High food prices results in hungry millions

LONDON: The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has said that high food prices threaten to plunge more than 100 million people into hunger, it was reported on Wednesday.

"This is the new face of hunger. Millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago now are," WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in London.

She said that like the 2004 tsunami, which hit the Indian Ocean leaving a quarter of a million dead and about 10 million more destitute, the food price challenge requires a global response.

"We need that same kind of action and generosity. What we are seeing now is affecting more people on every continent, destroying even more livelihoods, and the nutrition losses will hurt children for a lifetime," Sheeran said.

"It calls for large-scale, high-level action by the global community, focused on emergency and longer-term solutions," she said.

Sheeran said that partnerships would play a critical role in fighting this emergency. WFP has been engaging with governments, UN agencies, institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as well as NGOs to mobilize a coordinated response.