[Marxism] World Bank urges action as food prices spur political unrest

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

04/10/2008 04:24 PM 
WORLD BANK CALLS FOR ACTION 
Chaos Spreads as Food Prices Skyrocket 
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,546551,00.html
 


Gunfire in Haiti. Riots in Cameroon. A government crisis in the Philippines. 
The effects of skyrocketing food prices have reached every corner of the globe. 
Now, the World Bank has called for world leaders to take action before it is 
too late. 

The scenes in Haiti have been dramatic. Gunfire on the streets in the capital 
Port-au-Prince; thousands parading through the streets; and 9,000 United 
Nations peacekeepers powerless to stop the violence and the widespread looting. 
Five people have been killed in the violence since last Thursday, according to 
unofficial reports. Even an impassioned plea by the Caribbean country's 
President Rene Preval on Wednesday failed to restore order. 

"The solution is not to go around destroying stores," he said. "I'm giving you 
orders to stop." 

Haitians, though, are reacting to problems that cannot simply be wished away. 
Food prices across the globe have been skyrocketing in recent years. Rice 
prices in Asia have spiked as has the price of bread in Egypt, milk products in 
Europe and pasta in Italy. The result has been unrest in a number of countries 
and many more concerned that a mass protest is but a price hike away. 

Now, World Bank President Robert Zoellick has called on world leaders to act to 
ease the global food crisis. Zoellick urged the United States, the European 
Union, Japan and other developed countries to help plug a $500 million (â319 
million) shortfall in the United Nations' World Food Program. In a speech given 
in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Zoellick said the money was urgently needed 
to meet emergency demands and warned that if politicians did not act now, "many 
more people will suffer and starve." 

Unrest triggered by the higher food and fuel prices has been gaining steam 
across the globe in recent weeks. During a two-day riot in Egypt earlier this 
week, one person was killed. Cameroon has also seen street violence. In the 
Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo warned on Tuesday that rice 
shortages were exacerbating political and social tensions in the country. 

Zoellick, who was speaking in the run-up to the World Bank's spring meeting 
this weekend, said world leaders needed to develop a new mechanism that focused 
not only on hunger, malnutrition and access to food and its supply, but also on 
the connections between energy, crop yields, climate change and other factors. 

According to the World Bank president, as financial markets have tumbled, food 
prices have soared. The prices of some basic staples, such as rice and wheat, 
have shot up by as much as 80 percent in some places. 

The UN estimates that global food prices have risen 65 percent since 2002, with 
grain rising 42 percent and dairy products 80 percent last year alone. Jacques 
Diouf, the director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation warned 
Wednesday that unrest linked to food and fuel prices, which has been seen in 
Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique 
and Senegal, could spread to even more countries. 

Zoellick said the World Bank, whose main task is to fight poverty in developing 
countries, estimated "that 33 countries around the world face potential 
conflict and social unrest because of the acute hike in food and energy 
prices." In countries where food made up half to three-quarters of consumer 
spending, "there is no margin for survival," he said. 

According to Zoellick, high and volatile food prices will continue for years, 
because of growing populations, changing diets, rising energy prices, the 
emergence of biofuels that force farmers to choose between lucrative fuel crops 
and foodstuffs, and climate change. 

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also urged world leaders to intervene to 
tackle rising food scarcity. In a letter released Thursday, he writes about the 
urgent need to address rising food prices and the impact of biofuel production 
on agriculture. "Rising food prices threaten to roll back progress we have made 
in recent years on development," Brown wrote. "For the first time in decades, 
the number of people facing hunger is growing." 

maw/ap/reuters



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