Author：Wei-Chung Chen^1*

Abstrct：

    The Asia-Pacific region is particularly at risk of different types of natural disasters which result in reduced access and food intake. Moreover, vulnerability to natural disasters is often more critical to emerging economies and low-income groups. To address these emergency food security issues and in response to APEC Leaders’ instruction to build an open, inclusive partnership for the long-term food security of the Asia-Pacific region, Chinese Taipei has put forward the proposal on establishing an APEC Food Emergency Response Mechanism (AFERM).

    AFERM is designed to be a cooperative, self-managed, risk-sharing, non-trade-distorting and virtual multiple food stocks network for short-term humanitarian food aid. In times of natural disasters, AFERM is to be used as a targeted and fully-grant form of food relief from earmarked reserves (in-kind and/or in-cash) to be ledged by member economies.

    Serving as a second line of defense complementing the existing humanitarian food aid programs, AFERM allows for sufficient time to cooperate with humanitarian NGOs to deliver emergency food aids to meet the actual needs of the receiving economy. In so doing AFERMs would facilitate emergency food reliefs programs, enhance the resilience of the regional food system and contribute to long-term food security in the APEC region.

Keywords: (Asean-Plus-Three Emergence Rice Reserve; APTERR), (Ecowas Regional Food Reserve Strategy; RFRS), (Apec Food Emergency Reserve Mechanism; AFERM).

---

¹ Taiwan Institute of Economic Research.
* Corresponding Author, Email: d27502@tier.org.tw ; Tel: 02-25865000#523.

Download: PDF Links