Opinion: Restructuring our debt will help us fight the food crisis

Concessional loans from the World Bank offered at lower rates are a concrete step the institution can take to support countries like mine, Sierra Leone, to restructure our debt and fight the effect of the climate crisis on our food systems. To detractors who fear this would lose the bank its AAA rating, I say: If our food systems collapse, what good is a credit rating? Farmers know that a number of things have to go right to get a good harvest. They must get access to arable land and enough of the best quality seeds and fertilizers, protect their crops against pests and diseases, and pray for the right weather throughout the growing season. But for political leaders like me, this list of essentials is even greater. For Sierra Leone, our agricultural food systems are the beating heart of our economy and communities — beyond even nourishing our people. For these systems to thrive, we also need investment in agriculture-related innovation, infrastructure, information, value-addition, and market access. These factors are even more urgent as the impacts of climate change create ever-changing weather conditions. These impacts are obvious in the short term, as in the cyclone that devastated Malawi recently, and also in the long term, as erratic rainfall and temperatures render current farming practices obsolete. Food insecurity has reached global crisis levels. But despite the urgency of the situation, the funding needed both to respond to humanitarian emergencies and to transform food systems for the future is still not being released and invested where it is most needed. We struggle to access the funding needed to respond to climate emergencies at the scale and speed needed, despite being least responsible for the climate crisis in the first place. African countries which comprise nearly 17% of the global population are responsible for under 4% of new carbon emissions and even less in terms of total historic emissions. And we are also facing the most tangible and devastating impacts of climate change. This is both because of the geographic latitudes we happen to occupy and the more fragile systems to withstand the shocks climate change imposes. With this in mind, long-term financing must be made available to transform food systems to make them resilient and fit for purpose in the future. Rainfall patterns affect rain-fed agricultural systems. Pests, poor soil conditions, poor seed systems, outmoded farming methods, and poor agriculture financing are all further complicated by climate change. This imperils food security, especially in countries like mine. Global increases in the costs of fertilizer, food, and fuel as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the geopolitical crises in Ukraine have further exacerbated the global food crisis and kept large sections of vulnerable populations more food insecure. I worry about how these compounded issues will affect the health and economic well-being of the next generation here and beyond. We know that the investment to build resilience at the country and community level is far lower than the cost of responding to recurring food crises. Africa alone is estimated to need $41.3 billion annually for its adaptation needs, yet sub-Saharan Africa received just $3.6 billion in adaptation finance in 2017-2018. And only 15% of international climate financing currently goes to climate-vulnerable countries. A recent analysis for Ethiopia, Malawi, and Nigeria estimated that it would require an average additional public investment of $10 billion per year through 2030 to transform their food systems, with the donor share averaging $5.8 billion and the country share averaging $4.2 billion per year. There are real opportunities this year for countries like mine to make progress on securing the billions needed in tackling this crisis. As it transitions to new leadership, the World Bank can uniquely step up. In fact, it was set up with a very similar mandate 80 years ago, in the midst of World War II. Its goals were twofold: first, to help countries directly devastated by the war to rebuild; and, second, to support lower-income countries to become more stable through economic development. The World Bank, therefore, has a continued and vital role to play now in responding to the new global challenges we face. A 2022 report prepared for the Group of 20 leading economies found that with a less conservative approach, multilateral development banks could increase their lending by hundreds of billions of dollars. Imagine what that could do in the fight against hunger. Concessional loans can support countries such as Sierra Leone to restructure our existing high-interest debt — the servicing of which currently eats up a heavy share of the government budget — avoid future defaults, and encourage more investor confidence to jumpstart critical sectors such as agriculture — even with the potential for us to become a future contributor to the world food supply chain. Concerns about the World Bank keeping its AAA rating, to my mind, miss the bigger picture. If those most affected by climate lose trust in global systems, what trickle-down effects would result? Failure to act is the equivalent of not using a hosepipe to put out a fire for fear of getting it dirty. It risks finance and aid becoming politicized or weaponized — or worse yet undelivered. Building on recent discussions at the recent World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings, a new financing approach must break the cycle of crises in Sierra Leone, Africa, and across low- and middle-income countries once and for all. Doing so would reinvigorate the bank’s mandate and ensure that future food systems play the central role they must play in the change we so urgently need. There are further opportunities this year to make progress, including the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact in June. Hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in France, the stated goal is to build a new contract between the countries of the global north and south to address climate change and the global crisis. Unlocking the finance needed to build strong food systems must be high on the agenda. Financing the transformation of our food systems unlocks myriad other development outcomes beyond healthier diets, including boosting youth employment and rural livelihoods. It would also ensure the sector keeps its own carbon emissions in balance with our climate mitigation targets under the Paris Agreement. This makes financial sense, moral sense, and common sense. Now is the time to put tackling the food crisis at the top of the global agenda. Visit Food Secured — the series that explores how to save the food system — where experts share groundbreaking solutions for a sustainable and resilient future. Explore the series.