World Bank, FAO, others call for urgent actions to tackle food crisis

The World Bank Group (WBG), Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have called for urgent actions to address the global food crisis.

In a joint statement issued yesterday, Director-General, FAO, Qu Dongyu; Managing Director, IMF, Kristalina Georgieva; President, WBG, David Malpass; Executive Director, WFP, David Beasley and Director-General, WTO, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said the war in Ukraine continues to worsen global food security and nutrition crisis, triggering higher volatility in energy, food and fertiliser prices.

According to the statement, despite the reprieve in global food prices and the resumption of grain exports by Ukraine, food remains beyond reach for many due to high prices and weather shocks.

“The number of people facing acute food insecurity worldwide is expected to continue to rise. Fertiliser markets remain volatile, especially in Europe, where tight natural gas supplies and high prices have caused many producers of urea and ammonia to stop operations.

“This may reduce fertiliser application rates for the next crop season, prolonging and deepening the impact of the crisis,” the global bodies said.

The statement noted that there has been considerable progress in four key areas highlighted in the earlier joint statement.

“We welcome the efforts of the Global Crisis Response Group and the Black Sea Grain Initiative: through the Joint Coordination Centre, over three million metric tons of grain and foodstuffs have already been exported from Ukraine. We are encouraged by the downward trend of trade-restrictive measures implemented by countries and hope that the trend continues. International financial support to the most vulnerable countries is increasing from various initiatives.

“The World Bank is implementing its $30 billion program to respond to the food security crisis and front loading resources from the IDA20 Crisis Response Window. The IMF is proposing a new food shock window within the IMF emergency lending instruments. The FAO has proposed a series of policy recommendations and launched detailed soil nutrition maps at the country level to increase efficiencies in the use of fertilisers,” the statement read.