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There is no single undertaking regulating food assistance at the international level. International food assistance is regulated by a patchwork of rules emanating from different institutions and normative arrangements. This study aims to explore how international law shapes international food assistance. How is international law regulating food assistance, considering this patchwork of institutions and norms? What dominant narratives enshrined in legal agreements shape the evolution of international food assistance?

The author uses the concept of “regime complex”, which allows analyzing partially overlapping and nonhierarchical regimes governing a particular issue, shedding light on the narratives and institutional arrangements that lead to the consolidation of international rules. The author identifies two main regimes that govern international food assistance: the food assistance regime and the food trade regime.

The author shows that using the “regime complex” concept clarifies the evolution of international food assistance, highlighting that international law is a crucial element in shaping international food assistance and showing that the two main institutional regimes governing it interact and shape rules along three main themes: the centrality of donor States’ self-interests, the relationship between international food assistance and trade liberalization and the goal of achieving food security for the beneficiaries.

Using the regime complex concept, the author brings new light on the broader institutional and legal framework influencing the governance of international food assistance, showing that different regimes take part in its shaping.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how food aid providers in Sussex and Southwest London responded and managed during the pandemic.

The methodological approach consists of three inter-related layers. A qualitative description research approach based on naturalistic inquiry, supplemented by site visits and personal observations was used.

The pandemic catalysed dramatic, often positive, changes to the provision of food aid, with a move away from the traditional food bank model. It brought about increased coordination and oversight, as well as the upscaling of capabilities, infrastructure and provisions.

The paper contributes to the literature on food aid in the UK It provides evidence for how providers are transforming the sector for the better and potentially helping to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to existing literature by examining whether development aid has any measurable impact on food security, whether the impact is conditioned on the quality of governance and whether it differs based on the type of aid provided.

Panel-data analysis of 85 developing countries between 1994 and 2011, using generalized method of moments and two-stage least squares estimators.

The paper finds that aid in general has a small positive impact on food security; that multilateral aid, grants and social and economic aid have a positive effect on food security in their own right, and that bilateral aid, loans and agricultural aid are more conditioned on the quality of governance that other aid.

The main limitations rest with the imperfect nature of cross-country data on food security and governance, which I have tried to overcome through a series of robustness tests.

The findings suggest that aid, despite its many deficiencies, can play a positive role in strengthening food security. Furthermore, they indicate that concessional loans, bilateral aid and agricultural aid are likely to foster food security only in countries with better governance.

The paper constitutes a novel contribution to existing literature because it is one of the first to use cross-country data to explore the impact of aid on food security and because it utilizes a relatively complex aid categorization, which allows its conclusions to be more nuanced.

This paper uses data from a city with a multi-ethnic, multi-faith population to better understand faith-based food aid. The paper aims to understand what constitutes faith-based responses to food insecurity, compare the prevalence and nature of faith-based food aid across different religions and explore how community food aid meets the needs of a multi-ethnic, multi-faith population.

The study involved two phases of primary research. In Phase 1, desk-based research and dialogue with stakeholders in local food security programmes were used to identify faith-based responses to food insecurity. Phase 2 consisted of 18 semi-structured interviews involving faith-based and secular charitable food aid organizations.

The paper illustrates the internal heterogeneity of faith-based food aid. Faith-based food aid is highly prevalent and the vast majority is Christian. Doctrine is a key motivation among Christian organizations for their provision of food. The fact that the clients at faith-based, particularly Christian, food aid did not reflect the local religious demographic is a cause for concern in light of the entry-barriers identified. This concern is heightened by the co-option of faith-based organizations by the state as part of the “Big Society” agenda.

This is the first academic study in the UK to look at the faith-based arrangements of Christian and Muslim food aid providers, to set out what it means to provide faith-based food aid in the UK and to explore how faith-based food aid interacts with people of other religions and no religion.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the main determinants of dependency on food aid programmes. Food aid may take the form of a loan, a sale below market price or a current transfer. Food aid programmes across the globe are generally designed to provide short‐term assistance to countries. However, many countries have developed a dependence on food aid assistance.

The paper estimates cross‐sectional regressions using a database containing 116 developing countries over the period 1970‐2003. Bayesian averaging of classical estimates is employed to identify the robust determinants of dependency.

The study finds that the top two determinants of food aid dependence (both cereals and non‐cereals) were food production and the frequency of droughts affecting the country. Food inflation, population density, crop yields, the amount of arable land per capita, the rule of law and the number of armed conflicts were also robustly related to aid dependence.

These findings suggest that international donors should focus primarily on offsetting the substitution effect of aid on local production as well as implement systems to partially offset the negative effects of droughts, if they are to break the cycle of dependence on food aid.

Previous studies have investigated the effects of a large number of other variables. The findings from these papers were somewhat conflicting due to differences in model specification. To identify the variables that have a robust relationship with food aid dependence, whatever the model specification, the Bayesian averaging of classical estimates approach proposed by Sala‐i‐Martin et al. is employed.

Humanitarian logistics plays a critical role in the aid response to hunger and disasters worldwide. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) uses a competitive bidding process to procure P.L. 480 Title II food aid, a $2 billion business annually. This paper describes a mixed‐integer program (MIP) decision tool that mimics the USDA bid approach in order to improve ocean carrier and food supplier bid pricing strategy.

