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The World Bank and IMF must step up their support for developing countries who are struggling with spiking food prices along with the fallout from Europe’s fiscal crisis, Oxfam said ahead of the annual meeting of the institutions in Tokyo this week.

More than 1.3 million people are displaced, dependant on emergency relief to survive. But dwindling contributions from the international community are forcing humanitarian organizations to close programs.

Despite being largely responsible for the worsening climate crisis in East Africa, rich nations paid Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and South Sudan just $2.4 billion in climate-related development finance in 2021, in stark contrast to the $53.3 billion East Africa says it needs annually to meet its 2030 climate goals.  

Insufficient funding and delays in food delivery threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands in the Sahel belt of West Africa. There is little excuse for the lack of adequate funding and delays – the international community had been warned of the magnitude of the unfolding crisis for months.

International agency Oxfam today welcomed the visit of UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, to Liberia, as it called on the international community to pay greater attention to the worsening refugee crisis in the country.

More than half the population of South Sudan – 6.6 million people – are severely hungry, including 2.2 million people at risk of starvation. Yet the humanitarian response remains woefully underfunded and without an urgent increase in aid now, 7.7 million people or two-thirds of the population will face severe food shortages next year, Oxfam warned today.

Food inflation in some East African countries outstrips the global average leaving millions hungry, while food billionaires increased their wealth by $382bn over the last two years.

The supply of safe and effective vaccines for all is being artificially rationed because of the protection of exclusive rights and monopolies of pharmaceutical corporations, the People’s Vaccine Alliance said today.

87 percent of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) COVID-19 loans are requiring developing countries that have been denied equal access to vaccines and are facing some of the world’s worst humanitarian crises to adopt tough, new austerity measures that will further exacerbate poverty and inequality.

Three months after floods devastated Pakistan, cases of disease are increasing and in the worst-hit region, the southern province of Sindh, large areas remain underwater. At the same time, funds for the UN flood appeal are drying up and threatening the aid and reconstruction effort.