Searching for Statesmen

In a recent, important speech – “A Challenge of Economic Statecraft,” Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, addressed the current financial and economic turmoil plaguing global financial and commodity markets. In the course of his speech he highlighted four pressing problems – high food prices, stalled global trade negotiations, the “resource curse” of natural resource riches combined with lack of accountability and poor governance, and lack of investment resources for Africa – and pointed out how these problems also represent opportunities to lay the foundation for a new era of prolonged, equitable economic growth.

While all four proposed responses sum to a larger whole, I would like to focus just on the first issue – that of skyrocketing food prices and the implications for what Zoellick terms the “forgotten” Millennium Development Goal of Halving Hunger and Poverty. He points out that hunger and malnutrition receive only a small fraction of the resources directed to HIV/AIDS, even though malnutrition is the MDG with the greatest “multiplier” effect – i.e., it is the largest risk factor for kids under five and the underlying cause of an estimated 3.5 million of their deaths each year.

Needed is what Zoellick calls a New Deal for Global Food Policy. This must include not only direct measures to address hunger and malnutrition – increased food supply and increased access to food – but also the interconnections with energy, climate change, the marginalization of women and others, and economic resiliency. “Food policy,” he says, “needs to gain the attention of the highest political levels, because no one country or group can meet these interconnected challenges.” A shift to a broader concept of food and nutrition assistance and food security must be a part of this New Deal, along with increased attention to food production. In this regard, Zoellick reports that the World Bank will be increasing its lending for agriculture in Africa from $450 million to $800 million – a needed and long-overdue step in the right direction.

However, in spite of the urgency that he attempts to convey, there is no indication that, for example, food prices and food security will be on the agenda of the upcoming G8, and U.S. support for international agriculture continues to decline.

Zoellick concludes with a reference to the 19th century Prussian statesman Bismarck, who once noted that the mark of a statesman is recognizing Fate as she rushes by, so as to grab the mantle of her cloak. By this standard, true statesmen appear to be in short supply.