The heads of four major global organisations have called for urgent but coordinated action on food security to help vulnerable countries since the Russia-Ukraine war has refused to edge away.
This was contained in a statement and signed by the leaders of the four institutions, The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), UN World Food Programme and World Trade Organisation (WTO).
According to the statement: “Sharply higher prices for staples and supply shortages are increasing pressure on households worldwide and pushing millions more into poverty.”
“The threat is highest for the poorest countries with a large share of consumption from food imports, but vulnerability is increasing rapidly in middle-income countries, which host the majority of the world’s poor,” the joint statement underscored.
In the statement, the global giants appealed to countries to avoid banning food or fertiliser exports, cautioning that the war in Ukraine was adding to pressures from the COVID-19 crisis, climate change and increased fragility and conflict and threatening millions of people worldwide.
They underscored, it was important to keep trade open and avoid restrictive measures such as export bans on food or fertilizer, saying there is every need to avert any restrictions on humanitarian food purchases by the World Food Program.
“Surging fertiliser prices along with significant cuts in global supplies have important implications for food production in most countries, including major producers and exporters, who rely heavily on fertiliser imports,” they said.
Thereafter, the big four encouraged the international community to provide grants and other funding for immediate food supplies to help the poor and small farmers facing higher input prices.
“We call on the international community to urgently support vulnerable countries through coordinated actions ranging from provision of emergency food supplies, financial support, increased agricultural production, and open trade,” they said.
On their own part, the statement promised that the four global firms would step up their respective policy and financial support to help vulnerable countries and households and mitigate balance of payments pressures since for each one percentage point increase in food prices, 10 million people are thrown into extreme poverty, worldwide.
