difficult to monitor and correct under the existing system, which relies to a large extent on community leadership and cooperation with local authorities. These parties reportedly contribute to unequal access in food distribution.43 Through focus groups and town meetings, international food agencies make great efforts to avoid exclusion. However, these fora can still be influenced by local authorities and can still leave out the most marginalized, voiceless members of the community. The beneficiary selection system could be strengthened by further minimizing the role of the community leadership, and by more deliberately seeking out the most marginalized households.44 The role of donors Human Rights Watch and other NGOs have criticized donors in Zimbabwe for their reluctance to provide food aid and/or agricultural inputs in resettled areas, where large numbers of former commercial farm workers and some newly resettled farmers are food insecure.45 Since 2002, donors have provided minimal funding to food aid in the resettled areas despite claiming to provide food aid strictly on the basis of humanitarian principles of need.46 Donors continue to be reluctant, as they do not want to be seen as supporting the land reform program.47 In early 2004, donors funded two pilot projects in two resettled areas. If the general food distributions had not been stopped at the government’s request in May, the lessons learned from these projects would have informed donors about the feasibility of extending general food aid to other resettled areas. One donor representative noted, however, that these pilot projects were an inadequate response, as donors recognized they would have been unable to scale up the programs during the months of the beneficiaries’ peak needs.48 The same representative also suggested that providing food aid to resettled farmers based on need would have meant only a small increase in the 43 See footnote 4. 44 Concern Worldwide in Malawi, for example, introduced a system whereby three different groups in a community (one consisting of chiefs, elders and advisors and two others consisting of community members who are not leaders). Each group was asked to compare a list of the most vulnerable and then the lists were compared. See Valid International, “A Stitch in Time? – Volume 2: Appendices: Independent Evaluation of the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Southern Africa Crisis Appeal July 2002 to June 2003,” p. 38, at http://www.dec.org.uk/uploads/documents/A_Stitch_in_Time_v102_Vol_2_-_Appendices.pdf. 45 See footnote 4. 46 Article 1.4.2. of the 2003-4 MOU between the government and WFP states that “Food assistance will be distributed exclusively on the basis of need.” The first point under the General Principles of the EU Guidelines for Food Distribution in Zimbabwe also stresses that “EU food aid is provided on the basis of priority of human need alone and without conditionality.” The European Union, EU Guidelines for Food Distribution in Zimbabwe, p.1 at http://www.delzwe.cec.eu.int/en/eu_and_country/food_security.htm. 47 Human Rights Watch interviews with representatives from donor countries, Harare, April 30 and May 4, 2004. Donors asked not to be named. 48 Human Rights watch interview with representative of donor country, Harare, May 4, 2004. 10