Miller Magazine Issue: 152 August 2022

32 MILLER / AUGUST 2022 NEWS Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director General Qu Dongyu, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank Group (WBG) President David Malpass, World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley and World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala issued a joint statement calling for urgent action to address the global food security crisis. The heads of the FAO, IMF, WBG, WFP, and WTO issued the following joint statement on the global food security crisis: The COVID-19 pandemic, interruption in international supply chains, and the war in Ukraine have severely disrupted food, fuel, and fertilizer markets, which are interlinked. By June 2022 the number of acute food insecure people – whose access to food in the short term has been restricted to the point that their lives and livelihoods are at risk – increased to 345 million in 82 countries according to WFP. Making matters worse, around 25 countries have reacted to higher food prices by adopting export restrictions affecting over 8 percent of global food trade. [1] In addition, complicating the food supply response is the dou- bling of fertilizer prices over the last twelve months, reflecting record-high costs of inputs such as natural gas. Global stocks, which steadily increased over the last decade, need to be released to bring prices down. All this is happening at a time when fiscal space for government action is already severely constrained following the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond the short term, climate change is structurally affecting agriculture productivity in many countries. Avoiding further setbacks to achieving the Sustainable De- velopment Goals requires short and long-term actions in four key areas: (i) providing immediate support to the vulnerable, (ii) facilitating trade and international supply of food, (iii) boosting production and (iv) investing in climate-resilient agriculture. • Providing immediate support to the vulnerable: Rapidly strengthening safety nets for vulnerable households at the na- tional level and ensuring that WFP has sufficient resources to serve the neediest is a priority. WFP operations should be facil- itated through actions such as the recent agreement by WTO members not to impose export restrictions on its purchases of food for humanitarian purposes. Unless they are well targeted, energy and food subsidies are expensive and inefficient. They should be replaced with cash transfers that reach only the most vulnerable. Over time, effective social protection systems may be expanded to cover more people. The best systems include strong targeting and efficient enrollment, delivery, and payment systems, often leveraging technology. IMF, WBG, WTO and FAO call for urgent action to address global food security crisis