World Bank, FAO, others highlight ways to address food, nutrition crises

Amid food and nutrition crises in different countries of the world, key global trade and development organisations have highlighted measures to adopt to prevent the prevailing menace of food insecurity and malnutrition around the world.

In a joint statement issued last Wednesday by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director General Qu Dongyu, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank Group (WBG) President David Malpass, World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley and World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the organisations called for urgent action to address the global crisis on food and nutrition security.

“Globally, poverty and food insecurity are both on the rise after decades of development gains,” the statement said, adding that “supply chain disruptions, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, financial tightening through rising interest rates and Russia’s war in Ukraine have caused an unprecedented shock to the global food system, with the most vulnerable hit the hardest.”

The statement emphasised that food inflation remains high in the world and that dozens of countries are experiencing double-digit inflation.

According to WFP, 349 million people across 79 countries are acutely food insecure, and the prevalence of undernourishment is also on the rise, following three years of deterioration.

“This situation is expected to worsen, with global food supplies projected to drop to a three-year low in 2022/2023. The need is especially dire in 24 countries that FAO and WFP have identified as hunger hotspots, of which 16 are in Africa,” the food agency noted.

It said fertiliser affordability as defined by the ratio between food prices and fertiliser prices is also the lowest since the 2007 and 2008 food crisis, causing lower food production and impacting smallholder farmers the hardest, worsening the already high local food prices.

The global organisations in their statement expressed sympathy to the people of Turkey and the neighbouring Syrian Arab Republic who have suffered the recent earthquakes.

“Our organisations are closely monitoring the situation, assessing the magnitude of the disaster, and working to mobilise necessary support in accordance with each organisation’s mandates and procedures,” the statement said.

In response to the inflation of food, fuel and fertiliser prices, the statement said that countries have spent over $710 billion for social protection measures covering 1 billion people, including approximately $380 billion for subsidies.

However, only $4.3 billion has been spent in low-income countries for social protection measures, compared to $507.6 billion in high-income countries, the leaders noted.

Precautions

According to the development organisations, to prevent a worsening of the food and nutrition security crisis, urgent actions are required to rescue hunger hotspots, facilitate trade, improve the functioning of markets, enhance the role of the private sector, and reform and repurpose harmful subsidies with careful targeting and efficiency.

The statement asked countries to balance short-term urgent interventions with longer-term resilience efforts as they respond to the crisis.

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“The World Bank is providing a $30 billion food and nutrition security package covering the 15 months from April 2022 to June 2023, including $12 billion of new projects, which have all been committed ahead of schedule.

“Action is already underway to address underlying structural challenges in social protection and the food and fertiliser markets, but more concerted action across these three key areas is needed to prevent a prolonged crisis. We are committed to working jointly and with impact to support the most vulnerable,” the statement said.