Food Fund Promise Unfulfilled (Washington Post)
CGD senior fellow Kimberly Ann Elliott was quoted by the Washington Post in an article on world financial leaders' efforts to stem the rise of global food prices.
From the Article:
World financial leaders gathering in Paris this weekend have put the recent rise in food prices high on their agenda, examining whether new trading rules or better regulation of commodity markets might help avoid sharp runups in the cost of wheat, sugar and other staples.
But food experts and analysts say the leaders may do better to focus on promises already made and fund a marquee world initiative on food security. Set up by the G20 group of nations at a gathering in Pittsburgh in 2009, the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) was designed to help countries expand agricultural production, build access to markets, and make their food supplies more resilient - buffering them from the type of price spikes currently rippling through world markets.
The program has so far garnered less than $1 billion in pledges, and of that only $367 million has been paid. A U.S. pledge of $475 million has gone largely unfulfilled, with Congress stripping all but $66 million of the proposed funding, according to U.S. and program officials. Major European nations - still strained by the recent recession - have yet to contribute to the fund, and fast-growing emerging market nations such as China and Brazil are also absent from the donor list, according to program documents.
The recent price increases "could have a bit of a silver lining if they show these programs are necessary," said Kimberly Elliott, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. "This is not a problem that is going away."
