Food aid reform is 'battle worth fighting'

Apr 20 2013

"The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration before it, is again trying to bring some sense to food aid, but prospects for reform are low," Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy and director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes in the council's "Democracy in Development" blog. Highlighting the changes to the program proposed in Obama's FY 2014 budget request, she continues, "Not surprisingly, the proposed changes to food aid have made some special interests very unhappy, and numerous senators are already lobbying the administration on their behalf." She adds, "Reform of food aid will undoubtedly continue to be an uphill battle, but one worth fighting" (4/18).