Food Aid Basket

The Food Aid Basket work stream focused on existing commodities, new products and technology, products for dual-use emergency response, and technical guidance.

*Note: The Food Aid Basket Work Stream activites concluded January 31, 2019 with the close of FAQR Phase III Project Year 3.

The “food basket” refers to the different ways a set of food aid products – the ones approved for use in Food for Peace (FFP) Title II projects around the world - can be grouped. These “baskets” are compiled with the goal of meeting the targeted nutritional needs of the recipient community. A summary of the Food Aid Basket work available here.

The Food Basket team focused on:

Enhancing existing food aid products by:

Assessing all products that are in use, discontinued, or have never been used and recommend improvements to these products, including quality and safety improvements
Providing information on ideal product ration depending on product purpose
Exploring each product’s potential to be used in an emergency response situation

Assessing new products by:

Recommending products that should be approved for use
Defining a process through which products become approved for use

Conducting accelerated shelf life trials for fortified rice and high-energy biscuits:

Create and facilitate a functioning advisory group that will establish a process and norms for periodic reviews of nutrition evidence related to food aid
Develop a strategy for deploying new products in emergencies and non-emergencies

Advise USAID on a strategy for responding to food needs during a sudden onset emergency

Final Report

Improvements to the USAID/FFP Food Basket: Product Upgrades and Innovations, Processes for Modifying the Food Basket, and Communications with Partners

Recent Events

Webinar - The USAID Food Aid Product Mix: Presentation of Stakeholder Feedback (11/16/17)

Materials: Access PowerPoint presentation and webinar recording here.

Presenters: Kristine Caiafa, Bea Rogers, and Shelley Walton from Food Aid Quality Review, Tufts University

Description: Food aid programs are often used in places where undernutrition is a major public health challenge. The USAID-funded Food Aid Quality Review Phase III (FAQR), implemented through Tufts University, has been conducting interviews with development, nutrition, and health practitioners working on USAID-funded programs that use food aid. In these interviews, FAQR asked: Does the mix of available food aid products meet programming needs? Is guidance on their use helpful and sufficient? How can donors better communicate about food aid with implementing partners? FAQR will present the responses to these questions, elicit feedback from participants on their experience with these issues, and explore possible solutions with participants. We invite program designers, nutrition advisors, commodity managers, and others involved in programming food aid to join this conversation.

The webinar was presented by the CORE Group Nutrition Working Group.

Questions about this work stream?

Contact Principal Investigator, patrick.webb@tufts.edu.