• woodrow wilson center
  • ecsp

New Security Beat

Subscribe:
  • mail-to
  • Who We Are
  • Topics
    • Population
    • Environment
    • Security
    • Health
    • Development
  • Columns
    • China Environment Forum
    • Choke Point
    • Dot-Mom
    • Navigating the Poles
    • New Security Broadcast
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Animated Short)
    • Paving the Way (Ethiopia)
    • Broken Landscape (India)
    • Scaling the Mountain (Nepal)
    • Healthy People, Healthy Environment (Tanzania)
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Contact Us

NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • Friday Podcasts

    Joan Whelan on a New Strategy at the Office of Food for Peace: Address Conflict

    April 15, 2016 By Sean Peoples

    whelan-smallSince its inception more than 60 years ago, USAID’s Office of Food for Peace has provided critical food assistance to billions of people around the world. Yet, despite its name, the office lacked a strategy to address the effects of conflict on its work.

    Since its inception more than 60 years ago, USAID’s Office of Food for Peace has provided critical food assistance to billions of people around the world. Yet, despite its name, the office lacked a strategy to address the effects of conflict on its work.

    “Our last strategy, 10 years ago, noted the importance of addressing conflict shocks,” says Joan Whelan, a senior policy and learning officer at the office, on this week’s podcast. But “we struggled with how to integrate conflict into our framework. We are food security actors…We speak in a language of food security.”

    Food for Peace’s funding reflects its core priorities. “The vast majority of our budgets,” according to Whelan, “are spent on meeting immediate, life-saving food nutrition needs of vulnerable populations in the midst of conflicts, natural disasters, [and] other complex emergencies.”

    “But,” says Whelan, “we also allocate approximately $400 million per year to longer-term resilience programs.” After a series of discussions with partners, both external and within USAID such as the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, a breakthrough began to emerge around this stream of funding and its potential to address conflict.

    Food security – not peacebuilding – remains the program’s primary objective, according to Whelan. But a new framework allows Food for Peace to address issues that indirectly affect food security, including conflict prevention, livelihoods, financial inclusion, disaster risk-reduction, natural resource management, climate change adaptation, and more.

    “Our new strategy is very resilience-focused,” says Whelan, which “means that we are carrying out work in ways that address food security risks that strengthen resilience capacities and create transformative opportunities.”

    The strategy, she says, “gives us a space within our own universe to address conflict sensitivity and make sure that it’s integrated into our work in ways that strengthen our ability to address conflict risk, that help to strengthen connectors in society, and reduce the dividers.”

    Joan Whelan spoke at the Wilson Center on March 8, 2016.

    Friday Podcasts are also available for download on iTunes and Google Podcasts.

    Topics: Africa, agriculture, Asia, climate change, conflict, demography, development, disaster relief, DRC, environment, food security, Friday Podcasts, funding, gender, humanitarian, Kenya, nutrition, podcast, risk and resilience, security, Uganda, USAID, youth

Join the Conversation

  • RSS
  • subscribe
  • facebook
  • G+
  • twitter
  • iTunes
  • podomatic
  • youtube
Tweets by NewSecurityBeat

Trending Stories

  • unfccclogo1
  • Pop at COP: Population and Family Planning at the UN Climate Negotiations

Featured Media

Backdraft Podcast

play Backdraft
Podcasts

More »

What You're Saying

  • Rainforest destruction. Gold mining place in Guyana China’s Growing Environmental Footprint in the Caribbean
    ZingaZingaZingazoomzoom: US cleans up. China runs wild on free rein- A lack of international compliance mechanisms to hold...
  • shutterstock_1858965709 Break the Bias: Breaking Barriers to Women’s Global Health Leadership
    Sarah Ngela Ngasi: Nous souhaitons que le partenaire nous apporte son soutien technique et financier.
  • shutterstock_1858965709 Break the Bias: Breaking Barriers to Women’s Global Health Leadership
    Sarah Ngela Ngasi: Nous sommes une organisation féminine dénommée: Actions Communautaires pour le Développement de...

Related Stories

No related stories.

  • woodrow
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2023. Environmental Change and Security Program.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. All rights reserved.

Developed by Vico Rock Media

Environmental Change and Security Program

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

  • One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
  • 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
  • Washington, DC 20004-3027

T 202-691-4000