This week’s Economist carries an article on “Food aid for Africa- When feeding the hungry is political’ which ties in with the Global Issues topic of the efficacy of aid and also the issues of corruption and creating a dependence culture among the poor. The World Food Programme - a United Nations agency - is under attack on a number of fronts. The article states:

“THE World Food Programme (WFP), created by the United Nations in 1962 to save lives, has since grown into the behemoth of the aid business, envied and disliked in almost equal measure by many of its smaller peers. It says it feeds 90m people a year in 73 countries. Yet some query whether it always fulfils the high ideals of its humanitarian mandate.”

Click here for the full article.