MadagascarWFP2009FoodInflationPrices

Country:Madagascar Topic:Food Inflation Prices Matthew Tran

I. Country Policy and Involvement:

In the last few decades after the 1970's, food prices have slowly risen and now the world is back in the same situation in 1970 because of the fall of many world markets and the high prices of oil and alternate energies. With the inflation of the world markets, basic food prices also started to rise. Families in Madagascar could not buy the same food commidities they could so they resorted to buying cheaper and less nutritious foods leading to malnutrition. Madagascar is strongly affected by the food price inflation because the economy in Madagascar is very fragile. Between January and April 2004, Madagascar's currency lost 50% of its value. At the end of September 2004 inflation hit 22%; and over the 12 months to last December it was 11.4%. Madagascar faces daily power cuts everyday since June 2005 because the electric company is close to bankruptcy. Bills rose by 30% during July 2005 and by a further 30% during November. During the first quarter of the year, exports by businesses in the free trade zone fell by 24% compared with 2004. Approximately 70% live on less than 1$ per day. The average price of a kilo of rice has risen 2%.

II. United Nations Involvement:

The United Nations has done alot to help recover from the crisis. In the crisis's early stages, the World Food Programme (WFP) tried to aid people by fundraising and creating new programs. The WFP also worked with other committees like the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) and the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooporation and Development) and a series of other countries to raise $100 billion United States dollars for alleviating the rising food prices. Nonetheless, the WFP could not provide the flow of funds that it was receiving from donar countries because the donar countries were also being affected by the food price inflation. Despite that, the WFP did not stop trying to help the people as they still tried to raise funds for the needy countries. Even now the WFP helps the countries that are in need of help because of the food price inflation. In 2008, the WFP helped approximately 600,00 people in Madagascar at the cost of about 19 million United States dollars. Since the year 2000, the WFP has distributed 191,400 tons of food commodities under various programme activities in the North Caucasus, valued at US$ 94.4 million. In 2006, the agency provided over 13,633 tons of food commodities to 294,469 vulnerable population groups in Chechnya and Ingushetia. Also the UN General Assembly published the Right to Food which recognized the WFP's 81 hunger spots in the world and states that no man, woman or child is without proper food commodities.

III. Solutions:

Both Madagascar and its people are in a state of catastrophe because of sky-rocketing food prices. Madagascar is sure that most other countries are also in a state of disaster because of the food price inflation. Because of this, Madagascar has an idea that Madagascar thinks that many should agree with. Madagascar would like many NGOs created and funded for the purpose of fundraising. With the countless NGOs all making money from fundraising, lots of money will be raised. This money that is raised will be donated to countries that are in economic crisis. The first countries that will be donated to will be the countries that are in most need of the funds. With this plan, the economies of countries will get better and with that, the food prices will lower.