In September 2000, the Government set-up the Emergency Food Security Reserve Administration to create an effective bridging mechanism to deal with humanitarian crisis. Often the humanitarian problem we must respond to – be it a famine or a flood – has immediate consequences, there is a significant lead time required to import relief supplies. Therefore, the purpose of the Emergency Reserve is to provide a short-term buffer stock of emergency response commodities and items on loan to agencies engaged in relief activities (be it government, UN or NGOs) until they can mobilize replacement resources through other mechanisms.