World Bank urges support for poor as food prices soar

World Bank urges support for poor as food prices soar

DUBAI: A senior World Bank official called for more support for poor people globally Thursday as the war in Ukraine sends food prices soaring. Developing and import-dependent countries have been heavily impacted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine-the two countries that account for more than a quarter of the world’s annual wheat sales. “It’s not so much about food availability,” Mari Pangestu, the World Bank’s managing director for development policy, told AFP during Middle East and North Africa Climate Week in Dubai. “The production at the moment is adequate, whether we’re talking about wheat, rice or maize, which are the main food products.

“It’s more about affordability. Apart from making sure the flow of goods and fertilizers are not impeded, we really need to make sure that affordability of food for the poor households is also going to be addressed.” Net food importers will suffer the most from the economic repercussions of the war, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which lists 36 countries as highly dependent on wheat imports from Ukraine and Russia-mostly in Africa and the Middle East. Among those affected are Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia and war-torn Yemen, whose humanitarian crisis is already considered the world’s