The surge in food prices could push 100 million people into deeper poverty, World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick said at the International Monetary Fund-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington.
"Based on a very rough analysis, we estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty," Zoellick was quoted as saying on the World Bank's wet site on Monday.
"This is not just a question of short-term needs, as important as those are; this is ensuring that future generations don't pay a price too," he said.
He reiterated his call for a "New Deal for Global Food Policy" to meet the food price crisis. It includes a call for 500 million U.S. dollars from donor governments to close an immediate gap identified by the UN's World Food Program. To date, about half of the half-billion-dollar target has been met, Zoellick said.
As part of the New Deal, the World Bank is providing conditional cash transfers, food-for-work programs, and is assisting with new plantings, he said.
The Development Committee of the World Bank Group and the IMF endorsed the New Deal at its meeting earlier Sunday, as well as other longer-term food initiatives by the World Bank Group.
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn supported Zoellick's proposals, saying all IMF's assistance to low-income countries on economic and financial development issues "could be destroyed very rapidly by the crisis coming through the increase in food prices."
Because of the surge in prices, many poor countries are likely to have a "huge deficit" in trade balances that would disrupt those countries' economies, Strauss-Kahn added.
Source:Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article