The following article is adapted from the July 2008 issue of Unitus’s partner newsletter, “The Accelerator.” The piece is specifically focused on helping MFIs prepare for and respond to the drastic increase in food prices occurring throughout the developing world.
As economies adjust to the global rise in food prices, the growing crisis is expected to have a disastrous impact on poor communities. This year alone, rice prices have soared 114 percent since January. World Bank President Robert Zoellick recently said that soaring food prices threaten to push 100 million more people in low-income areas deeper into poverty, undoing many of the dramatic improvements made over the past decade.1
