Food aid, food policy and the Uruguay round: implications for Bangladesh

Abstract

The relationship between the effects of food aid and those of the completion of the Uruguay Round of the GATT are studied in this paper, focussing upon the food aid recipient countries, taking Bangladesh as an illustrative example. The magnitudes of these effects depend crucially on the policy environment within the food aid recipient country itself, particularly the government's policy with respect to commercial food imports, as well as the way food aid donors respond to the Round. When the quantity of Bangladesh's commercial food imports is controlled by the government, the benefits derived from food aid are smaller, and the negative effects of the Uruguay Round will be larger, than when these imports are liberalised.