Geneva: World Bank Group President David Malpass, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley and World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala today called on the international community to urgently support vulnerable countries in face of growing threats of food insecurity.
The heads of the World Bank, IMF, WFP and the WTO in a joint statement ahead of the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank Group next week, proposed coordinated actions that included providing emergency food supplies and deploying financial support to households and countries, facilitating unhindered trade, and investing in sustainable food production and nutrition security.
They also urged the international community to help support urgent financing needs, including through grants. “This should include the financing of immediate food supplies, safety nets to address the needs of the poor, and for small farmers facing higher input prices,” they said.
They further urged all countries to keep trade open and avoid restrictive measures such as export bans on food or fertilizer that further exacerbate the suffering of the most vulnerable people. “It is especially important not to impose export restrictions on humanitarian food purchases by the UN’s World Food Program,” they stated.
“The world is shaken by compounding crises. The fallout of the war in Ukraine is adding to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that now enters its third year, while climate change and increased fragility and conflict pose persistent harm to people around the globe. Sharply higher prices for staples and supply shortages are increasing pressure on households worldwide and pushing millions more into poverty,” they said.
Highlighting that the threat was highest for the poorest countries with a large share of consumption from food imports, they though warned that vulnerability was increasing rapidly in middle-income countries, which host the majority of the world’s poor.
World Bank estimates warn that for each one percentage point increase in food prices, 10 million people are thrown into extreme poverty worldwide.
Noting that the rise in food prices is exacerbated by a dramatic increase in the cost of natural gas, a key ingredient of nitrogenous fertilizer, they also referred to the surging fertilizer prices along with significant cuts in global supplies that have important implications for food production in most countries, including major producers and exporters, who rely heavily on fertilizer imports.
“The increase in food prices and supply shocks can fuel social tensions in many of the affected countries, especially those that are already fragile or affected by conflict,” they warned.
The heads of these intergovernmental organizations said they are committed to combining their expertise and financing to quickly step up their policy and financial support to help vulnerable countries and households as well as to increase domestic agricultural production in, and supply to, impacted countries.
“We can mitigate balance of payments pressures and work with all countries to keep trade flows open. In addition, we will further reinforce our monitoring of food vulnerabilities and are quickly expanding our multi-faceted policy advice to affected countries guided by the comparative advantages of our respective institutions,” they stated.
They emphasized that it was critical to quickly provide support for food-insecure countries in a coordinated manner. “We stand ready to work together with our multilateral and bilateral partners to help countries address this urgent crisis,” they stated.
– global bihari bureau
