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Secretary Ban on Countering the World Food Crisis: Aid or Trade?
Category: Development
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
“Soaring food prices, climate change and the lag in achieving development goals mean more free trade, not less, is needed to boost the economies of the poorest countries,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at Sunday’s opening of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). This week’s conference in Accra, Ghana, puts forward an ambitious agenda, covering topics such as foreign investment, commodity prices, technology, South-South trade, and the food crisis.
Two points of controversy that the conference will try to resolve are the role of aid in countering the current food crisis and biofuels. Secretary Ban stated that aid would be necessary to offset the immediate ramifications of the food crisis. However, he implored the international community to remember that “the forces that spread prosperity so widely in recent decades are the same forces that will carry us into the future—trade and economic development.” For this reason, international agricultural markets should remain open. “Beggar Thy Neighbor food wars cannot, in the long run, help anyone.”
UNCTAD remains skeptical of fossil fuels and other traditional energy sources. This has already raised some controversy as newer biofuels are increasingly scrutinized for the role they play in food scarcities. Secretary Ban nonetheless implored conference attendees to consider the merits of biofuels and stated that “the reasons for the [food] crisis are many and cannot be solely ascribed, as some do, to a simple trade-off between biofuels and agriculture.”
While Secretary Ban mentioned the importance of UN agencies in countering the immediate consequences of the food crisis, especially the World Food Program, his remarks lacked the typical UN call to funding that is often invoked during times of crisis. Instead, the task of UNCTAD is to ensure that the benefits of markets extend to developing countries. “More trade, not less, will get us out of the hole we’re in.”
For more information about UNCTAD, click here.
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