World Bank Urges Continent to Take Advantage of High Food Prices

from All Africa

The Nation (Nairobi)

The World Bank has asked developed nations to help African farmers take advantage of the high food prices through increased food production.

The bank's president, Mr Robert Zoellick, said while development partners had pledged additional financial assistance, more needed to be done in agricultural research.

Others are development and infrastructure, since Africa's economic gains were at risk from high food and energy prices.

"This crisis provides the opportunity to build a coalition of responses across the African continent.

"This offers a vehicle for an agricultural renaissance that raises small-scale farmers' income, enhances livelihoods, nutrition and ultimately, food security for Africa," Mr Zoellick said.

He was speaking at joint press conference with Food and Agriculture Organisation representative for Africa, Modibo Traoré.

Others were International Fund for Agricultural Development president, Mr Lennart Bage; and the World Food Programme executive director, Ms Josette Sheeran.

Mr Zoellick told journalists that although African governments had increased their investment in Agriculture, few had met the 2003 commitment to spend at least 10 per cent of their annual budgets on agriculture.

The four organisations asked the international community to complement increased financial assistance with real breakthroughs in trade negotiations.

This is to ensure that Africa's producers could gain access to lucrative markets.

The agencies asked leaders in developed nations, international organisations and the private sector to join hands under the leadership of African and regional organisations, the AU and the New Partnership for African Development.

This is to support immediate and long-term goals for growth in the continent's agriculture.

Make it easier to buy

They asked governments to make it easier to buy food meant for humanitarian assistance by removing export controls and taxes.

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

"Efforts to meet the hunger Millenium Development Goal can succeed if we seize the opportunity of high food prices in a continent with vast, untapped agricultural potential.

"With good policies and sufficient assistance, Africa can more than meet this challenge," said Mr Bage.

The agencies said high food prices had contributed to macro-economic problems in many countries.

They added that the total cost of food imports for Low-Income Food Deficit Countries had risen to $107 billion in 2007, a 24 per cent increase over the previous year's.

The crisis had contributed to fiscal imbalances as governments increased expenditure on safety nets and reduced tariffs and taxes on food.

Ms Sheeran said the high prices were attributable to increasing incomes in emerging markets and oil exporting countries, which had contributed to high global demand for food and animal feed.

The situation had been worsened by increasing demand for biofuels, which had created a structural link between the food and energy markets.

She asked governments to ensure that mitigating measures such as reduced taxes and tariffs on food, distribution of supplies and restrictions on food exports did not derail the progress achieved under past reforms.

"We appeal to the affected countries to mange the short-term needs in ways that do not compromise longer term growth or impose burdens on their neighbours," she said.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation has organised a high-level conference on world food security, climate change challenges and bio-energy next week in Rome.

The UN has established a task force on the food crisis, bringing together heads of specialised agencies, funds, the World Bank and the IMF.

This is to promote a unified response to the crisis in support of governments and the affected people.

The Japanese Government promised to rally its G8 partners, due to meet in July, to honour their pledges to Africa and play a more pro-active role in speeding up development.

Meanwhile, the global food crisis could reverse some of the progress Africa has made in bringing down child mortality, the head of the United Nations' children's agency said yesterday, adds Reuters.

"If more children become undernourished, that could contribute to additional child mortality," Ms Ann Veneman, executive director of Unicef, said in an interview with Reuters yesterday.

"This is not a crisis for everyone. It's an impact on those who are the most vulnerable."

Protests, strikes and riots have erupted in developing countries around the world in the wake of dramatic rises in the prices of wheat, rice, maize oils and other essential foods that have made it difficult for poor people to make ends meet.

In African nations such as Cameroon, at least 24 people were killed in protests in February while in Somalia, thousands protested earlier this month.

Ms Veneman is in Japan to launch Unicef's State of Africa's Children 2008 report, which says that five million children died in Africa before they reached the age of five in 2006.

Sudanese President, Omar el-Bashir demanded international action against Chad, over its alleged support for Darfur rebel groups and involvement in attack against the capital Khartoum, during a speech at the conference in Japan.

He spoke on Wednesday at a summit of some 40 African leaders in Yokohama, Japan, striking a discordant note at the start of a meeting, that was focused on development and poverty alleviation.