With the approval, on 27/6/1996, of the Regulation of the Council no. 1292/96 relating to the policy and management of food aid and specific measures in support of food security, the European Union completed its process of reform of the sector and defined the major guidelines for the new policy of the campaign against famine in the world. Article 5 of the Regulation declares: “Actions of support to food security are actions of financial aid and technical assistance aimed at improving sustainable food security and contributing in the long term, in particular, to the funding of: the supply of the necessary seeds and tools for agricultural production; operations of support to credit earmarked for women in particular; operations for the provisioning of drinking water; warehousing operations; operations for the marketing, transport, distribution and processing of foodstuffs and farm products; actions of support to the private sector for the development of trade at the national, regional and international level; and actions of support to local structures of food aid, including training programmes at the local level”. The main beneficiaries of this aid are the countries with a strong food dependence, countries in which the lack of locally produced food for the majority of the population constitutes a structural phenomenon, such as Honduras, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Niger, Bangladesh, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. Aid interventions follow some guiding principles: proper liaison between the EU executive Commission and the beneficiary government in implementing the food plan; measures “upstream” to address the causes of food insecurity rather than just its effects; the complementarity of aid measures with a general policy of development for the beneficiary country; heightening the responsibility of the governments of the poor countries in the management of the EU aid programme by the entry of direct aid into their budgets; the increased synergy of European Communiity policy with the interventions of international aid organizations such as the World Food Programme and with the action of the regional NGOs through indirect aid. The responsible agencies for the application of the EU Regulation are its General Directorate for development and the “Europeaid” Office of Cooperation of the European Commission.
