f not handled properly, this crisis could trigger a cascade of others and develop into multiple crisis, becoming a multi-dimensional problem affecting economic growth, social progress and even political security around the world”, said United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, warning that higher food prices risk wiping out progress towards reducing poverty.
Opening the 12th session of works of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) yesterday in Accra (Ghana), dedicated to “Addressing the opportunities and challenges of
globalization for development”, Ban underlined that “we cannot wait. We risk being set back to square one. We are in a time of growing economic uncertainty and no one must be left behind”.
According to the UN chief, the solution can be found necessarily with the conclusion of the Doha talks of the World Trade
Organization (WTO) and the abolition of subsidies that the wealthy nations concede to their farmers: “The first duty of a government is to feed its population. But governments must resist impulses towards protectionism… It is time that wealthier nations review old and outdated programs such as farm subsidies”.
A view shared also by UNCTAD secretary general Supachai Panitchpakdi, who defined the success of the Doha talks “vital” for a long-term solution to the global hike in food prices: “We will be jumping from one crisis to another unless the international community can address the major issue of a restructuring of the allocation of international aid”, he said, adding that between 2003 and 2005, $1,3-billion of development aid was spent on governance initiatives in the world’s poorest countries, compared with just $12-million on agricultural development, defining it “clearly disproportionate”.
The current decade, revealed Panitchpakdi, will be the first in history in which the majority of the ‘economically active’ population in developing nations will progressively seek work outside the farming sector: “The people are moving from the countryside to the cities, but the majority don’t find work. We have less support coming out of the agricultural population and more mouths to be fed”.
At least 15,000 Bangladesh garment factory workers staged a strike outside the factories in the Fatullah industrial area, around 20km outside the capital Dhaka, where in the past days riots over rising food prices left at least 50 injured, for the most part police officers. The workers “said they would not start work until the owners raise their salaries. They said their present wages don't cover food expenses”, said the local police chief to the international press.
The basic minimum monthly salary of a garment worker is only 1700 taka ($25), rarely reaching 2000 taka ($29), while a kilogram of rice costs 35 taka (50 cents), in a nation in which households already spend nearly 70 percent of their income on food. Last week, unrest, vandalism and strikes led owners of some factories to raise worker salaries by 200-250 taka (three to four dollars) a month. The industrials justify their resistance to salary hikes with the cut in the price of Bangladeshi garments on the international market.
The first duty of a government is to feed its population. But governments must resist impulses towards protectionism… It is time that wealthier nations review old and outdated programs such as farm subsidies
“The international community has a crucial role in supporting the government of Haiti”, a nation “still victim of political instability, violence and corruption”, indicates the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in a report released while the western part of the Hispaniola Island is theatre to riots and violence sparked by the rising prices of food products.
Without addressing the political crisis that last Saturday led to a non-confidence motion against the prime minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, though
recognizing improvements in the reduction of violence in the country, the poorest of Latin America, the IACHR observes that “Haiti’s institutions remain weak, under-resourced, under-staffed, poorly trained and
disorganized: as a result, state institutions are barely capable of performing their functions adequately, corruption is rife, and moreover, they are largely incapable of providing basic services for the population in the area of health, education and social welfare”.
The Commission of the OAS (Organization of American States) recommends that the government study a ‘national security plan’ to combat
organized crime, train police and introduce long-term reforms in the administration of justice. The ‘Rio Group’, a permanent body of consultation and political dialogue formed by Caribbean and Latin American States in 1986, expressed its full support for President Rene Préval, urging that a new government be promptly introduced “in conformity with the law and in the full exercise of its sovereignty”.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that the US coast guard is closely monitoring events in Haiti on the chance that recent unrest on the impoverished island might trigger a new wave of migration.
(From MISNA)