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.
Poor countries are being forced to cut back on their economic crisis-response spending too soon. Education and social protection budgets are particularly badly affected. Oxfam is calling on the IMF to take steps to reverse this trend.