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Dubai: Seven years of pain-staking poverty alleviation work could unravel if the global food crisis is not addressed immediately, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned.
The "international community will also need to take urgent and concerted action in order to avoid the larger political and security implications of this growing crisis," he told international finance and trade officials at a UN meeting following their weekend talks in Washington.
"The UN needs to examine ways to lead a process for the immediate and longer-term responses to these global problems," he said.
Ban called for short-term emergency measures in many regions to avoid starvation and longer-term goals aimed at augmenting agricultural produce.
Forced to find jobs
The Unicef has, meanwhile, warned that rising food prices are telling on classroom attendance in poor countries as parents send school-going children to work.
Veronique Taveau, spokes-woman for the UN children's agency, said the organisation was "extremely concerned" about families compromising on the education of their children and removing them "from school to make them work".
In India, the opposition waded into the government for its inability to control prices, demanding an immediate ban on forward trading in commodities, among other things.
In the Philippines, where a perceived rice shortage has brought the country to the brink of unrest, President Gloria Arroyo warned: "Anyone caught stealing rice from the people must be thrown in jail" as she held a cabinet meeting that saw criminal cases being filed against 13 grain smugglers.
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