This is the first history to be written of the World Food Programme (WFP), the food aid arm of the United Nations System. It tells the story of the antecedents and origins of WFP and growth from modest beginnings as a three-year experiment in 1963-65 to become the main source of international food aid for both disaster relief and development against the background of the evolution and development of food aid. This dual role has put WFP in the front line of the United Nations attack on poverty, hunger and food insecurity.

This book focuses on the transformation of the WFP into the world's largest humanitarian agency, providing an in-depth account of responses to increasingly large and complex natural and man-made disasters. It examines food aid and looks to the new modalities that are required to make food more available to those in dire need.

Food aid is historically a major element of development aid to support longer-term development, and the primary response to help countries and peoples in crisis. This examination of food aid focuses in particular on institutional questions.

Food aid is both popular and controversial. Detractors point to the political and commercial motives that have driven food aid flows, its disincentive effects, and the risk it carries of creating dependence. Supporters find it at the very core of humanitarian assistance. This innovative book examines the question of food assistance very broadly, from the perspective of both recipient countries and donors around the world, including four African nations-Tunisia, Benin, Lesotho, and Tanzania.

This book is the first comprehensive account of the numerous attempts made since the Second World War to provide food security for all. It provides a reference source for all those involved and interested in food security issues.