Second Joint Statement by the Heads of Food and Agricultural Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Food Programme, and World Trade

The war in Ukraine continues to exacerbate the global food security and nutrition
crisis, with high and volatile energy, food and fertilizer prices,
restrictive trade policies, and supply chain disruptions. Despite the

reprieve in global


food prices

and the resumption of grain exports from the Black Sea,

food remains beyond reach for many due to high prices and weather
shocks

.

The number of people facing acute food insecurity worldwide is expected
to continue to rise

. Fertilizer markets remain volatile, especially in Europe, where tight
natural gas supplies and high prices have caused many producers of urea and
ammonia to stop operations. This may reduce fertilizer application rates
for the next crop season, prolonging and deepening the impact of the
crisis.

There has been considerable progress in

four key areas

we had highlighted in our first joint statement. Announced or implemented
social assistance measures across all economies quadrupled from 37 to
148 between April and September 2022
.
We welcome the efforts of the Global Crisis Response Group and the
Black Sea Grain Initiative: through the

Joint Coordination Centre

, over 3 million metric tons of grain and foodstuffs have already been
exported from Ukraine. We are encouraged by the downward trend of trade
restrictive measures implemented by countries and hope that the trend
continues. International financial support to the most vulnerable countries
is increasing from various initiatives. The World Bank is implementing its
$30 billion program to respond to the food security crisis and frontloading
resources from the IDA20 Crisis Response Window. The IMF is proposing a new
food shock window within the IMF emergency lending instruments. The FAO has
proposed a series of

policy recommendations

and launched detail soil nutrition maps at country level to increase
efficiencies in the use of fertilizers.

Maintaining momentum on these fronts and building resilience for the future
will require a continued comprehensive and coordinated effort tosupport efficient production and trade,improve transparency, accelerate innovationand joint planning and invest in food systems transformation:

1. Support efficient production and trade: Governments in
all countries need to urgently re-examine their agricultural trade and
market interventions, such as subsidies and export restrictions, to
identify and minimize distortions. Shorter interventions cause less harm
than indefinite ones. Promoting the production of nutritious foods and

repurposing the US$639 billion support per year provided to agriculture
by governments

can

transform food systems and improve food security and nutrition.

Preserving open trade in food, agriculture, and energy can reduce price
distortions that dilute incentives for efficient production. Countries
should follow through on commitments made at the

WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference

to restrain export restrictions on food and fertilizers and put in place
trade facilitation measures. We also welcome clarifications of relevant
regulations to allow critical agricultural inputs such as fertilizers to
move swiftly to countries in need.

2. Improve transparency: Food market monitoring serves as
an important and efficient early warning mechanism and must be supplemented
with transparent tracking of financing by the international community to
respond to the food crisis. Governments should provide necessary data and
resources to support

Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS)

, which enhances transparency in food markets through monitoring the prices
and availability of major food crops and promoting policy responses. In
addition, the

Global Alliance for Food Security (GAFS)

is harmonizing existing tracking systems in a dashboard to enable
governments and country teams to identify needs and channel financing to
respond to the crisis.

3. Accelerate innovation and joint planning: Agricultural
research and development is a chronically underinvested sector, while it
has

one of the highest returns on public spending

. Innovation is crucial for meeting the long-term challenges to global food
security and nutrition posed by climate change, land and ecosystem
degradation, pests, and transboundary plant and animal diseases.
Disseminating best practices from FAO and supporting the Consortium of
International Agricultural Research Centers (OneCGIAR) are important
actions to address these challenges. Such efforts should also lead to more
systematic coordination and joint planning to connect short-, medium- and
long-term opportunities and deliver support in a timely manner.

4. Invest in food systems transformation: Strengthening
the resilience of food systems to risks, including conflict,

extreme weather events

, economic shocks and diseases is key for the longer-term response.
Addressing both infrastructure bottlenecks and input supply bottlenecks
(e.g., fertilizers and seeds) are critical to an efficient food supply
system. Effective and sustainable support to smallholder farmers will be
vital to ensure they are part of the solution and to localize supply
chains. The private sector has a critical role to play, and the
International Finance Corporation (IFC) will establish a Global Food
Security Platform that will provide working capital and longer-term
financing for sustainable agribusinesses and related sectors in the food
supply chain. Deeper integration of markets can also help avoid price
spikes of essential goods and drive economic diversification and job
creation to build overall resilience.

We remain committed to working together to address immediate food security
and nutrition needs, tackle structural market issues that may exacerbate
adverse impacts, and build countries’ resilience to prevent and mitigate
the impacts of future crises.