Heads of World Bank, IMF, WFP and WTO Call for Action on Food Security

The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, U.N. World Food Program and the World Trade Organization called for coordinated action to address growing food security threats in an April 13 joint statement. As a response to the looming crisis, the heads of the organizations proposed providing emergency food supplies and financial support, facilitating "unhindered trade," and investing in sustainable food production.

“We call on the international community to urgently support vulnerable countries through coordinated actions ranging from provision of emergency food supplies, financial support, increased agricultural production, and open trade," the statement said. "We are committed to combining our expertise and financing to quickly step up our policy and financial support to help vulnerable countries and households as well as to increase domestic agricultural production in, and supply to, impacted countries. We can mitigate balance of payments pressures and work with all countries to keep trade flows open.”

The leaders also said they will “further reinforce our monitoring of food vulnerabilities and are quickly expanding our multi-faceted policy advice to affected countries guided by the comparative advantages of our respective institutions.”