Washington D.C., April 20, 2012 – The developing world’s progress is seriously lagging on global targets related to food and nutrition, with rates of child and maternal mortality still unacceptably high, says the Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2012, released today by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Recent spikes in international food prices have stalled progress across several of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the report says.
GMR 2012: Food Prices, Nutrition and the Millennium Development Goals reports good progress across some MDGs, with targets related to reducing extreme poverty and providing access to safe drinking water already achieved, several years ahead of the 2015 deadline to achieve the MDGs. Also, targets on education and ratio of girls to boys in schools are within reach.
In contrast, the world is significantly off-track on the MDGs to reduce mortality rates of children under five and mothers. As a result, these goals will not be met in any developing region by 2015. Progress is slowest on maternal mortality, with only one-third of the targeted reduction achieved thus far. Progress on reducing infant and child mortality is similarly dismal, with only 50 per cent of the targeted decline achieved.
“High and volatile food prices do not bode well for attainment of many MDGs, as they erode consumer purchasing power and prevent millions of people from escaping poverty and hunger, besides having long-term adverse impacts on health and education,” said Justin Yifu Lin, the World Bank’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. “Dealing with food price volatility must be a high priority, especially as nutrition has been one of the forgotten MDGs,” he added.
GMR 2012 details solutions for making countries and communities more resilient in the face of food price spikes. Countries should deploy agricultural policies to encourage farmers to increase production; use social safety nets to improve resilience; strengthen nutritional policies to improve early childhood development; and design trade policies that enhance access to food markets, reduce food price volatility and induce productivity gains. However, the challenges countries face in responding to high food prices have been made more difficult as a result of the global recession.
“The fragile global economy could very well slow developing countries’ progress on human development goals, since the fiscal, debt, and current account positions, particularly of low income countries, have been weakened by the global financial crisis,” said Hugh Bredenkamp, Deputy Director of the IMF’s Strategy, Policy and Review Department.
