Rising food and fuel prices: addressing the risks to future generations
Ensuring food security in the face of rapidly rising food prices requires a combination of effective safety nets and improving agricultural productivity. Adjusting to higher fuel prices will require again effective safety nets plus a combination of efficient energy use and diversification away from traditional fossil fuels. This paper focuses on the safety net interventions required to minimize the costs of the crisis to current and future generations?primarily through direct income transfers but also, importantly, through the reinforcement of basic health and nutrition, the provision of high-quality education services and measures to ensure access by the poor. Setting up these safety nets will also reduce the vulnerability of poor households to future shocks such as those arising from climatic conditions or changes in the global economy.