used to try and reach these vulnerable populations? [ Tom Melito: ] So the, they make the decision to go and target a vulnerable population and they have some sense of who they are and where they are. They will provide to those individuals prepackaged food that has information about how to use it. It often will be part of a larger distribution program. So let's say there is a famine underway and they want to reach the general population but they also want to provide additional food to the young. They'll provide a household ration and they'll supplement it with this targeted food. And the notion is they will be feeding everyone, and then the most vulnerable they'll be feeding better. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Your team looked at some of the factors that can affect the ability of USAID and its partners to target effectively. What did you find there? [ Tom Melito: ] Generally there are three issues which make it very difficult to target effectively; poor data, uncooperative governments, and the sharing of food. Let me talk a little bit about the sharing issue. We're talking about bringing nutritious food into households and then asking one member to have access to it, not the rest of the house. That sometimes is very difficult to achieve and it's against the culture of many families. So trying to address that usually we have education issues, we put packaging on there to show it's for small children say, but it is still something very difficult to do. When you're trying to reach a subset of a population—it could be a population that's in conflict or they're moving and you need to know how many particular, say, two-year old children or younger are in the households. That often requires a lot of data analysis—data gathering—and this is situations where the data is sometimes poor and sometimes non-existent. So, to actually really understand who your recipient population is can sometimes be impossible. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] You also reviewed USAID's targeting process specifically. Can you talk about what you found there? [ Tom Melito: ] We found weaknesses in the guidance that they provide their implementing partners, we found problems with monitoring, and with evaluation. Let's say on guidance. Since there is a difficulty in gathering data say, they need to basically provide some strategic views to their implementing partners in how to do this and whether it's possible to do this. And currently their guidance is very, either weak or absent in these matters. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] And what steps is GAO recommending to strengthen the impact of these food assistance programs? [ Tom Melito: ] We have two recommendations. We know that AID is actually, is on track to have final guidance on these matters in a couple of years but we think that's too long to wait, so we want them to put out interim guidance because the food is currently available so it's being distributed without the guidance. So we want interim guidance which helps implementing partners know how to use this right—correctly. We also want them to actually improve the data they have on the recipient populations and track this data because otherwise they won't know if they in fact are succeeding in their goals. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Finally, for taxpayers interested in the effectiveness of these publicly funded programs, what's the bottom line here? [ Tom Melito: ] Well, when it comes to highly nutritious but expensive food—and that's what we're talking about here—there's a quality/quantity tradeoff. And by that we mean either you feed less people more nutritious food, or you feed more people less nutritious food. And the answer could be sometimes you wanted to feed less people better, and sometimes it's more people but not quite as nutritious. And that needs to be done on a case-by-case basis and carefully because you do not want a situation where you feed less people and you don't get the nutritional outcomes you're looking for. [Background Music] [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO.gov and be sure to tune in to the next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional Watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.