Food security and safety-net policies
The preceding sections have focused on four potential foci for policies designed to enhance household food security and to provide "safety-nets" for vulnerable households in the context of the AoA. As noted above, the main impact on consumers, at least in the short-run, is likely to be an increase in consumer prices, although the effect of the Agreement will probably be overshadowed by other policy horizons in this respect. It was also noted that the Agreement constrains, to a limited extent, the policies which are open to government when attempting to ameliorate any damaging effects.
In fact, many policies designed to mitigate food insecurity cannot properly be defined as safety-nets, since the returns are not immediate and are conditional on a positive production response and competitive markets: circumstances which are not always present. Typical of these are policies designed to raise the productivity of the food-insecure through increasing their resource-base, or investing in rural infrastructure. On the other hand, there are a range of other interventions which are more likely to have a positive short-term effect: those that directly impact on labour income or transfers. Governments usually adopt a combination of short-term or safety-net policies and interventions with a longer time-horizon, and since it is likely that specific actions will be directed towards particular groups this may be desirable, however there has been a substantial shift in focus on the part of donors and international institutions, away from emphasis on short-term transfers and towards policies which will raise food security in a sustainable (i.e. long-term) way, and which will not lead to problems of dependency or long-term fiscal commitment.
This distinction between transfers and productivity-raising mechanisms also mirrors the distinction between measures which are designed to ameliorate emergencies (such as those caused by drought or civil unrest and characterised by transitory food security) and non-emergency measures aimed at raising the long-term welfare of households which are structurally insecure. This distinction in terms of recipient is not always clear, and the important policy decision can be that which causes resources to switch from one category of intervention to the other. Given the diverse needs of poor households, however, and the increasingly severe fiscal constraints faced by many governments, some trade-off between short-and medium-term interests may be inevitable.
Even though this paper is primarily concerned with "safety-net" interventions, given the current concern on the part of donors and other agencies to minimise transfer payments and other safety-net provisions, it is appropriate to briefly review productivity-raising initiatives which reduce food insecurity. Examples of such interventions in the Region, however, together with a review of the constraints placed on these policies by the AoA, are presented in a companion paper by the same author entitled "Implications for Producers".
