A/HRC/10/5 page 4 3. Food aid has also been subject to heavy scrutiny. Critics have denounced food aid as creating new forms of dependency; as being potentially disruptive of local markets; and as disrupting commercial trade patterns. Changes introduced over the last two decades have made food aid less susceptible to these criticisms.6 At the same time, food aid has a crucial role to fulfil in times of emergency. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights considers that States comply with their obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by providing disaster relief and humanitarian assistance in times of emergency.7 When it is based on proper needs assessments and well targeted, food aid can play an important role also in non-emergency contexts. Although declining in volume terms over the last few years,8 international food aid currently provides about 10 million tons of commodities a year to some 200 million people in need, at an estimated total cost of US$ 2 billion. Questions regularly emerge about how to combine emergency responses9 with the need to promote developing local food markets and food security in food-aid recipient countries. There is a growing consensus on the desirability of providing greater flexibility including through the use of locally and regionally procured food transfers and cash or voucher transfers,10 and on the importance of food aid being provided with a clear exit strategy in order to avoid dependency. But these commitments remain unfulfilled in practice. 4. Within the broader area of international cooperation, both development assistance and food aid are currently being reviewed. The global food crisis of 2007/08 further highlighted the urgent need to reform both. On 2-4 September 2008, the Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, held at Accra, reviewed the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, and adopted an Agenda for Action which aims to accelerate and deepen its implementation. For food aid, 2009 may provide a unique opportunity to revisit the mechanisms established by the Food Aid Convention (FAC), adopted in 1967 as a component of the International Grains Agreement (IGC). It contains 6 See, e.g. WFP, Food Aid Flows 2007. 7 E/C.12/1999/5, para. 38. 8 Since 1999, the overall amount of food aid has decreased from 15M to 6.9MT in 2006 and 5.9MT in 2007. This is a continuation of a broader trend: in the 1960s, food aid represented 20 per cent of total bilateral official development assistance; it represented approximately 5 per cent in 2005 (Christopher B. Barrett and Daniel G. Maxwell, Food Aid after Fifty Years: Recasting its Role, London and New York, Routledge, 2005). 9 Over 60 per cent of food aid is used for emergencies. This proportion has increased from 18 per cent in 1990. 10 Three distinct modalities of food aid need to be distinguished: (a) the shipment of donor country sourced commodities (food transfers); (b) cash-based food aid (food transfers paid for by donor funding); and (c) vouchers or cash transfers (payment instruments enabling recipients to obtain food from the local market).