First, the USDA bid process is detailed and the MIP decision tool is described. Then how the tool is run against historical data to approximate future USDA bid awards is explained, allowing the authors to subsequently advise food supplier and ocean carrier clients of expected price competition and pricing flexibility before they submit bids.

The MIP decision tool has demonstrated its effectiveness in supporting $8 million in food aid bids. Bidding implications for food aid carriers and suppliers are provided as well as suggestions for additional opportunities for humanitarian logistics research are offered.

Extant literature in procurement offers little practical support for bidder pricing preparation. Additionally, humanitarian logistics is an emerging, under‐researched field, and this paper is the first to address sourcing and distribution of Title II food aid.

In the United States, successive farm bills and the 2007 Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) have largely defined domestic subsidy and conservation programs and U.S. food-aid initiatives over the past decade. This chapter examines the effects of the current mixture of U.S. agricultural policies and international food-aid programs on domestic and global food-insecure populations. A detailed research-based examination is carried out with respect to the impacts of U.S. subsidy programs on agricultural production, domestic and global agricultural commodity prices, and their implications for food-insecure populations. The impacts of the RFS are assessed along with the effects of current and potentially reformed U.S. international food-aid programs.

This study concludes that current U.S. agricultural subsidy programs have small or negligible impacts on the aggregate level and mixture of U.S. agricultural output, U.S. domestic prices and global prices, and domestic and global food insecurity among poor households. The RFS has increased prices for food and feed grain and oilseeds with adverse implications for the urban poor in developing countries and some poor U.S. households. The portfolios of U.S. food-aid programs are managed inefficiently because of congressional mandates designed to aid special interest groups that waste 30% of the current budget. While U.S. subsidy programs likely should be moderated for other reasons, they have few impacts on domestic and globally food-insecure households. However, in relation to global and domestic food insecurity, the RFS should be discontinued and major reforms to U.S. international food aid implemented.

Foodbank use in the UK is rising but, despite high levels of poverty, Pakistani women are less likely to use food banks than white British women. The purpose of this paper is to understand the lived experience of food in the context of poverty amongst Pakistani and white British women in Bradford, including perspectives on food aid.

A total of 16 Pakistani and white British women, recruited through community initiatives, participated in three focus groups (one interview was also held as a consequence of recruitment difficulties). Each group met for two hours aided by a moderator and professional interpreter. The transcripts were analysed thematically using a three-stage process.

Women in low-income households employed dual strategies to reconcile caring responsibilities and financial obligations: the first sought to make ends meet within household income; the second looked to outside sources of support. There was a reported near absence of food insecurity amongst Pakistani women which could be attributed to support from social/familial networks, resource management within the household, and cultural and religious frameworks. A minority of participants and no Pakistani respondents accessed charitable food aid. There were three reasons for the non-use of food aid: it was not required because of resource management strategies within the household and assistance from familial/social networks; it was avoided out of shame; and knowledge about its existence was poor.

This case study is the first examination of varying experiences of food insecurity amongst UK white British and Pakistani women. Whilst the sample size is small, it presents new evidence on perceptions of food insecurity amongst Pakistani households and on why households of varying ethnicities do not use food aid.

A growing number of studies have concluded that South Africa has one of the highest cases of HIV infections in the world. With the epidemic continuing to evolve at an alarming rate, the government of South Africa has regarded the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a developmental and socio‐economic policy issue. This study explores the impact of HIV/AIDS on food demand in South Africa. Food demand functions were estimated using time‐series data for the period 1970 to 2000.Simulation analyses were undertaken to examine “with AIDS” and “without AIDS” scenarios. Unlike previous empirical findings, which dwell on the major negative impact of HIV/AIDS on food demand patterns in South Africa, this study foreshadows a more mixed outcome of both negative and positive impacts on the demand patterns for specific food types in South Africa as consequences of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and recommends policy changes.

The purpose of this paper is to look at aspects of gender issues in HIV/AIDS (non)affection on land restitution and survival strategies in the Capricorn district of Limpopo province of South Africa.

The study administered questionnaires to purposively selected AIDS‐affected households. For comparison, other randomly selected household categories that have lost members to other causes of death and those who have not experienced any deaths were included in the sample with a view to determining whether the disease could potentially affect households' ability to make potential claims to land, their access to, use of and retention of land, all of which engender a spread of survival strategies as the household's food and livelihood security is threatened.

In the study area, land is still largely held under traditional customs. Households having land to reclaim as a proportion of those interviewed are low. There are more aged heads among land‐claiming AIDS‐affected households. There is a significant presence of women heads among the land‐claiming households. Accepting cash compensation for land restitution is not popular in the study area. AIDS‐affected households are completely food insecure. As a coping strategy, households borrow money or food. AIDS‐affected households, defined as households that have lost members to AIDS‐related illnesses, sell their livestock because they are no longer able to manage the herd and they sell their crops to meet contingencies. Among them, it is the female‐headed households that are significantly not coping well. Gender is not significantly associated with receipt of social grants in any of the household categories. It is also not significantly associated with the adoption of the maintaining strategy of receiving food parcels or borrowing money or food nor in the adoption of reductive strategy of starving for one or two days. The sale of land is not a coping strategy in the study area.

There are few studies that link the HIV/AIDS pandemic to the land restitution process in South Africa. The findings could assist in understanding the coping/survival strategies of affected households and in designing suitable policies to assist them.