World Bank, UN ask for more food aid for Africa

from Gulf Live

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA

YOKOHAMA, Japan - African leaders and international aid agencies implored developed nations Thursday to do more to help countries reeling from soaring food prices.

Wealthy economies should keep providing emergency aid to the most-affected areas, but also steer funds to long-term projects in research and technology that would unlock Africa's "vast untapped agricultural potential," they said in a joint statement released at an African development conference hosted by Japan.

High oil prices, surging demand, flawed trade policies, extreme weather, growth in biofuel production and speculation have inflated food prices worldwide, trigging protests from Africa to Asia and raising fears of widespread malnutrition and economic instability.

"The record high prices of food and fuel are a painful pinch for those all over the world, but for those living on less than a dollar a day, it's devastating," said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program. "By far, the region to be hit hardest by this is Africa."

The statement was issued by four groups — the WFP, the World Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the Food and Agriculture Organization — who met earlier Thursday with African heads of state to reiterate their commitment.

World leaders will gather for a UN conference next week in Rome to discuss the food crisis, and the heads of the Group of Eight nations will meet in northern Japan in July. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has pledged to highlight the issue during the G-8 Summit.

Participants at this week's Tokyo International Conference on African Development, or TICAD, have warned that the crisis could make it even harder for the continent to work toward the Millennium Development Goals — a set of eight objectives for poverty reduction, education, health, gender equality and the environment that United Nations member states agreed to try to achieve by 2015.

"Africa's very impressive economic progress of the last eight years must not be derailed by high food prices," the statement said.

U2 lead singer and activist Bono, who has parlayed his fame to effectively campaign for debt relief in Africa, said in a speech to African and Japanese leaders Thursday afternoon that food security is inextricably linked with other development issues.

"I'm the least qualified to talk about (food), but it might be the most important thing that we're all talking about today," he said. "This is an area where the environment meets the re-greening of Africa meets good development to fight extreme poverty."

In addition to seeking more funding, the World Bank urged governments of advanced economies to not impose export restrictions or tariffs on food that could be funneled to relief agencies or countries facing severe food shortages.

World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick, speaking on the sidelines of TICAD, said taxes and bans that have been enacted by a number of countries recently were "exacerbating the problem."

Zoellick later met with Fukuda, who as president of the G8 vowed to help strengthen international response to the food crisis. Japan so far has pledged $100 million in emergency food aid and announced Tuesday that it would double its bilateral aid to Africa by 2012.