My Testimony Before Congress to Reshape Disaster Aid

The current system does not work when people are starving and thirsty in a crisis.

Hello friends! 

I have always tried to learn from the boots on the ground around the world. In any disaster—natural or man-made—it's important to be there, to talk to people, and to watch what's going on. 

Over the years, I have seen many good people struggling to make a difference. They have good hearts and work hard. But you cannot change things when you are working from the outside, or when you think you know everything already. You need the intelligence that comes from talking to people. And often the best way to talk to people is by feeding them. 

President Biden and I when he visited us in Poland

That view of the world helped shape my comments to members of Congress last week when I testified before a Congressional Hearing on The U.S. and International Humanitarian Response to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. This was a hearing called to examine the humanitarian crisis resulting from Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine and to examine the efforts of international aid organizations to deliver urgently needed assistance to support civilians affected by the conflict. 

For over an hour that morning, I was able to share testimony with Subcommittee Chairman Stephen Lynch and Committee Chair Carolyn B. Maloney and the larger National Security Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and talk about international food aid and how it can be reshaped by sharing my experiences with World Central Kitchen and what I have seen on the ground. 

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I talked about the beginning of the war, when we started serving hot meals at the Poland-Ukraine border and saw no real presence from the UN system. At the peak of refugee flows across the borders, there was no real presence from the UN system. We assumed the big guys would show up in a couple of days – but it took weeks for them to establish any presence. And then we saw empty UNHCR or UNICEF tents with nothing or nobody inside, as children were walking alone across the border with the phone of their mothers printed in the palm of their hands. These children were just left alone at the mercy of good Samaritans.

I thanked the United States Congress, which has been exceptionally generous with providing funding for the Ukrainian people, as well as the people around the world who rely on Ukraine’s farmers. But I told them on Friday, their work is not done. 

Serving families in Hungary

The big point of my testimony was to share the many structural and bureaucratic reasons why established international aid groups take so long to have a  presence in Ukraine. I emphasized that the current system just does not work when people are starving and thirsty in a crisis. And that these reasons will not change with billions of dollars.

I saw large quantities of unwanted food being delivered with little regard for what the people of Ukraine can eat. There is only so much dried pasta a Ukrainian family needs. You can’t just dump food and say we are feeding people in a crisis. 

We need a more agile and effective system to deliver aid. The best way is not to bring everything from outside, but to keep supporting the local economy. We need to have systems in place to buy local food and trust local people to feed local people, with their real-time intelligence, passion, and expertise. At WCK, we use local restaurants – they are the best ones to feed local people–and we empower them to serve their community: A dollar spent within a local community is feeding is a dollar that multiplies throughout the economy.  

I asked Congress to work with us on reforming the approval processes, cutting red tape, and rethinking contracting rules. USAID has an incredibly mission-dedicated staff.  They can be even more effective with some additional authorities and flexibilities to act much more quickly.

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After my testimony, I was able to answer questions from the Subcommittee and help them to truly understand what the situation is like on the ground in Ukraine and surrounding countries on the border. 

I was incredibly grateful for this opportunity to share my experience with the Subcommittee, and I hope that it results in action and changes to the way that disaster aid and humanitarian food response is implemented. The horrors of war are real, and that’s why it's important to be there next to these people to make sure that finding food and water is not another problem they will face in the weeks and months ahead.