sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
Ukraine war: World Bank warns of 'human catastrophe' food crisis
Published1 day ago
The world faces a "human catastrophe" from a food crisis arising from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, World Bank president David Malpass has said.
He told the BBC that record rises in food prices would push hundreds of millions people into poverty and lower nutrition, if the crisis continues.
The World Bank calculates there could be a "huge" 37% jump in food prices.
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Instead, he said, the focus needed to be on increasing supplies across the world of fertilisers and food, alongside targeted assistance for the very poorest people.
The World Bank chief also warned of a knock on "crisis within a crisis" arising from the inability of developing countries to service their large pandemic debts, amid rising food and energy prices.
"This is a very real prospect. It's happening for some countries, we don't know how far it'll go. As many as 60% of the poorest countries right now are either in debt distress or at high risk of being in debt distress," he said.
"We have to be worried about a debt crisis, the best thing to do is to start early to act early on finding ways to reduce the debt burden for countries that are on have unsustainable debt, the longer you put it off, the worse it is," he added
The acknowledgement by the World Bank president that we have to be worried about a developing country debt crisis, is very significant.
The combination of massive pandemic debts with rising interest rates, and rising prices is truly toxic.
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And there is a very new dynamic these days. The bankers to whom these sums are owed are no longer just in the West.
China is now, very broadly, owed as much as the entire collection of Western creditors known as the Paris Club.
How will it respond to calls for leniency on the repayment of loans?
Mr Malpass says of China: "They have different rules, for example, contracts that have non-disclosure clauses, meaning you can't share the terms with other people that makes it very hard to restructure those debts".
China has also secured its lending against ports and natural resources. Sri Lanka is a case in point right now.
The unwinding of all of this might not be orderly, and could have significant geopolitical consequences.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61171529
Published1 day ago
The world faces a "human catastrophe" from a food crisis arising from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, World Bank president David Malpass has said.
He told the BBC that record rises in food prices would push hundreds of millions people into poverty and lower nutrition, if the crisis continues.
The World Bank calculates there could be a "huge" 37% jump in food prices.
snip
snip
Instead, he said, the focus needed to be on increasing supplies across the world of fertilisers and food, alongside targeted assistance for the very poorest people.
The World Bank chief also warned of a knock on "crisis within a crisis" arising from the inability of developing countries to service their large pandemic debts, amid rising food and energy prices.
"This is a very real prospect. It's happening for some countries, we don't know how far it'll go. As many as 60% of the poorest countries right now are either in debt distress or at high risk of being in debt distress," he said.
"We have to be worried about a debt crisis, the best thing to do is to start early to act early on finding ways to reduce the debt burden for countries that are on have unsustainable debt, the longer you put it off, the worse it is," he added
The acknowledgement by the World Bank president that we have to be worried about a developing country debt crisis, is very significant.
The combination of massive pandemic debts with rising interest rates, and rising prices is truly toxic.
snip
And there is a very new dynamic these days. The bankers to whom these sums are owed are no longer just in the West.
China is now, very broadly, owed as much as the entire collection of Western creditors known as the Paris Club.
How will it respond to calls for leniency on the repayment of loans?
Mr Malpass says of China: "They have different rules, for example, contracts that have non-disclosure clauses, meaning you can't share the terms with other people that makes it very hard to restructure those debts".
China has also secured its lending against ports and natural resources. Sri Lanka is a case in point right now.
The unwinding of all of this might not be orderly, and could have significant geopolitical consequences.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61171529