Programme food aid has been primarily used as a resource transfer instrument rather than to target benefits on a particular group or achieve specific investment objectives. The resource transfer is employed to permit balance-of-payments support or to generate budgetary support from counterpart funds. As food aid has become increasingly regarded as a fully-costed resource competing budgetarily with other instruments, it has become more important to examine the value for money or cost-effectiveness of programme food aid.
Edward Clay, Sanjay Dhiri & Charlotte Benson