Emergency Food Assistance: Most of USAID’s $21 Million Djibouti Inventory Was at Risk of Not Being Usable and $2.9 Million Had Already Spoiled

Why We Did This InspectionUSAID stored millions of dollars in food aid and emergency non-food items in warehouses around the world as part of its responsibility to lead and coordinate the U.S. government’s disaster assistance efforts overseas. The food aid included shelf-stable items to prevent and treat malnutrition and to rapidly address crises around the world. According to USAID, the prepositioned warehouses decreased the amount of time it took to deliver food aid by an average of 3 months. On January 20, 2025, the administration initiated a pause and review of all U.S. foreign assistance, including USAID programs. On March 28, 2025, the Department of State announced that USAID would cease operating as an independent agency. As of July 1, 2025, USAID food assistance programs transferred to the Department of State. We conducted inspections of USAID warehouses storing food aid in three locations: Durban, South Africa; Djibouti City, Djibouti; and Houston, Texas, to determine the status of food commodities remaining. For this inspection of the Djibouti warehouses, we examined the (1) characteristics of food aid in the warehouses and (2) food aid storage and inventory conditions. We inspected food aid in the warehouses as of June 30, 2025.What We FoundOf the $21 million of food aid stored in Djibouti warehouses as of June 30, 2025, more than $17 million was not allocated to an emergency food provider for distribution. This included $10 million of food aid at risk of reaching its best-used-by date prior to arriving at its intended destination. Furthermore, at the time of our inspection, $2.9 million of food aid had already spoiled due to significant packaging defects by the vendor. As of November 30, 2025, the spoiled food remained at the warehouses, incurring more than $460,000 in storage costs since its initial arrival in January 2024.USAID did not fully enforce contractual food aid storage and inventory requirements, contributing to $1.5 million in infested food. For example, USAID did not enforce temperature control requirements, contributing to an estimated $1.5 million in infested food, which required fumigation and resulted in additional costs. In addition, USAID did not ensure that warehouse inventory records had the correct best-used-by dates for food and did not track changes to warehouse ownership.What We RecommendWe suggest that responsible officials at the Department of State take eight actions to strengthen the U.S. government’s management and storage of humanitarian food aid at the Djibouti warehouses.