THE World Bank met in Washington, D.C., the United States, yesterday as rising food prices spark deadly unrest in developing countries, underscoring the urgency of getting food aid to desperate people.

Policymakers of the anti-poverty bank were due to discuss a massive, coordinated international plan to reduce hunger announced less than two weeks ago by the head of the bank, Robert Zoellick.

With soaring food prices threatening political stability in poor countries, Zoellick called for a “new deal” for global food policy, similar in scope to a 1930s program under U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt that tackled the problems of the Great Depression.

The World Bank meeting came against a backdrop of a mounting global financial crisis, a U.S. economy teetering on recession, high energy prices and currency market imbalances.

The 185-nation bank’s sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued a dire warning Saturday about the food crisis at their spring meetings in Washington.

“Food prices, if they go on like they are doing today ... the consequences will be terrible,” IMF managing director Dominque Strauss-Kahn said.

According to a World Bank policy note released this past week, increases in global wheat prices reached 181 percent over the 36 months leading up to last February, and overall global food prices increased by 83 percent.

(SD-Agencies)