Agency Heads Call for Urgent Action to Address
Global Food Security Crisis
·
Support
Efficient Production and Trade
·
Improve
Transparency
·
Accelerate
Innovation and Joint Planning
·
Invest in
Food Systems Transformation
Heads of the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group,
World Food Programme and the WTO issued a joint statement on 21 September calling
on governments to take urgent and coordinated action to address the acute food crisis.
They underscored the importance of maintaining momentum on ongoing work and building
resilience for the future, which “will require a continued comprehensive and coordinated
effort to support efficient production and trade, improve transparency, accelerate
innovation and joint planning and invest in food systems transformation”.
The joint statement
is below.
Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations (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 the following second
joint statement calling for urgent action to address the global food security crisis.
The war in Ukraine continues to exacerbate the global
food security and nutrition crisis, with high and volatile energy, food
and fertilizer prices, restrictive trade policies, and supply chain disruptions.
Despite the reprieve in global food prices and the resumption of grain exports from the Black Sea, food remains beyond reach for many due to high prices and weather
shocks. The number of people facing acute food insecurity worldwide
is expected to continue to rise. Fertilizer markets remain volatile, especially in Europe, where tight
natural gas supplies and high prices have caused many producers of urea and ammonia
to stop operations. This may reduce fertilizer application rates for the next crop
season, prolonging and deepening the impact of the crisis.
There has been considerable progress in four key areas we had highlighted in our first joint statement. Announced
or implemented social assistance measures across all economies quadrupled from 37
to 148 between April and September 2022. We welcome the efforts of the Global Crisis
Response Group and the Black Sea Grain Initiative: through the Joint
Coordination Centre, over
3 million metric tons of grain and foodstuffs have already been exported from Ukraine.
We are encouraged by the downward trend of trade restrictive measures implemented
by countries and hope that the trend continues. International financial support
to the most vulnerable countries is increasing from various initiatives. The World
Bank is implementing its $30 billion program to respond to the food security crisis
and frontloading resources from the IDA20 Crisis Response Window. The IMF is proposing
a new food shock window within the IMF emergency lending instruments. The FAO has
proposed a series of policy recommendations and launched detail soil nutrition maps at
country level to increase efficiencies in the use of fertilizers.
Maintaining momentum on these fronts and building resilience
for the future will require a continued comprehensive and coordinated effort to
support efficient
production and trade, improve transparency, accelerate innovation
and joint planning
and invest
in food systems transformation:
1.
Support efficient
production and trade: Governments
in all countries need to urgently re-examine their agricultural trade and market
interventions, such as subsidies and export restrictions, to identify and minimize
distortions. Shorter interventions cause less harm than indefinite ones. Promoting
the production of nutritious foods and repurposing the US$639 billion support per year provided to
agriculture by governments can transform food
systems and improve food security and nutrition. Preserving open trade in food, agriculture,
and energy can reduce price distortions that dilute incentives for efficient production.
Countries should follow through on commitments made at the WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference to restrain export restrictions on food and
fertilizers and put in place trade facilitation measures. We also welcome clarifications
of relevant regulations to allow critical agricultural inputs such as fertilizers
to move swiftly to countries in need.
2.
Improve transparency: Food market monitoring serves as an important
and efficient early warning mechanism and must be supplemented with transparent
tracking of financing by the international community to respond to the food crisis.
Governments should provide necessary data and resources to support Agricultural
Market Information System (AMIS), which enhances transparency in food markets through monitoring the
prices and availability of major food crops and promoting policy responses. In addition,
the Global Alliance for Food Security (GAFS) is harmonizing existing tracking systems
in a dashboard to enable governments and country teams to identify needs and channel
financing to respond to the crisis.
3.
Accelerate
innovation and joint planning: Agricultural research and development is a chronically underinvested
sector, while it has one of the highest returns on public spending. Innovation is crucial for meeting the long-term
challenges to global food security and nutrition posed by climate change, land and
ecosystem degradation, pests, and transboundary plant and animal diseases. Disseminating
best practices from FAO and supporting the Consortium of International Agricultural
Research Centers (OneCGIAR)
are important actions to address these challenges. Such efforts should also lead
to more systematic coordination and joint planning to connect short-, medium- and
long-term opportunities and deliver support in a timely manner.
4.
Invest in food
systems transformation: Strengthening
the resilience of food systems to risks, including conflict, extreme weather events, economic shocks and diseases is key for
the longer-term response. Addressing both infrastructure bottlenecks and input supply
bottlenecks (e.g., fertilizers and seeds) are critical to an efficient food supply
system. Effective and sustainable support to smallholder farmers will be vital to
ensure they are part of the solution and to localize supply chains. The private
sector has a critical role to play, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC)
will establish a Global Food Security Platform that will provide working capital
and longer-term financing for sustainable agribusinesses and related sectors in
the food supply chain. Deeper integration of markets can also help avoid price spikes
of essential goods and drive economic diversification and job creation to build
overall resilience.
We remain committed to working together to address immediate
food security and nutrition needs, tackle structural market issues that may exacerbate
adverse impacts, and build countries’ resilience to prevent and mitigate the impacts
of future crises.