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UN: $6 bln funding for global food crisis
The top United Nations relief official said $6 bln in
new funding to tackle the global food crisis has been pledged following the
recent food security summit in Rome.
“We need to focus both on the immediate needs and on the longer-term issues
starting right now and the focus is on the smallholder farmers in developing
countries,†Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes
announced. “These are the people who need most help and where there is the most
potential for increasing agricultural productivity and production.â€
Consensus
The new “Comprehensive Framework for Action†was reached by consensus among
the members of the international task force, which brings together the heads of
the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade
Organization (WTO) and key UN agencies.
The plan focuses on a series of measures to meet immediate needs and also
to build longer-term resilience to food crises in the future. Among the
immediate measures proposed in the plan are increasing nutritional and other
feeding programmes, as well as supplying fertilizers, seeds, animal feed and
veterinary services to help smallholder farmers in the current planting season.
Reduction
The plan also calls for a reduction in export bans on food commodities, and
focuses on the need for much greater investment in agricultural production in
the longer term. Noting that there was broad agreement on the way forward,
Holmes said the World Bank estimated that global food production had to rise by
at least 50% by 2030 to meet worldwide demand.
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