摘要：Food aid is the main international safety net formany low-income countries. Food aid has been used fordevelopment purposes, but its major role has been as aninstrument to offset food shortages in low-income coun-tries, where fluctuations in domestic food productionthreaten food security. In these countries, internal mecha-nisms, such as grain stocks, are expensive, and cashreserves (to buy food imports) are often inadequate tobridge the food gaps. Therefore, food aid is expected tocontinue to play a crucial role in alleviating transitoryshortages and in emergencies for low-income countries.With expectations of tight donor budgets, however, andreduced production surpluses due to global market liberal-ization, donors and recipients both are looking to improvethe effectiveness of the international food aid distributionsystem.
