International Food Aid: Better Agency Collaboration Needed to Assess and Improve Emergency Food Aid Procurement System

United States. Government Accountability Office.

United States. Government Accountability Office.

关键词: Government accountability -- United States.;    agriculture and food;    international affairs;    government operations;    international food aid;   

RP-ID  :  GAO-14-22
RP-ID  :  661960

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) jointly manage international emergency food aid procurement, the agencies disagree about the usefulness of the Web Based Supply Chain Management system (WBSCM) to manage the entire process. WBSCM had significant deficiencies when it was implemented in April 2011, which led USAID to discontinue using it to procure ocean freight for bulk commodities, manage prepositioned or stockpiled commodity inventory, and track food aid shipments. For example, WBSCM was slow and time consuming to use and its process to procure ocean freight for bulk commodities was not compatible with USAID's process to negotiate contracts with ocean freight vendors. USDA currently uses WBSCM to procure food aid commodities, while USAID procures ocean freight using other systems not connected to WBSCM. Since March 2012, USDA has made changes to WBSCM, and USDA officials assert that these changes address some of the problems that led to USAID's decision to discontinue use of the system."