We need global leadership to prevent starvation

They are the world’s forgotten poor, invisible to the financial markets, barely noticed because, understandably, the focus is on Ukraine, but nearly 800 million of the world’s poorest people are about to be trapped by an onrushing food crisis caused by soaring prices, fuelled by shortages and exacerbated by conflict, climate change, and Covid.

This will bring 300 million souls to the edge of starvation, lead to riots, and topple governments. Food price increases already exceed those in the disastrous 2008 and 2011 crises, the latter of which triggered the Arab Spring.

Now aggravated by rising inflation, energy shortages, depreciating currencies, and the continuing fiscal pressures to pay for vaccinations and social safety nets, 60 per cent of low-income countries are in or at high