Open Forum Food Crisis: Responses

On April 14-15, 2011, the World Bank held an Open Forum to gather ideas on ways to overcome the food crisis and help the world’s one billion hungry people. The response was overwhelming: comments and proposed solutions rolled in from more than 500 people in 88 countries.

Bank experts are now responding back to those who submitted ideas. Watch the videos below to hear more on what the Bank is doing in the areas that sparked the most discussion. Each video is accompanied by a synopsis of the expert’s comments.

We’ve also included an interactive map that aggregates Open Forum comments by country, and a few quick stats to summarize respondents’ geographical diversity and common themes.


Ideas by Country

Submissions came in from all over the world. See what people were saying by country.

By the Numbers

 



  • 88 Countries were represented by submissions. Notably, the top three countries of origin for respondents were the U.S., India and Nigeria.
  • 8% of submissions – the largest single segment – focused on increasing assistance to smallholder farmers.
  • 63 comments (of over 500) focused on increasing investment in agriculture through microloans and redistributing wealth.
  • 6% of respondents emphasized leadership, centralized food coordination and curbing corruption as key to the fight against the food crisis.