Reuters—WFP plans global fund to pre-buy food stocks
The U.N. World Food Program plans to launch a global fund that will allow it to secure food stocks in advance rather than “panic-buying” when crises hit, the agency’s chief said on Tuesday. Josette Sheeran, executive director of the program, said the move would help bring predictability to food aid and prevent distortion of local markets already hit by food-price spikes and the financial meltdown.

Financial Times—Forgotten victims of the global downturn
The Financial Times reports that at a recent private brainstorming session at UN headquarters, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon heard a uniformly grim assessment of the devastating impact the global financial crisis will have on the developing world. What began as an economic crisis was in danger of turning into a social, humanitarian, political and security meltdown that could spin out of control in the most vulnerable regions, his experts told him. The message they want him to take to donor countries is that by shoring up foreign aid levels they would be helping to revive their own sinking economies, the paper writes.

Reuters—U.N. says it is paralyzed in Sudan without aid partners
The United Nations relies so heavily on outside groups to deliver aid in Darfur that Sudan’s expulsion of 16 non-governmental organizations has paralyzed as much as half of its programs, officials said on Tuesday. The expelled groups — whose computers, cars and equipment were also confiscated by Sudanese authorities — employed 6,500 aid workers in Darfur, where 4.7 million people rely on foreign assistance for food, shelter and protection from fighting. President Obama also condemned the expulsion yesterday, saying it could create “a potential crisis of even greater dimensions” than was previously the case in Sudan.

L.A. Times—Zimbabwe’s unity government faces huge hurdles
The L.A. Times looks at the challenges facing the unity government in Zimbabwe, writing that the country’s finances are catastrophic; vital services such as health, education, power and water are paralyzed; and the man still often calling the shots, President Mugabe, seems more fond of power plays than power sharing. Prime Minister Tsvangirai promises reform and a better future, but without money from the West, his team has little hope of success, the paper writes.

AFP—Global financial crisis will hit Africa hard
At the opening of a conference in Tanzania yesterday, the chief of the International Monetary Fund warned that millions of Africans face being thrown back into poverty and conflict by the global financial crisis, and urgent action is needed. “We meet at a critical juncture in history for Africa,” IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said. “And the threat is not only economic, there is a real risk that millions will be thrown back into poverty.”

-Steve Wilson