FINANCE MINISTERS EMPHASIZE FOOD CRISIS OVER CREDIT CRISIS
By Steven R. Weisman

The New York Times
KarabakhOpen
14-04-2008 14:42:52

WASHINGTON — The world’s economic ministers declared on Sunday
that shortages and skyrocketing prices for food posed a potentially
greater threat to economic and political stability than the turmoil
in capital markets.

The ministers, conferring in the shadow of a slumping American
economy that threatens to pull down the economies of other countries,
turned their attention to the food crisis and called on the wealthiest
countries to fulfill pledges to help prevent starvation and disorder
in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

"Throughout the weekend we have heard again and again from ministers
in developing countries and emerging economies that this is a priority
issue," said Robert B. Zoellick, president of the World Bank. "We have
to put our money where our mouth is now, so that we can put food into
hungry mouths. It is as stark as that."

Mr. Zoellick said that almost half of the $500 million that the World
Food Program recently requested in additional pledges for food aid
this year had been committed, but that the program would not meet a
deadline of raising the money by May 1.

The World Food Program seeks the aid, on top of nearly $3 billion
already committed, because of shortfalls in food distribution resulting
from higher prices.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International
Monetary Fund, said the food crisis posed questions about the
survivability of democracy and political regimes.

"As we know in the past, sometimes those questions lead to war,"
he said. "We now need to devote 100 percent of our time to these
questions."

World Bank and I.M.F. officials noted that political instability had
already hit countries as disparate as Haiti, Egypt, the Philippines
and Indonesia because of food shortages, forcing some countries to
limit food exports.

Mr. Zoellick had earlier highlighted the food issue in speeches and
presentations this weekend, saying the World Bank intended not only
to help with the emergency situation but also to upgrade programs to
help countries produce more food on their own. He cited Malawi, in
southern Africa, as a country that has started going in that direction.

But food has also become a symbol of the conflicting pressures
that frequently emerge at the semiannual gatherings of finance and
development officials and central bankers that take place in Washington
every spring.

Some ministers from poor countries, for example, are growing impatient
with the way the West is addressing global warming by subsidizing and
encouraging conversion of corn, sugar cane and other food products into
substitutes for oil. The shift is helping to drive up prices, they say.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn said he had heard from many financial officials
this weekend that the West’s focus on fuel, at the expense of food,
was a "crime against humanity." Though he noted that the I.M.F. is
primarily a monetary and financial agency, he said it would try to
"review its tools" to help countries pay for food imports.

In addition, many ministers meeting here appeared to be self-conscious
about how much of the attention at the meeting has focused on the
global credit crisis, which has caused hundreds of billions of dollars
in losses for banks and investment banks, while there was less focus
on the problem of feeding the world’s poor.

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said on Friday that the subject
of food shortages had come up at the meeting of finance ministers of
the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan under the heading of the
Group of Seven.

"Every country sitting around the table was focused on it," Mr.

Paulson said of the Group of Seven’s concern about food, adding
that Mr. Zoellick "made an impassioned plea." But Treasury officials
said they had no details of what aid the United States was prepared
to commit.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress