UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Tuesday that he will lead a task force to deal with the global food crisis, as the soaring price of fuel makes food unaffordable in many developing nations.
Kiyo Akasaka, the UN deputy secretary-general of Communications and Public Information, said the rising prices have "caught the attention of policy makers," as impoverished people take to the streets to voice their anger.
"We have seen protests in countries like Egypt, Haiti, (Ivory Coast), Burkina Faso and the Philippines," Akasaka told Â鶹´«Ã½net.
"The causes are familiar: oil prices are up, demand from China and India are up, trade restrictions, the conversion of food crops to biofuel, and droughts."
Ban said the first priority is finding US$755 million to meet the funding shortfall for the World Food Programme.
"We anticipate that additional funding will be required," he said in Bern, Switzerland.
However, the task force wants to look beyond just providing emergency aid for crises, he said. For example, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has established a US$1.7-billion plan to give seeds to farmers in the world's poorest countries.
The price of food staples has shot up around the world. World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the development has left about 100 million more people in poverty in the past two years.
"This is not a natural disaster," he said.
So far, $475 million has been pledged in emergency relief, but Zoellick said that that more will be needed. "This crisis isn't over once the emergency needs are met," he said.
Jennifer Parmalee, a WPF official in Washington, told Â鶹´«Ã½net on Tuesday that her agency will be looking mainly to traditional donors, including Canada, "which was our third-largest donor last year."
The WPF's cost of obtaining food has gone up by 55 per cent just in the last nine months, she said, adding the world humanitarian community considers this the worst food crisis in 40 years.
Helping Afghanistan
World Food Programme officials inspected an emergency food distribution centre in Afghanistan and met with Afghan leaders on Tuesday. The WPF calls Afghanistan one of the countries in Asia most vulnerable to rising food prices.
In March, the WFP began a $77-million program to reduce suffering among members of high-risk groups:
- Households headed by women;
- Families with nine or more children;
- Disabled male heads of families; and
- Those internally displaced by the country's violence
The program helps 152,000 people in Kandahar province, where Canada's troops operate, and 317,000 across southern Afghanistan.
However, a total of 717,000 people receive some degree of food help in Kandahar, through initiatives such as food-at-school or food-at-work programs.
About one million Afghans live in Kandahar province.
Wheat is a staple in the area. In recent weeks, the price had doubled or even tripled, creating what the WFP calls "food insecurity," reported CTV's Paul Workman.
That essentially means children going hungry, he said.
"They've also noticed that prices have also started dropping -- by about 30 per cent -- since this program was initiated," Workman said by e-mail.
The WPF's Tony Banbury said Tuesday in Kandahar that Canada provided $25 million to his agency late last year and has donated $10 million to the emergency appeal, making it one of the larger donors.
Banbury worried what might happen when the program runs out in June.
Roots of the global crisis
On Sunday, the World Food Programme's John Powell told CTV's Question Period that skyrocketing food prices hurt poor nations the hardest.
"In Canada, Australia or here in Europe, typically, a family will spend 10 to 20 percent of their income on food," he said.
"If you're a poor person in a developing country, we're talking about 60 to 80 percent of your income being spent on food. That's a huge difference and a hugely difficult position that these people find themselves in."
To pay for food, people do the following, he said:
- Take their children out of school;
- Skip medical care;
- Cut back to two from three meals per day; and
- Shift to less nutritious food
These steps are particularly hard on the very youngest poor children in these developing nations, Powell said.
"It tips these people already on the razor's edge of survival right into the abyss," Parmalee said.
A variety of factors has been blamed for the crisis:
- Speculation by investors trading in food commodities;
- Unpredictable weather and climate change;
- Rising oil prices; and
- Growing demand from the increasingly affluent middle classes of China and India
The crisis has sparked violent protests in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.
On Monday, Zoellick praised Ukraine for lifting a ban on exporting food because countries had to think globally about easing this crisis.
"We are urging countries not to use export bans," he said.
With files from The Associated Press
