Reform aid management to fight food crisis: World Bank chief

World Bank president Robert Zoellick on Thursday called for sweeping reforms in the way international aid is managed if the current food crisis is to be effectively tackled. One option, he suggested, is to lift export bans and restrictions on humanitarian food aid. "Restrictions, earmarks and onerous conditions on food aid mean higher costs and these should be removed to ensure that food gets to where it is most needed," he said. "These policies exacerbate the current crisis and harm the vulnerable. They must go," he told delegates at an international gathering debating ways to better manage and improve the impact of aid from rich to poor nations. He singled out the current global food crisis as undermining efforts to reduce poverty in many countries. The three-day conference, which ended Thursday, was attended by hundreds of officials from recipient countries and donor nations and agencies. More remains to be done and both donor and recipient countries must redouble their efforts to make aid more effective, Zoellick said. "Whether aid works can help determine whether the future is one of hope of privation," he said. Ministers and senior officials from more than 100 governments have been talking with representatives of donors to check on progress achieved in the way aid has been handled over the past three years. Speakers at the so-called High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness said that progress has been mired in bureaucracy since the two sides agreed in Paris in 2005 to work at improving the handling of foreign funds. Tens of billions of dollars of donors' funds are poured into developing countries each year, but often the impact is not felt as it gets held up in bureaucracies. Officials from both sides adopted the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) which helped improve how aid is used and "help countries across the world build a successful future based on a commitment to overcome poverty, a future in which no countries will depend on aid." The document enjoins both donor and recipient countries to reduce costly fragmentation of aid, adapt aid policies for countries dealing with crisis and make aid inflows more predictable. "What we have achieved during this high level forum should not be taken for granted," said South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. World Bank deputy managing director, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, urged donor countries to honour pledges made in the past. "To make aid effective, let's not forget the 30 billion dollars that is falling short," she said.