International food prices are still high compared to 2005 – let alone to 2000.  The FAO cereal price index was in May 2009 still 55 percent above the 2005 level and 120 percent above the 2000 level.

Food prices at the local level did not and have not followed the international changes on a one-for-one basis.  Several factors play a role, including import dependency, trade barriers, policy measures and exchange rate movements.

At the local level, FAO estimates that in 80 percent of the countries with data, food prices are still higher than 12 months ago.  WFP estimates that the cost of the staple food basket was in the first quarter of 2009 more than 20 percent more expensive than the 5-year average in three quarters of the countries in which we monitor food prices.

Why is this important?  Food prices are very important because they partly determine how much and what we eat.  There is quite a bit of evidence that households who spend 50 to 80 percent of their expenditures on food, which is very common in developing countries, reduce the consumption of nutritious foods when food prices increase.   They might maintain the consumption of staples and of caloric intake, but they reduce the consumption of such items as final products and green-leafy vegetables.

Through those changes, micronutrient deficiencies and malnutrition increase.  And when these changes in food consumption happen before the age of 24 months, they are likely to be irreversible.  A child who is stunted at the age of two is stunted for life.  There is now significant evidence that inadequate nutrition at a young age impairs cognitive development, reduces learning capacity, leads to health problems and reduces their productivity.  We also know that inadequate food and nutrition leads to reduced immunity and higher morbidity and mortality.

Vulnerable households are now also facing a decline in incomes and jobs – on top of high food prices – as a result of the global economic and financial crisis as export volumes and prices decline, capital flows dry up and remittances fall.

Should we call this a crisis?  I think so.  A crisis relays a sense of urgency and the need for immediate action.  And that is exactly what is needed.  Because the window of opportunity for small children is so small – basically stretching from conception to 24 months – action is urgently required.  There is also a need for comprehensive action because there now more than 1 billion people hungry and more than 2 billion people are suffering from micronutrient deficiencies.  The scale of the problem is huge, and worsening in the current environment of high food prices and a global economic and financial crisis.

This is not a crisis that leads immediately to large numbers of violent deaths.  But it does lead to suffering and to higher mortality.  The crisis of hunger and malnutrition – in the case of micronutrient deficiencies often referred to as “hidden hunger” – is more subtle and its effects less noticeable.  It is a crisis nonetheless.

This is a debate worth engaging, and a good starting point is another pandemic threat, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).  When HPAI first appeared in southeast Asia in late 2003, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in coordination with the World Organization for Animal Health provided the first comprehensive response.  The affected countries had neither the capability nor the resources to deal with the bird flu outbreak without assistance.  FAO and OIE, at the invitation of the countries, stepped in to help develop national strategies for disease control and eradication.  Over the past 5 years these two international organizations have led a sustained effort to prevent and control HPAI based on a global strategy that includes surveillance, emergency preparedness, and capacity building to improve veterinary infrastructures.  

Evaluations of the FAO/OIE response have shown their efforts to be effective, though not perfect.  Would a decentralized response have been speedier, more flexible and more credible?  The answer is almost certainly, no.  Many countries simply do not have the capability to respond to a crisis such as HPAI without external assistance.  Yet, neither do FAO and OIE have either the resources or the authority to take over from national governments the primary responsibility for responding to a disease outbreak.  They cannot, for example, send in a team to provide assistance without an invitation from the national government.  

The international organizations have not been the only ones responding to HPAI.  Many donor countries have provided technical assistance and financial resources to affected and at-risk countries.  Sometimes, though, their assistance is more well-intentioned than effective.  Shortly after HPAI was first reported in Turkey, FAO was invited to send an evaluation team, whose visit was immediately followed by overlapping evaluation teams from two large donors.  Turkish veterinary officials were so overwhelmed with managing visitors that they had little time left to manage the crisis.  Greater coordination of these efforts was clearly warranted, but all too often coordination for the international organizations means “give us the money and we will decide what needs to be done.” 

The lesson to be learned from the HPAI experience is that we need strong international institutions, especially, but not solely, to assist countries with inadequate resources and capabilities to deal with crisis situations that threaten food security.  Technical experts in international organizations can provide neutral, credible advice that government leaders can use to defend difficult decisions, such as destroying a farmer’s livelihood in order to control a disease.  International organizations can and should do much more to coordinate the international response in a crisis.  They operate early warning and reporting networks.  They provide a forum for global planning and strategy development.  These are all crucial roles international organizations can play to support, not diminish, the primary responsibility of national governments to respond to a crisis.  When the stake is a global pandemic, multilateralism serves our self-interests.