Brazil’s Humanitarian Food Aid: From an Innovative Policy to the Politics of Traditional Aid
Brazil was a principal voice in the field under the emblem of the Zero Hunger Program (ZHP) and a relevant supplier of technical and humanitarian international cooperation. This article focuses on humanitarian food cooperation in the period 2003–2016.
Brazil had donated food abroad on previous occasions, but an institutionalized humanitarian food aid policy was something innovative in its history. The magnitude of this policy was also noteworthy as the country became one of the five largest donors to the World Food Program (WFP), although only for a few years. The aim of this study is twofold: to examine (a) why Brazil played that specific role in humanitarian affairs and (b) why it did so in a controversial way.
As regards policy design, studies of foreign food aid have long criticized the potential negative effects of the donations on the receiving countries, which can be subject to the dismantling of domestic markets, increased import dependency, and change in local diets. This study was designed based on a pluralist perspective of foreign policy analysis.
This case study contributes to the comprehension of the contemporary politics of international food aid because it demonstrates why Brazil had to conform with the standard practices of the WFP. Since the early 2000s, there has been a debate about the power of attraction of hegemonic international institutions over the emerging donor countries’ policies and resources. This article shows that among the reasons for Brazil becoming a partner of the WFP were, first, the lack of domestic instruments to carry out the humanitarian policy by itself and second, the imperative of participating in the humanitarian food system with the resources available.
This study was designed based on a pluralist perspective of foreign policy analysis. The study investigated how three independent variables, namely, the interests, ideas, and interactions of domestic actors, mediated by two intervening variables, that is, political institutions and processes, shaped the foreign policy (the dependent variable).
This article shows that among the reasons for Brazil becoming a partner of the WFP were, first, the lack of domestic instruments to carry out the humanitarian policy by itself and second, the imperative of participating in the humanitarian food system with the resources available.
The original goal was to connect the produce of the small family farmers to an international humanitarian policy. However, in practice, the donations privileged the commodities of the large agribusiness farms. This article explains the political economy that diverted the policy from its original social purpose and made Brazil one of the five biggest donors of food to the World Food Program for a short period of time.
Article details:
Brazil’s Humanitarian Food Cooperation: From an Innovative Policy to the Politics of Traditional Aid
Thiago Lima
First Published December 25, 2020 Research Article
DOI: 10.1177/2277976020970771
Agrarian South