|
WASHINGTON: The World Bank has launched a $1.2-billion program to
fight global food crisis, including $200 million in grants to poor
countries facing the worst crisis.
The new program aims to speed up aid to those in
need as “high food prices are making the bottom billion [people]
into potentially [becoming] the bottom two billion,” World Bank
President Robert Zoellick said Thursday.
The bank said it would boost its overall support
for global agriculture and food to $6 billion next year, up 50
percent.
Crop insurance and other assistance for small
farmers in developing countries will be part of the program,
Zoellick said in a media teleconference from the sidelines of the
Tokyo International Conference on African Development.
In preparation for a UN-sponsored food crisis
summit in Rome next week, Zoellick said he has emphasized “the
need for a clear action plan.”
Skyrocketing commodity prices in the past year
have battered developing countries, where food takes the lion’s
share of household income.
Rising food prices have sparked deadly unrest
and rising malnutrition, and a number of countries have put limits
on exports to try to feed their own populations.
The World Bank’s announcement came as a report
by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization found that high global food
prices are a new fact of life.
The cost of feeding the family will remain far
higher than in the past decade, even though prices should ease in
coming years, the report said.
Zoellick, a former top US trade official who has
made agriculture a priority since taking the helm of the
poverty-fighting bank last July, said the new program was aimed at
supporting coordinated international efforts.
More than 150 countries agreed to a “new
deal” for global food policy at the spring meetings of the World
Bank and International Monetary Fund in April.
The new $1.2-billion rapid-response facility
supports safety-net programs, such as food for work, conditional
cash transfers, and school feeding for the most vulnerable.
The fund also provides support for food
production by supplying seeds and fertilizer, improving irrigation
for small farmers, and providing budget support to offset tariff
reductions for food and other unexpected costs.
The first grants from the $200-million trust
fund were approved Thursday for Liberia, Haiti and Djibouti, with
Liberia and Haiti receiving $10 million each and Djibouti $5
million.
The grant recipients were identified as high
priority, based on rapid needs assessments that have been completed
in more than 25 countries, with another 15 ongoing.
Grants for Togo, Yemen and Tajikistan are
expected to be awarded next month, the bank said.
“What’s urgent and key,” Zoellick said,
“is that we immediately respond to the terrible human needs of the
present crisis ensuring that millions don’t fall into this process
again, but also that we build a production response so we can
transition this into an opportunity so we can make the African
farmers help not only feed Africa, but people around the world.”
Oxfam International’s senior policy adviser,
Elizabeth Stuart, welcomed the announcement.
“The World Bank has shown impressive
leadership on the food crisis in the last few weeks,” she said.
“We need to see similar political momentum and serious response
from next week’s meeting in Rome.”
US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, who will
lead the United States delegation to the three-day world food
security conference sponsored by the Food and Agriculture
Organization that opens Tuesday in Rome, said he would propose
biotechnology as a strategy to boost agricultural production.
According to a study released Thursday by the US
General Accountability Office, agricultural productivity in
sub-Saharan Africa, as measured by grain yield, is only about 40
percent of that of the rest of the world’s developing countries,
and the gap has widened over the years.
-- AFP
|
