A new architecture for food assistance may be on the horizon, in the wake of an international conference on food aid held in May 2007, in Germany. Key elements of a concept of food assistance, to be incorporated in a reform of the Food Aid Convention, are a stronger focus on disaster prevention and disaster risk reduction.
Furthermore food assistance should feature prominently not only as part of short-term responses to food crises, but also in long-term food security strategies.  But it is important to remember that food assistance is not an alternative to coherent food security policy.
It must be kept in mind that food assistance never can be an appropriate tool to correct widespread poor acces to food or to bridge food gaps where inappropriate agriculture policies are applied

Steven Were Omamo
President
New Growth International
Nairobi, Kenya
swomamo@newgrowthint.com