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President of World Bank issues warning of “human catastrophe” food crisis that could affect millions

By Joshua Manning • Updated: 21 Apr 2022 • 11:15

President of World Bank issues warning of "human catastrophe" food crisis that could affect millions Credit: Twitter @WorldBank

The World Bank has issued a warning of food prices possibly rising by 37% following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

According to the World Bank, food prices could increase by 37%, a rise that is “magnified” for people who have no resources. This would affect the poor the most, who will “eat less and have less money for anything else such as schooling”. World Bank President David Malpass stated that this impact on the poor made it “an unfair kind of crisis, that was true also of Covid”, in an interview with the BBC.

“It’s a human catastrophe, meaning nutrition goes down. But then it also becomes a political challenge for governments who can’t do anything about it, they didn’t cause it and they see the prices going up,” stated Malpass at the IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington.

The price rises will affect many different types of produce, with Malpass stating: “It’s affecting food of all different kinds oils, grains, and then it gets into other crops, corn crops, because they go up when wheat goes up. There was enough food in the world to feed everybody and global stockpiles are large by historical standards, but there will have to be a sharing or sales process to get the food to where it is needed.”

The World Bank President also voiced his concerns of a “crisis within a crisis” following developing countries being unable to pay off their debts from the pandemic with the huge rise in food and energy costs:

“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,” stated Malpass.

“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,” concluded Malpass.

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Written by

Joshua Manning

Originally from the UK, Joshua is based on the Costa Blanca and is a web reporter for the Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com.

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