4. Aid for Food Security in the Caribbean
4.3. Canalization of Aid and Partnership between Non-Profit Organizations and International Institutions
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4.3. Canalization of Aid and Partnership between Non-Profit Organizations and International Institutions
The role that the Non-profit sector plays in the food aid and the programs for food security is very important, due to the access that this type of organizations have to for stablishing a closer contact with the most poor areas and with those family farmers that do not count with the support of the government. Beside the easy access that the non-profir organization have to talk to the farmers, they also seem to be more trustable for the farmers, since in many remote areas, the local government do not support or give any kind of loans or technical assistant to the farmers.
In general, agencies of the United Nations formed the traditional technical assistance in agriculture and all matters relating to food security through participation in line with the ministries of agriculture of the countries. Only in some cases as exceptions, the United Nations in particular, to work directly as organizations nonprofit, through agencies such as UNHCR and UNICEF, in these cases, for example, agencies of the United Nations have behind the other official donors in their relations with NGOs. It was not until 199872 when the United Nations was created in corporation with Partners in Development Program, operational guidelines that UNDP works as a framework for relations between non-governmental organizations. In many Caribbean countries such as Haiti, UNDP works directly with nonprofit organizations to carry out development projects in the field of agriculture, as in other sectors, however, the result of these projects has not been the same from one country to another due to a number of factors.
The partnerships between non-profit organizations and international organizations is
72Sollis, America Peter (2010) Partners in development? The state, nongovernmental organizations and the UN in Central, Published online: 25 Aug 2010. Vol. 16, Issue 3, pp. 525-542.
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very important in order to supply the technical assistance that the least developed countries need, since the international organizations have the updated data about the economic situation, as well as the policies and major relation with the government of the countries, but are the non-profit organizations the ones that shows more credibility to the farmers.
Since the non-profit organizations have not been able to enter into national development dialogues due to the governments consider that those organizations try to affect the credibility of the work done by the government, therefore it is almost impossible for the non-profit organizations to have any influence on economic and social policy in order to join effort in better way for the poverty reduction in those areas where they run their projects. It is clear about how necessary is the work of those organizations in the least developed areas of the Caribbean countries, such as Jamaica and Haiti and although the local non-profit organizations are significant counterparts for international organizations as well as for the international non gubernamental organizations, the governments still put many limitations to their work and potential.
The relation between non-profit organizations and the government is relatively recent, in the case of Latin America and the Caribbean, the work of the non-profit sector started to rise after the decade of 1980, but still until today, those organizations do not have the permission to contribute to national policy making, and here is where their partnership with International Organizations become more important in order to promote institutional reforms that foster participatory development.
After the global crisis of 2008 and the rising of the prices in the food, the international community statred to give a rapid answer by organizing international summits, as well as the declarations and the design of new programs in order to asure the food security in the different regions of the world, the different regions as well,
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started to build plans and Latin American and the Caaribbean regions have been two important regions in what the international community sees a lot of potential for feeding the world, nevertheless, the countries in the zone faces major problems on the lack of agricultural techniques that could improve the whole agricultural value and importance of the region in the future. The Food and Agricultural Organization, together with the World Food Program, try to first eradicate the undernourishment in the region, as well to provide agricultural technical cooperation, and for this, the cooperation of the different non-profit organizations is very important for the small farmers to have access to workshops and projects that will teach them how and what to produce. In Haiti, the World Food Program signed one aggrement together with the government,73 which inlcudes different programs to be done in the caribbean country, such as the Program for Natural Disaster Mitigation (creating stockpiles of emergency food and chemicals to produce potable water, etc.) in order to help small producers to recover its production capacity after natural disasters that hit the island, such as hurricanes, or, in the case of strong earthquake that left thousands missing.
Food for work program, is another of the programs promoted by the World Food Programme, which is providing food in schools in the poorest areas of the country, areas with poor access to drinking water makes the food obención families and therefore, thousands of children are presented to schools without eating. This program benefits more than 1.5 million students, which is often the only food they have access to a few days. Other relevant programs, driven by WFP are also Assistance Program by natural disasters or conflict and assistance programs for vulnerable groups. The same as the case of the International Organizations taking meassures and initiatives for new plans
73 Caribbean Journal, Haiti, World Food Programme sign Memorandum of Understanding, December 2012, http://www.caribjournal.com/2012/12/14/haiti-world-food-programme-sign-memorandum-of-understanding/, Date of access: June 2014.
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well-developed countries government are also trying to wok towards the food security in the world, in the past may, the NGO alliance InterAction from United States and the U.S.Agency for International Development (USAID), designed and signed the first agreement to leverage the unique assets of NGOs74 for greater impact, which has been qualified as the first of this type. According to the President and CEO of InterAction, the agreement recently signed by USAID and the NGOs alliance will empower the USAID to improve their work and support and to influence the tremendous private resources, technical expertise, and established local community networks of the NGOs alliances they will work with. InterAction is the largest organizations working in the poorest and most vulnerable communities all over the developing countries around the world. There are more than 30 NGOS members in this alliance which are participating in this partnership together with the USAID and those NGOs also announced the initiative to destinate $1.5 billion of their own private funds from the 2013 to the year 2015,75 that fund will serve for the projects for the improvement of the food security, nutrition and resilience. According to their pronouncement, this will signifies a $500 million increase over the original $1 billion commitment that was made in the year 2012.
This agreement and the initiative of the NGOs alliance to destinate funds for the global food security will considerably help those developing countries which farmers do not have the access to updated technical assistance in agriculture, as well as funds and marketing workshops. Many of the NGOs members of this alliance, such as Food for the Poor, work in the Caribbean countries, providing technical assistance to farmers of
74 Food for the Poor, Newsroom, InterAction, USAID Sign Landmark Agreement on Global Food Security, http://www.foodforthepoor.org/newsroom/in-the-news/interaction-usaid-partnership-052014.html, date of access: May 2014.
75 Yahoo News, InterAction, USAID sign landmark agreement on Global Food Security, Washington May 2014, http://news.yahoo.com/interaction-usaid-sign-landmark-agreement-global-food-security-120000290.html date of access: May 2014.
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scase resources, together with other non-rofit organizations, they also provide food in the schools, loans for the farmers to buy seeds or to buy fish for reproduction, among other type of projects for food security and nourishment in poor zones of developing countries, regions where in general the local government do not provide any kind of support or subsidies for the agricultural production.