Word: flouring
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...based in Arlington, Va., had to run both the logistics of getting wheat to TPS's central Javanese factory and the program itself. That meant clearing customs in Jakarta, delivering the wheat to the millers and then distributing the flour to the factories charged with producing the noodles. "Some factories did a better job than others," says Keys. Among the problems: some had no bags to package the noodles, while others simply failed to produce the agreed output...
...prevent fraud, IRD avoids paying cash up front for products and services. It also requires its for-profit partners to reinvest any proceeds derived from IRD wheat. Instead, the millers who process the wheat are reimbursed with a portion of the flour they make to sell at market rate. Factories get the flour free of cost but are required to reinvest their proceeds into new production. IRD collects 66% of the profits, which it then uses for other programs in the country, including a water-treatment facility, snacks for school children and health services. IRD keeps 10% of all funding...
Quality control is its biggest challenge. On occasion, either the millers fail to produce the contracted grade of flour or some of the factories fail to pay IRD its share of profits. IRD tests batches each month and refuses anything that does not pass muster. If factories fail to pay on time, IRD sends bill collectors after them and threatens not to renew their contracts. "We put the fear of the Lord in them," say Peggy Sheehan, adviser to IRD president Keys. The USDA also sent inspectors to Indonesia to make sure its donations were being used as intended...
...Games are banned. Clubs that had operated with impunity are suddenly having trouble with their licenses. Human-rights activists, public-interest lawyers and other dissenting voices have been jailed or harassed. Police even detained and interrogated members of the Hash House Harriers, a beery running club, suspicious that the flour they used to mark their runs might be part of a terrorist attack...
...Afghans like Nabi, Zia and Hussein. Their major concerns are the state of the economy and basic services. Nabi has to keep working in a guesthouse kitchen at the age of 66 to feed his family. Like most other Afghans, he can barely afford bread: the price of flour has tripled in the past year as a result of a surge in global commodity prices. Unpredictable and uncontrollable events such as this may prove much more important than any international policy for the survival of the Afghan state. As Nabi says, "We are fed up with war. I am supporting...